The “marriageable mate” issue again…
This Sunday’s Outlook section of the WPost carried a commentary by black female attorney Sophia A. Nelson, pictured here, who also heads an 
organization for African American professional women. Pointing to recent travails undergone by Michelle Obama, Nelson writes:
Welcome to our world.
We’ve watched with a mixture of pride and trepidation as the wife of the first serious African American presidential contender has weathered recent campaign travails — being called unpatriotic for a single offhand remark, dubbed a black radical because of something she wrote more than 20 years ago and plastered with the crowning stereotype: “angry black woman.” And then being forced to undergo a politically mandated “makeover” to soften her image and make her more palatable to mainstream America.
In some ways, writes Nelson, black professional women have it rougher than the men:
A 2007 American Bar Association report titled “Visible Invisibility” describes how black women in the legal profession face the “double burden” of being both black and female, meaning that they enjoy none of the advantages that black men gain from being male, or that white women gain from being white.
Interesting argument. But near the end of the piece, Nelson trips over her own logic:
For all our success in the professional world, we have paid a significant price in our private and emotional lives. A life of preordained singleness (by chance, not by choice) is fast becoming the plight of alarming numbers of professional black women in America. The fact is that the more money and education a black woman has, the less likely she is to marry and have a family.
Consider these stunning statistics: As of 2007, according to the New York Times, 70 percent of professional black women were unmarried. Black women are five times more likely than white women to be single at age 40. In 2003, Newsweek reported that there are more black women than black men (24 percent to 17 percent) in the professional-managerial class. According to Department of Education statistics cited by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, black women earn 67 percent of all bachelor’s degrees awarded to blacks, as well as 71 percent of all master’s degrees and 65 percent of all doctoral degrees.
Please do consider those stunning statistics. What those numbers reveal is that when compared to black men, black women are hugely successful, which is why so many find themselves single — they have no “marriageable mate,” someone of comparable education and career attainment to marry.
In my previous post, I wrote about the sometimes-twisted social relationships at a (mostly white) university where the gender imbalances had pushed past 60% female. To date, the evidence of a marriageable mate issue among white women is anecdotal, but given the rising gender imbalances in college there’s every reason to assume that at some point the marriageable mate dilemma — exactly what Nelson and other black professional women know all too well – will reach measurable levels among whites.
For more on this issue, visit the “social consequences” category in the library on the right column.
Tags: marriageable mate
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:31 am
[...] again… 22 Jul 2008 | 08:11 am | Category: Uncategorized unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThis Sunday’s Outlook section of [...]
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:31 am
[...] again… 22 Jul 2008 | 08:11 am | Category: Uncategorized unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThis Sunday’s Outlook section of [...]
August 13th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
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November 23rd, 2008 at 8:20 pm
The most likely outcome is that a whole lot of white women will go to the nearest sperm bank. Here in California it seems as if every other straight white male is with an Asian female. I seriously doubt professional black women will find a lot of single professional white males to marry. Most professional males meet their spouse in school and most firms have strict codes about office romances.
June 29th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
In our society today, the idea that Males should be strong even from a very early age is still prevalent. This means that Males even very young are treated more aggressively to make them tough. Also, kind, stabilizing, caring, mental/emotional/social support, knowledge, and skills are considered as coddling Males. In addition, Males, by design are given love, honor, respect, the essentials of self-worth, conditional upon achievement, status, or image. All of such training or treatment may have worked in the old physical world, but in the information age, this treatment only leads to much deprived mental/emotional/social growth, which then translates to poor academic growth.
As for Females, we still enjoy the treatment leftover from the nineteenth century belief Females should be protected. While the little boys are being beaten, we receive kind support. Since Females are not required to be strong, it is considered appropriate Females receive much kind, stabilizing mental/emotional/social support from parents and peers from an early age. We are given love, honor, respect simply for being Female. We are given much more protection from the more aggressive styles Males experience. This creates lower average stress along with much by comparison, mental/emotional/social knowledge and support, this is why Females mature faster than Males. This advantage carries on through adulthood.
This problem is not a racial problem but an international problem. The Male Crisis in every country due to the very same nineteenth century belief still at work in those countries. The reason this problem is affecting African American Males more so (Caucasian numbers for college hover around 62 to 38 percent in favor of Females) is that the lower the socioeconomic bracket and time of generations in such (that tends to not have as much information age skills) the more amplified those aggressions and neglects allowed upon Males. In addition as economic times deteriorate, the value of allowed aggressions is opened more so for Males while the valve of allowed aggressions remains in more of a protective hold. This is why the profound difference today in academic and also economic growth between Males and Females today.
So yes, in the information age, kind, good treatment creates the increased stability, lower average stress, and an organizational mind to learn, enjoy the learning process, and accumulate the necessary information age skills to compete in the information age. Too bad society has not learned this reasoning and so our brothers, fathers, and husbands are losing in a competition society has created with a much more difficult course to run.