Jed Rothwell wrote: > John Tierney wrote: > >> The women surveyed were less willing to marry down -- marry someone with >> much lower earnings or less education -- than the men were to marry up. And, >> in line with Jane Austen, the women were also more determined to marry up >> than the men were. > > As far as I know, this is true in all ancient and modern hierarchical > societies, such as prewar Japan and present-day India. > Anthropologists call this the "leftover Brahmin woman problem." > Household status is determined by the husband's social position, so > men feel much freer to marry below their station. > > >> You may think that women's attitudes are changing as they get more college >> degrees and financial independence. > > Why would I think that? On the contrary, the most highly educated > sector of society tends to be the most conservative, because people > who go to college have money and they have the biggest stake in the > status quo. If anything, increased female participation in higher > education will lead to increased conservatism among women, and more > concern about obsolete social mores, hierarchy and the other petty > concerns that dominate the waking hours of most primates. > >> A women who's an executive can afford to marry a struggling >> musician. But that doesn't necessarily mean she wants to. > > And is unlikely that she will, in any traditional society (including > the conservative sectors of our own). > > >> Which means that, on average, college-educated women and >> high-school-educated men will have a harder time finding partners as long as >> educators keep ignoring the gender gap that starts long before college. > > Say what?!? The problem is not the gender gap, it is the obsolete > social mores.
> Women should stop worrying about who they marry. LOL. > Educators did not cause the gap to appear and they can do nothing to > close it. If anything, university level educators tend to be > prejudiced in favor of men, since most still are still men and they > tend to be wealthy and therefore conservative. In my experience, > having sent two daughters through universities, professors and the > university establishment make trouble for women, and they make thing > much more challenging -- which is probably why the women succeed, > come to think of it. As my mother used to say, you have to do twice > as well as a man to get half the credit. > > Anyone who doubts that academic professionals tend to be > stick-in-the-mud conservatives and conformists should look at their > response to cold fusion. > In the 1930s through the 1950s, U.S. university professors earned > such small salaries they could barely make ends meet, and their wives > usually worked. In the late 1960s, when Mizuno became a junior > professor he earned about $400 per month (as he describes in his new > book). After the baby blue of the 1960s and the changes in the > educational establishment, professors began earning far more money, > and the whole complexion of the professorial class changed. The > radical left-wing professor is a myth, 50-years out of date. Yes, but his article was not about the values and attitudes of contemporary professors. > >> Advocates for women have been so effective politically that high schools and >> colleges are still focusing on supposed discrimination against women . . . > > That is utter nonsense. > > >> . . . the shortage of women in science classes . . . > > . . . is a good indication of how prejudiced and sexist the science > establishment still remains. Today women only encounter serious prejudice in the specific fields of engineering, maths and physics. > By the way, the academic gap measured in SAT scores and the like only > exists in middle and lower class children. Wealthy children of both > sexes do about equally well, and the men tend to get into the > university more easily because by tradition they get a free pass and > everyone cuts them slack. That is why lazy, towel-snapping > gentleman's C- dolts and frat-boys such as G. W. Bush and Al Gore > managed to get into -- and out of -- Harvard Business School, and why > they still end up being the president of the United States. See: > > http://www.cs.umass.edu/~immerman/play/opinion05/WithoutADoubt.html He only claims that widespread gender discrimination is over. He does not claim that discrimination based on class is over. > See also: > > "The New Gender Divide > > At Colleges, Women Are Leaving Men in the Dust" > > http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/education/09college.html > > - Jed > >
