When I began to write about "Seraphic Singles" and "Searching Singles" I really meant Single women over 25. I just didn't consider college-age girls "Single". If you're still being educated, you're not in a good time to get married and have children. (Graduate school can count as the beginning of a career, especially if you're being funded, i.e. paid.)
Of course, if girls in your community marry at 19, then naturally you might feel "left over" at 20. In China, apparently, the scary year is 25, which maddens me because I was scared of being unmarried at 25 myself, which I know now was ridiculous.
I never, never want to cry down marriage or extol a "swinging single" lifestyle, but honestly the whole idea of shaming women for being unmarried makes me furious. Some unmarried women are just not called to marriage. Other unmarried women long for marriage but quite sensibly aren't going to marry just any guy. Others are completely passed over for years because they live in unhealthy, decadent societies that actually punish women for being good wife material.
The situation in China is particularly sad because most young women have no brothers or sisters to take the pressure off them. Indeed, they must all know they could have been aborted in favour of a brother. Or maybe a series of sisters were aborted before their parents gave up hope for a son. At any rate, this is all terribly sad--and surprising, too, since there are 33 million more men than women in China. Surprise.
Update: In case you are wondering, here are the top ten countries for a sex ratio bizarrely skewed against girls: Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bhutan, Western Sahara, China and India. I wonder what dark magic brought that about. Hmm. Source
Update 2: I came across this while looking for baby stats. What does this mean in terms of integrating men from these countries into Canada and Europe? Discuss.
Update 3: Okay, I found this. To my surprise, along with China and India are mentioned former Soviet republics in the Caucasus. These seem to include Armenia, Georgia and Azerbiajan. Then there's Vietnam. But highest of all of the skewed more-boys-at-birth ratio according to the CIA is Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein? I didn't think they had abortion, let alone sex-selective abortion. What gives? (By the way: Liechtenstein, Curacao, Azerbaijan, mainland China, India, Vietnam, Albania, Armenia, Georgia, Macedonia, Kosovo. Liechtenstein and Curacao are majority Catholic. Azerbaijan and Kosovo are mostly Muslim and Albania half-Muslim, but Armenia and Georgia certainly aren't "Muslim countries"[Macedonia is 33% Muslim.]. My apologies, Gulf States! I guess the discrepancies are because of huge numbers of male foreign workers who either are unmarried or don't bring their female relations with them.)
Yes, I also saw it. It's really bad and putting so much pressure on them!
ReplyDeleteAlso hypergamy still seems to be very much prevalent in Chinese society. Men wanting to marry down to have a submissive wife... leftover then are college-educated girls and peasant boys.
The sex ratio thing is actually not so bad for the small arab countries. It's probably the numerical influence of migrant workers.
You're right about hypergamy, and in spite of how moving this video was (and how grateful it made me for my own parents!) I wonder if the position of the peasant boys at the bottom of the hierachy isn't the worst of all; not only are they unable to form a family, but they're also cut off from economic opportunity and don't have the opportunity open to the modern, highly educated women featured in the film of pursuing a fulfilling life abroad.
DeleteOn a societal level, it's actually the presence of 'surplus'* men unable to find a wife that are the problem, not the 'leftover women', however much they are individually chastised for being born into a demographic disaster they had no responsibility for creating!
It's an interesting theory about the Gulf States, I'm not sure if it's correct because there are an enormous number of migrant women working in domestic service, but perhaps you're right and they still don't balance out the number of migrant construction workers. In either case, I haven't read of female foeticide being a specifically Muslim practice.
*another depressing and degrading term I know, v. happy to replace it if someone can suggest a more neutral descriptor!
That's an interesting point, and I wonder how the state deals with that--if they even bother.
DeleteAs for the Gulf states, I will have to check to see if the stat was for population or for births. Although China and India pretty well prove that female foeticide is not a specifically Muslim practise, it cannot be denied that in many communities of Muslims (wish they would admit that there are different sects among them instead of just bellowing, "Those guys aren't REAL Muslims") women have half the value of men.
That's an interesting point, and I wonder how the state deals with that--if they even bother.
DeleteAs for the Gulf states, I will have to check to see if the stat was for population or for births. Although China and India pretty well prove that female foeticide is not a specifically Muslim practise, it cannot be denied that in many communities of Muslims (wish they would admit that there are different sects among them instead of just bellowing, "Those guys aren't REAL Muslims") women have half the value of men.
Yep, it is a very sad vid, though positive that these girls are challenging the attitude that they are 'leftover'. God didn't make anyone to be 'leftover'!
ReplyDeleteIn that sense, it was disappointing that one of the Mum's at the end of the vid says 'the leftover men should try harder'. The whole point I thought was that the parents/societal attitude needed to change to not pressuring/blaming single people for being single.
Blaming the single men just shifts the blame, and doesn't solve the problem. And the men face even more pressure, given the 33m numbers mismatch...
SB.
There also came out a book recently how the skewed sex ratio at American Colleges (40% more girls than guys) led to the hook-up-culture, because the guys are using their market position:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.artofmanliness.com/2016/01/28/podcast-173-date-onomics-how-skewed-sex-ratios-on-college-campuses-are-affecting-courtship-and-marriage/
In blue-collar-strata of the American society you have the reverse gender imbalance.
Oh that podcast was even more depressing than the Leftover Women opening video! Really, really horrible to see that religious communities supposedly asserting a 'countercultural commitment to marriage and family life' are just as guilty of perpetuating objectifying, constricting and cruel expectations upon their teenage daughters... Demanding that a girl not only be married by 18, but that she provide prospective matches with her mother's dress size so he can do some prudent 'futures planning' gaaaaaaaaaaaah!
DeleteI was considering listening to that podcast, so thank you for saving me from it.
DeleteAs for mothers' dress sizes? My mother is a full six inches shorter than me. Not all daughters end up resembling their mothers.
Julia
Oh no, that's horrible, simply horrible. I haven't listened to the podcast, and I'm afraid to now. Please tell me they really aren't telling young men to judge young women on their mothers' middle-aged appearance. Please!
DeleteIt's specifically discussing (not recommending!)a kind of 'matchmaking CV' used by some communities of Orthodox Jews, and how the information young women are expected to provide has become increasingly exacting and intrusive over recent years.
DeleteIt was interesting for me because after taking a few exploratory glances I've always shunned my demographic's most used dating site, precisely because it's set up so that you're chances of being matched are dependent upon your willingness to answer an enormous range of highly personal questions. It seems like a basic test of character that anyone halfway decent would see discovering these things as part of a long process of getting to know someone, not a way to pre-emptively screen out anyone who didn't fit your fantasy profile. So it's interesting to see that ultra-orthodox women are suffering alongside their sisters in the decadent post-everything west!
Normally, (and apologies for my prejudices Michael) 'The Art of Manliness' site and any mention of behavioural science regarding relations between the sexes gets my hackles up, but the podcast was actually quite good. The interlocutors didn't phrase themselves as sensitively as I would have preferred, but they passed the 'rooted in reality test'. I'd say it's worth listening to if you find the topic interesting and are settled into or sanguine about your own state of life. If you're already feeling depressed about it, or if for whatever reason (isolated geography, small college town, specific ethnic or religious community) you're only seeking suitors from a small group of men I'd probably leave it alone.
The podcast premise is obvious nonsense. Sexual permisiveness, falling marriage numbers (and consequent rising average age of marriage) all happened 20-30 years prior to the shift in gender ratio to favour women in higher education.
DeleteContraception & abortion gave rise to the hookups and dropping marriage rate, quite uncorrelated to feminism empowering women to pursue education to build careers.
SB.
That bit where the mum says that her daughter is 'leftover' because she's 'not too pretty'? That made me want to punch my computer.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what the 'leftover' age is in Australia. Maybe 32? For women, that is.
The first friend of mine to get married was 21 at her wedding, and so was her husband. She was one of the early ones. After that, a few more started getting engaged at maybe around 23. There's now a fairly steady rate of engagements in the 25-ish set. These couples are the ones who 'date' for half a decade or more, some of them having met each other in high school. It seems that if you don't meet when still teenagers, it just doesn't happen.
I'm expecting the real wedding downpour to begin in about two or three years. There are already a few babies, and more are forthcoming.
So my friend who just got married? Her mum says that my friend and her new husband will probably have children within three years (they are 25 and 26). She says, "Well, my daughter's a scientist, and she wants to start before thirty [for fertility reasons.]"
I nearly had a heart attack, because I am 25 and super single and what if I don't get married before 30 and blah blah blah. So I said that to the mum (she is close enough to me to be like an aunty really.) She was like, "Oh, you have plenty of time."
But if my friend doesn't, neither do I.
Julia
Julia, I don't want to ill-wish your friends, but the divorces may start in a few years. Personally I am relieved when friends don't marry until age 26 and over. 26 strikes me as a good age because the panic about being almost 25 and not married has gone. Being 24 and Single is way worse than being 26 and Single.
DeleteIf you don't get married before you are 30, you may get married after you are 30. If you never have children, it will hurt. But then the hurt will go away and God will show you what He wants from you instead.
There is only one acquaintance I have whose divorce news would not fill me with angst, and that is because I know she would be granted a decree of nullity (if she ever thinks to seek it.)
DeleteJulia