A week ago, I posted a request once again for “older men, younger women” stories. I’ve had several dozen replies, but am still eager for more. In any case, the discussion thread below the post turns to a re-visiting of the old myth about younger women and fertility.
Hector takes the classic traditionalist view: men need to be “older” and women “younger” because of economics and biology. The man needs “time” to grow to the point where he can support a family, while a woman ought to be younger and hence more likely to be fertile. Hector (and the legions who share his views) offer a weird amalgam of evolutionary psychology, biological half-truths, and an unwitting social commentary on how long it takes men to get their acts together in our culture. Hector tells us that he often offers advice to the women in his life to settle down and reproduce sooner rather than later.
“Matey” has a great rejoinder.
I’m in my early forties, my wife in her mid-thirties, and she is on the younger end of first-time mothers in our social circle. We both recognize that there is a very slight decline in fertility for folks our age, along with an equally slight concomitant risk in potential pregnancy complications. That said, we’re also keenly aware of how the “have kids young, before it’s too late” message is one far more rooted in ideology than in biological fact. A culture deeply troubled by women’s independence and ambition has good reason to encourage the young to step onto the “mommy track” as early as possible. Untangling hard fact from misogynistic myth is difficult.
But for the sake of argument, let’s grant that women hoping to have children ought to start early. That still doesn’t explain why they ought to partner with older men (especially given that fertility problems and birth defects — particularly autism and schizophrenia — are much more likely in the children of old dudes). Why not devote energy to fighting the scourge of “guyhood” — the flight from responsibility and commitment that characterizes so many young men’s lives? If you really want your young women married and pregnant early, then push young men to get their acts together sometime before they turn 35. American middle-class male adolescence has turned into a quarter-century project; far too many twenty-something lads are far too hooked on pot, porn, and Playstation to even consider making commitments. A thoughtful social conservative wouldn’t push for age-disparate relationships as part of some divine or natural plan; a thoughtful social conservative would push to accelerate young men’s acceptance of responsibility so that it harmonized neatly with young women’s fertility.
Personally, I think most folks of either sex are better off waiting to have children. One tends to be much more patient, one tends to have worked through more of one’s own insecurities and “issues”, one tends to have more financial resources. (There are myriad exceptions, of course — irresponsible forty-somethings and responsibile twenty-somethings are not unheard of.) It’s also, happily enough, a good way of practicing family size limitation. Extreme experimentation with fertility drugs notwithstanding, women who start to reproduce in their thirties or even early forties are more likely to have only one or two children, thus placing less long-term stress on our planet’s resources.
One thing is clear: whatever you consider the ideal age for reproducing, there is no defensible rationale for arguing that dramatically age-disparate relationships are ideal. Unless, of course, you embrace the lie that men are entitled to enjoy three decades worth of puberty, while their sisters ought to start breeding before the first wrinkles appear.
Even if you clear away all the factors of economics, sexism, societal expectations, how the dating scene works, etc., and we were in a perfect world where no one is prejudiced and everyone’s human potentialities are fully realized, you will still end with the biological fact (ignored by matey et al.) that, as you have put it, women have a “smaller fertility window” than men. Men can wait to an extent that women can’t. A man who waits till age 45 to procreate is on safe ground, but a woman who waits that long is taking a huge risk and very possibly has lost her chance altogether. Therefore, on the average, men will be older than women, though not by much.
Naturally you blame the situation on men and not women — and conclude that the problem is young men’s immaturity. But let’s look at it from the standpoint of a young man age 25 - 35. If he is thinking about having children someday, his chioces in mates are more limited than a young woman’s. He can’t get involved with women 40 or older. But the women in his age grounp often decide to go with older men, who can still father children. (An earlier-life example of this is when in high school and college, seeing women our age who we were interested in, going out with older guys who already had cars and careers. We used to call this “poaching”.) Women may have less time biologically, but as for finding mates there are various factors that result in a situation where the young woman has more options than the young man. Another example women having more options than men.
Captcrisis, you say women have a “smaller fertility window” than men, but also “more options” than men. Do you not see a contradiction in that view?
Er, Hugo, where did you get the idea I endorse pot, porn, and playstation lifestyle? I think that men who are in long-term relationships should start seriously thinking about marriage and children by their early 30s at the latest.
If a guy of, say, 30, has been unlucky in love and still isn’t marriage, I see nothing wrong with him trying to marry a woman at least 5 years younger- that way they have a good 10 years or so of high fertility, to try to have children. They can have three children, and space them out to make it easier. Of course this isn’t ideal for everyone, but I see no reason why it isn’t ideal for some people- particularly since I don’t buy feminist arguments, since I’m not a feminist. Our feminist-influenced society essentially tries to force people into the equal-age, equal-education status, equal-social status feminist mold, and I think if those social pressures weren’t there you would see a lot more age disparity in relationships.
It’s true that some parts of the world still have overly high birth rates, and as someone who works in the environmental science field, I’m obviously concerned about overpopulation. However, in the United States at present the birth rate is slightly below replacement, so I don’t see anything wrong with some people choosing to have more children, while others have one or two. Personally I’d like to have three.
Well for pity’s sake, Hugo, what do you suggest? Pass a law abolishing menopause? Or maybe a “Harrison Bergeron” law requiring men to go to sterilization centers by the age of 45?
You overcomplicate things. It’s biology - with presumed fertility, the average man is fertile far longer than the average woman. This results in women who want children of their own to start working for that earlier because she has to. And while Jane Average is trying to get her family started, Joe Average is doing other things - because he can afford to wait longer.
And contrary to your strawman, the late twenty-something guy is as likely to be finishing a degree, getting his house in order, getting set in a company or hanging out his own shingle as anything else. It’s just that finding someone and procreating is not as urgent a priority for him.
While I’m not old enough to fall into the “May-December” paradigm, I have certainly had a couple of “May-July” type of relationships; I’m also not so wet behind the ears as to think that crow’s feet and grey in the beard made me attractive. It was the “Owns his car, his house, his own business” that was the kicker. Even those women who didn’t want children - or children now - were responding to the Lizard brain whispering to them.
“Putting it off because he can” is only half the Equation, Hugo - the other part of it is that the guy who is still going to school, still not in a career-track job, still driving a beater and renting an apartment, still has his student loan debt to deal with - no matter how driven or mature he is towards getting his act together - is still regarded as a “future potential but not quite yet” guy by the women his age.
Know why he’s dating that younger girl? Because when he asked her out, she said “Yes.” He’s not dating his peer, because no matter how much she thought “Maybe in a couple years…” she said “No.”
Occam’s Razor, Hugo. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Gonzman,
I agree with you completely.
For context, I’m in my late 20s and when I look for a partner it’s definitely with marriage and children in mind.
Hector-
Did you miss this part? I know it was a parenthetical, but it’s still not as healthy for an older male compared to a younger male to have children.
That makes no sense from a “lizard brain” sort of way. The “lizard brain” is looking for the healthiest specimen, not the richest.
Personally, I think all this hand-waving about 20 somethings “Not growing up” is really, really stupid. So we put off getting married and having kids: this is not a bad thing. In the meantime, we’re still getting jobs, still going to school, still being active citizens of the US. In the words of XKCD “We’re adults now, and that means we get to decide what that means”. Often times, to hear older people talk about this you get more than a little bit of jealousy wafting off; which is really silly, considering we make less money, are in less stable fields, and oftentimes don’t have as stable relationships.
I don’t think Hugo is talking about May/July relationships. The relationships he’s targeting in his book proposal require an age difference of at least 10 years, I believe, the priority being on relationships involving women in their late teens and early 20s. I’ve always gotten the feeling that he considers age disparity less of a problem the older the younger party is. Reading blogs, it sometimes seems people will react to something they think the person is saying, but when forced to define their parameters, the two people aren’t really talking about the same things at all.
Jennyfields, my criticisms apply exactly to what Hugo’s talking about- I know very well what he means.
“Captcrisis, you say women have a “smaller fertility window” than men, but also “more options” than men. Do you not see a contradiction in that view?”
You’re right. I should have said that *younger* women have more options than younger men. Women feast when young and go through famine when older. For men, it’s more the opposite. Of course, this is a rough generalization.
I also agree with jennyfields and disagree with Hector. Reading back it seems that what’s bugging Hugo are relationships where the gap in age is “substantial”. I don’t think he’s talking about man: age 35, woman: age 28. He’s talking more like man: age 48, woman: age 22. I assume this is a focus of his because he sees a lot of it in his native land of academia. I’m sure a lot of these are “problematic” (to use Hugo’s term) and the problematicness, or maybe problematicosity, or problematickification, is directly related to the age gap. And if I was 22 and pursuing another 22-year-old, only to see her hitch up with a flabby, wrinkled, bifocaled 50-year-old baldy with a “problematic” soft-on but a very firm and throbbing bank account, I’d be sorely pissed.
(P.S. I’m 51 and bald.)
Hey Gonzman, I find the idea that women reject men their own age because they are ‘not quite their yet’ finnacially a bit insulting and dubious. I’ve absolutely never done that and I don’t know any women who have. I think it’s a bit sad you think your younger exes were just interested in your money - and that the only alternative to that would be your appearance - maybe, just maybe, they actually liked, wait for it… you????? or are all we women so shallow that is not a possibility? Also, maybe the women who reject men their own age do so because they plain old don’t like them as people enough - they are ‘just not that into them’ so to speak. And there is no grand theory to it at all.
Hey Gonzman, I find the idea that women reject men their own age because they are ‘not quite their yet’ finnacially a bit insulting and dubious. I’ve absolutely never done that and I don’t know any women who have. I think it’s a bit sad you think your younger exes were just interested in your money - and that the only alternative to that would be your appearance - maybe, just maybe, they actually liked, wait for it… you????? or are all we women so shallow that is not a possibility? Also, maybe the women who have rejected some men their own age do so because they plain old don’t like them as people enough - they are ‘just not that into them’ so to speak. And there is no grand theory to it at all.
Matey,
Gonzman is being a little crude about it but there is a grain of truth in what he says. It is still often the case that the man is expected to pay for the restaurant meal — at least, far more often than the opposite. It is still the case that the man is expected to take the lead and know what he’s doing in bed — at least, far more often than the opposite. Both these situations mitigate heavily in favor of the man being older than the woman.
Oh well, we clearly live in different worlds. I’m glad I’m here and not where you are tho. Because the love of my life was full of expectation that I would be more expert than he in the sack, and I really didn’t care about that. We go dutch when the bill arrives - neither of us are rockerfeller. I did have an older male friend who was wealthy and would pay for the odd meal - for a group of us - but yuk, yuuuuk, f*** for my supper. No thanks. If I had been attracted to him it would not have been for that reason. The women I know don’t expect that. Genuine women, in my experience, don’t.
Matey,
That your experience was different has nothing to do with the generalizations I discussed. My experiences usually didn’t conform to them either. Step back a bit.
Are you really saying that it’s generally MORE OFTEN expected for the woman to pay for the meal than the man? Or that it’s MORE OFTEN expected that the woman take the lead in bed than the man? Those are the general tendencies that I spoke about, that result in the man generally being older than the woman.
P.S. Instead of “those are the general tendencies”, I meant to say “these are not the general tendencies”.
captcrisis: I really have absolutely no idea what the ‘general tendencies’ are around who is expected to take the lead in bed or pay for dinner (are you talking about the whole of the western world?). It’s not an area I have researched. I believe Kinsey did something like that in the 50s, I think, and Shire Hite in the 80s. Hite didn’t think women were too happy with this kind of set up. But I never go by this kind of survey research or try to pin down generalities which extend beyond the knowledge I have of my own circle, because that’s a recipe for bias and conjecture. I don’t talk in generalisms about what people do or expect in these situations - especially not what they do in bed. How on earth would I know about what the entire population expects in terms of sexual experience??? I think these ideas appear frequently on TV dramas such as Friends etc, but that’s not real life is it? it’s telly. Maybe you’re right, but it’s just as likely to me that you are not and I think trying to find out would mean a life’s work for some very industrious social researcher out there.
I’m saying that in my experience there is no noticable or significant discrepency between men and women on the paying for dinner, or take the lead in bed things. Is that so hard to believe?
I did, very briefly, have a dodgy older boyfriend of 22 when I was just 16 though, who paid for quite an expensive day out and a pair of expensive shoes, which I was pleased with (but I did like him before that). He then tried to take the lead in bed, much to my displeasure, a week or so later and I dumped him. I guess we just filter types of people out of our lives.
I can’t answer your questions about generalisms about the details of people’s courtship processes though because I think that would be a fundamentally faulted endeavour.
Yeah, maybe I’m the one who is confused, but I thought that Hugo’s original query was along the lines of “May/December” relationships, not as somebody farther up in comments was postulating, “man is 30, woman is 25″ relationships. I mean, seriously–Hugo himself keeps saying he’s somewhere along the lines of six to nine years older than his own wife! So clearly, that isn’t the age gap that he’s finding problematic enough to discuss.
As far as the obsession with women’s fertility goes, there’s clearly some misconceptions floating around out there. Let’s put out the hard numbers:
“David Dunson of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and his colleagues studied 782 couples who were using the rhythm method of contraception. This approach allowed the researchers to control for both the timing and frequency of intercourse. They found that women between the ages of 19 and 26 with partners of similar age had approximately a 50 percent chance of becoming pregnant during any one menstrual cycle if they had intercourse two days prior to ovulation. For women aged 27 to 34, the chance was 40 percent, and for women over the age of 35, the probability dropped to 30 percent. “Although we noted a decline in female fertility in the late 20s,” Dunson notes, “what we found was a decrease in the probability of becoming pregnant per menstrual cycle, not in the probability of eventually achieving a pregnancy.” He estimates that it would take women in their late 20s or early 30s a month or two longer to become pregnant than it would have required in their early 20s. ”
I don’t think the knowledge that it might take your 33 year old wife a month or two longer to get pregnant than it would your 23 year old wife should induce this mad focus on your prospective mate’s age due to her “fertility,” do you? Does a month or two REALLY matter…? Well, of course it doesn’t. Which means that, likely, a man seeking out a 23 year old and avoiding a 33 year old has reasons that don’t primarily have to do with her fertility, eh?
The article I quoted also goes on to state that “When the team controlled for the age of women, they found that fertility was significantly reduced for men older than 35.” Which casts the whole “oh but really it is all about men’s desire for children” argument–IF that’s really the case, then as Hugo says, shouldn’t we be spending just as much time and energy encouraging younger men to breed early as younger women? If not…the motives for not doing so are then clearly not rooted in biological fertility arguments.
What they are rooted in, I won’t speculate at this time…but I think a more honest discussion of what they actually are would be a lot more valuable.
Article: Scientific American, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=study-shows-fertility-dec
That makes no sense from a “lizard brain” sort of way. The “lizard brain” is looking for the healthiest specimen, not the richest.
Lizard Brain is looking for the best mate. That same lizard brain may well have her sleeping with the pool boy and passing the kids off as rich hubby’s, but that lizard rain is looking for a provider; someone who can take care of her when she is gravid with child and nursing.
(Yes, yes. We have brains, morals, etc. etc. tedious litany ad infinitum. The lizard brain is there, and it whispers yet.)
Hey Gonzman, I find the idea that women reject men their own age because they are ‘not quite their yet’ finnacially a bit insulting and dubious.
Well, to give the same lame excuse many others do, I’m sorry if you choose to feel insulted.
I’ve absolutely never done that and I don’t know any women who have.
Considering by your own admission you rarely look outside your social circle, and are quite a bit younger than me, I’m not surprised your view is so parochial.
I think it’s a bit sad you think your younger exes were just interested in your money - and that the only alternative to that would be your appearance - maybe, just maybe, they actually liked, wait for it… you?????
Jeez. Yeah, I’m sure they secretly loathed me and their skin crawled at my touch. Of course they liked me. Question is, if instead of a well-groomed fortyish professional who was well situated what if they saw a struggling 40ish guy who was rough around the adges. Would they have bothered to get to know him?
Or would he have been creepyoldperv hitting on college girls?
or are all we women so shallow that is not a possibility?
False dilemma. It’s patently absurd. It’s hardly shallow to look for a suitable mate. If one wishes to start a family, a person beyond the likely age of fertility is not suitable. If security is important, and financially un-secure mate who is deshabbile is hardly suitable.
Shallowness arises when such characteristics are the only decider. The man who has the hawt thang on his arm as arm candy when he can’t stand her is a shallow perv. The woman who marries the rich guy whom she has to drink to sleep with is a shallow gold digger.
The person who takes as a mate someone who cannot provide what they desperately want and will not be happy without is merely stupid.
Also, maybe the women who reject men their own age do so because they plain old don’t like them as people enough - they are ‘just not that into them’ so to speak. And there is no grand theory to it at all.
If they are rejecting everyone their own age, whether man or woman, for younger or older, it is far more likely that such an explanation is insufficient.
Gonz, I’m very flattered at the attntion you’re paying to me, but to be fair I am about the same age as you, as I said in a previous post I am 39. And no there aren’t many people outside my own circle I ask about their personal business. You kind of, by definition, have to refrain from pressing people with personal questions unless they are quite close to you. And likewise people don’t often volunteer peronal info to acquantnces, not in our age group anyhow.
Sorry but I don’t have the energy to respond to the rest of your comments, it’s late were I am. But your attention is flattering.
Lisa, your data actually proves the contrary point if you look at it another way. An older man who wants to be a father is much more likely to find that happen with a younger woman. (And in any event, I’d like to see their numbers on post-menopausal women. Assuming they didn’t feel even collecting such numbers was a waste of time.)
Likewise, a woman who wants a stable mother/father/1.73 children home environment in which to raise a family is much more likely to find that in a man whose success is established, and who is much more likely to be older.
While at times I have been flattered - even intrigued and willing to try a relationship - with a younger woman, I have had my children. Hence, I tend to prefer women closer to my age. Since I am not looking to start GonzoFamily 3.11, I have other deciders. For example, I’m a “Get out and do” guy, who likes the outdoors, primitive camping, and such. While homebody city-girls might be perfectly nice, it would probably be dumb as a sack of hammers for me to look for them as suitable partners. It works the other way, too. I am uninterested in starting a new family. I have had a vasectomy to further this end. You think I haven’t been crossed off the list for that reason by women who want a family, or even marriage? Do you think I resent this? Do you really think I am so out of touch with reality so as to say, “Well, she could have given me a chance and gotten to know me…” Mercy. She’d be miserable. She’d come to resent me. I’m not her man.
In any event, it’s like counting cards in blackjack. Doesn’t mean you won’t lose a hand here and there; it just means that in the long run and big picture it is a winning strategy.
And no there aren’t many people outside my own circle I ask about their personal business. You kind of, by definition, have to refrain from pressing people with personal questions unless they are quite close to you. And likewise people don’t often volunteer peronal info to acquantnces, not in our age group anyhow.
I guess conservative traditionalist rubes in flyover country aren’t quite the insular introverts you assumed, eh?
Actually, when I was in college, the guys my own age who pursued me tended to have better financial prospects than the older guys who pursued me. The guys my age who were pursuing me were fellow Stanford students (or recent Stanford graduates), and the older guys who were actually available to me were the sort of guys who hang around college campuses for their social life even though they don’t have any real connection with the college. So, the older guys were older but rough around the edges, not terribly gainfully employed, and given to drug use, while the younger guys were not possessed of much money yet (except for the non-scholarship students from rich families), but more responsible on average and headed for better prospects.
Obviously, other people’s mileage varies a whole lot here. But I’m thinking, between the professor/student relationship problem and the guy who looks for his social life on the nearest college campus because he hasn’t really grown up problem, that May/December relationships where May is still in college may have a lot of dubious Decembers.
I don’t think young women are pushed to grow up faster. I think they are pushed to find a mate and breed faster, and often end up stuck in a mothering role to said mate, making them seem like adults in comparison. It doesnt mean that they’re really grown up - it means that they’re the more grown up person in their closest relationships.
If one is going to use life cycle statistics as a reason to advocate for older men/younger women relationships the norm, as Hector and Gonzman have done, then what about some other statistics that suggest the opposite?
For instance, men statistically live shorter lives than women. Wouldn’t it make sense for more men to have relationships with slightly older women, so that the relationship can last longer, and that - barring a divorce or break up - they would both leave the world at around the same time? (remember, I’m just going by statistics; this obviously is far from a guarantee).
A secondary aspect (this is because I can’t remember the source, but if someone else is familiar, feel free to verify) is sex drive. Supposedly, men tend to have their peak in interest in sexual activity in their 20s, and women in their 30s. Again, all other things being equal, why is such a bad thing for people who start a relationship to be on the same page with regards to their sexual desires?
With all that said, my own personal thought is that there shouldn’t have to be a social expectation about relationship age differences; if people are in happy, solid relationships, the age difference isn’t of concern (well, unless one of them is underage, obviously). I’ve made some reference to statistics, but statistics are limited in describing how people are different. Some men live to be older than average, so why shouldn’t we expect some women to be able to reproduce for longer?
Jaxebad,
I agree that I don’t think there should be a social expectation about age differences. As long as both people are of legal age, and as long as they are open to the eventual long term relationship / marriage / children thing then I don’t have a problem one way or the other. The problem is that our society sexual morality is dominated by the ‘feminist’ thought of people like Hugo, who impose a ’social expectation’ that guys should not be older than their partners. I responded by saying there were good reasons for relationships like that to exist.
Lynn Gazis-Sax,
Re: Obviously, other people’s mileage varies a whole lot here. But I’m thinking, between the professor/student relationship problem and the guy who looks for his social life on the nearest college campus because he hasn’t really grown up problem, that May/December relationships where May is still in college may have a lot of dubious Decembers.
Well, there are certainly older grad students and people like that who “have a reason to be” on the college, and may want to date a younger woman, I see absolutely no problem with that. I don’t have a _problem_ with a man-45, woman-22 relationship in principle, but I was really thinking more along the lines of man-30, woman-21 or something like that. There is nothing in either scripture or natural law that forbids age differences between adult partners. The only arguments against them are feminist arguments and given that the feminists were so wrong about abortion, I fail to see why I should listen to them.
“The only arguments against them are feminist arguments”
There may be many arguments against large age gaps in a relationship - power disparity, maturity differences, a lack of common memories and cultural expectations, the likelihood of a significant time of widowhood, and so on.
Some feminists may make some of these arguments.
Deciding against a position for no better reason than that some people you dislike hold it is ridiculous. It’s exactly like arguing that cider is rubbish because chavs drink it, or that, I don’t know, personal responsibility is an evil because conservatives like it.
Hector: Oh, I agree that there are also older grad students who’d have a reason to be at college, and I don’t see a problem with grad student/undergrad relationships (or law students, or medical school students, or whatever), as long as no one’s making advances while acting as the other person’s TA (easy enough to avoid). I had multiple grad students pursuing me when I was an undergrad, and never saw that as a problem.
I was just thinking that there could be a greater proportion of the less healthy sort of age disparate relationships in an academic environment than in one where everyone was out of school and working (sort of speaking to captcrisis’ point that Hugo’s position in academia might be exposing him to a lot of problematic age disparate relationships).
And I’m certainly not opposed to man-30 woman-21 relationships as such, unless there’s something else about that particular relationship that raises warning flags.
“Lisa, your data actually proves the contrary point if you look at it another way. An older man who wants to be a father is much more likely to find that happen with a younger woman.”
Actually, any man who wants to be a father is much more likely to find that happen when he is younger, from a biological fertility aspect–which again, if it’s really all about fertility, then both genders should be encouraged to reproduce at a younger age. However, all the encouragement here seems to be for younger women and older men, which I find odd and illogical–if fertility is really the issue, we can’t ignore men’s fertility and only focus on women’s. For a little more reality-checking on infertile couples:
“Infertility is defined as a couple’s inability to become pregnant after one year of regular, unprotected sex. Male infertility means the male is unable to impregnate the female because of male factors.
The inability to get pregnant may be caused by conditions in either partner. It is estimated that 30% of infertility is caused by male factors. An additional 30% is caused by female factors. The remaining 40% is caused by a combination of female and male factors.”
Not really a gendered age issue here, according to the data. So why the excessive focus on the female partner’s age in terms of fertility inhibition?
(Discovery Health: http://health.discovery.com/centers/mens/articles/maleinfertility.html)
“Likewise, a woman who wants a stable mother/father/1.73 children home environment in which to raise a family is much more likely to find that in a man whose success is established, and who is much more likely to be older.”
The interesting thing about this mindset to me is that it appears to assume that the man’s “established success” is more important than the woman’s in terms of what a woman should be thinking of when she wants to marry and procreate–why should it? In 2002, according to the US government census, 60% of women and 72% of men were in the workforce–this is not much of a disparity–”establishing success” is a part of the majority of women’s lives just as it is the majority of men’s. And is there really a huge disparity in what men and women want in terms of children and “established success” and their own input? A poll from a few years ago reported the following:
“The Gallup Organization posed that hypothetical question to about 1,000 U.S. adults last month in a telephone poll about work.
Among women, 58% said they would prefer to work outside the home, 37% indicated that they would rather stay at home, 3% said they wanted to do both, and 2% expressed no opinion.
Gallup’s poll also shows that among men, 68% preferred working outside the home. Another 29% said they would rather stay at home, 1% wanted to do both, and 2% had no opinion.
The percentage of men who say that if they could, they would rather stay at home is up from 17% a decade ago and 24% in 2001.
Having kids changed the results somewhat. Among mothers, 48% said they would rather stay home. So did 35% of dads.”
(WebMD: http://women.webmd.com/news/20070906/women-prefer-working-outside-the-home)
Again, I’m thinking that there is a great reliance on incorrect data and very outdated stereotypes being shown by a lot of folks commenting here, leading to rather erroneous and illogical conclusions about the motives of the masses in what they do.
“We both recognize that there is a very slight decline in fertility for folks our age, along with an equally slight concomitant risk in potential pregnancy complications.”
Hugh, your statement, while technically true, is very misleading. Folks your age have significantly higher infertility than younger folk. My wife and I started to try to have our first child when she was 25, and at 26 she had to go on fertility treatments for the next two years before we could have our first child. I was shock to find out from our fertility specialist how much infertility increases in women from 20 to 25. And it really takes off after the age of 27.
From age 20 to 25, infertility increases by more than 60% for women. By age 35, women’s infertilty has increased by 400% comparered to 20 year olds. Here is an infertilty chart ( http://www.babycenter.com/0_chart-the-effect-of-age-on-fertility_6155.bc ) that is is close to the information that our doctor gave us.
Hugo, sorry about mispelling your name.
Gonzman, LisaKS’s data can also indicate that an older woman who wants children would be best off finding a 25 year old man who will have better sperm motility than someone her own age. Just sayin’. :)
This focus on male economic stability implicitly assumes that the woman is not so economically empowered. And I do think that the more capable the woman in question, the less important the man’s housing, job and income are. My earning potential is pretty good, so I’m perfectly happy to pair up with an artist or nurturer and be his sugar-mommy. (OK, I’m being a bit flippant here. I’m not interested in feckless people, but I also recognize that some people do wonderful things that don’t get them much financial reward.) If we’re biologically destined to want to ensure that our babies are well-provided for, then having a good provider as a partner is good, but being a good provider ourselves is better (and having both is best, I suppose).
Also, I suspect more of us would be more willing to have babies sooner if the mommy-track wasn’t so, well, tracked. Looking around at other grad students who have kids, I’ve noticed that the waiting lists for daycare are brutal (and basically impossible for undergrads) and there’s no maternity leave. And grad school is one of the more flexible places you can be, in terms of what hours you work. If you live on campus, you’re likely to have a tight community you can fall back on. So this environment is better than many for young moms (and dads), and yet still bloody difficult.
As someone else here said, women are generally quite aware of our fertility window, but we’re also aware of the costs of young motherhood in this society and the potential dangers of being dependent on another person. Perhaps it sounds like I’m being mistrustful of male partners, and I don’t really mean it that way - I just find economic dependence to be inherently more uncertain than self sufficiency, and inherently the second-best option. But, you choose from the options you have.
Gonz
Some men seem to think this ‘lizard brain’ effect which gives youth a knee jerk attraction factor is exclusively male. To be fair, I most certainly feel the knee jerk response around the dewy skinned and vibrant younger male (30 and under in my book), and I know they have far better sperm than older men. Also, you should hear some of the conversations some 40ish women have about younger men - re the youthful physicality they miss now their spouses have aged. But I also know that within about thirty minutes of talking to them as a potential partner, I would be bored and irritated. So I don’t see them as a potential mate, because mating to me is a long term thing which demands much, much more than a knee jerk ‘lizard brain’ response. I do still appreciate the beauty of youth though!! The same goes for moneyed men, I suppose - but to a much lesser extent. There is a superficial initial response - the promise of luxury, but ultimately if the essential bits and pieces are not there for the long haul then it’s total right off, and the physical attraction aspect of this category of men is often totally absent, so obviously a no brainer for kids.
Also gonz, I’m not sure what your flyover comment meant, I suspect it is some specifically American speak so I found it obtuse.
Hector
The argument for men having children before their mid forties which I gave in the other thread is not exclusively feminist - and if the man must be 40 or under when he meets his spouse then the likely hood of an extreme age gap is greatly reduced. If a man wants to appreciate his grandchildren (and the grandchildren are to have a grandfather) then extreme age gaps become logistically much less likely. This is not feminism, it is maths.
“A thoughtful social conservative wouldn’t push for age-disparate relationships as part of some divine or natural plan; a thoughtful social conservative would push to accelerate young men’s acceptance of responsibility so that it harmonized neatly with young women’s fertility.”
Hugo - what little writing I’ve seen by social conservatives which addresses this issue at all generally thinks that the ideal age gap is on the order of 2 to 5 years greater male age. I haven’t seen *any* actual social conservative (Roissy is not a social conservative) advocating 10+ year age gaps as a general rule (though some might defend them). Social conservatives are full of pushing young men to accept more responsibility, in part because it pushes them to marry and be more stable.
Anthony,
Just to clarify, I certainly don’t think that 10+ age gaps are any kind of “ideal”, as a general rule. I think they are the best thing for some particular people, and not so good for others. I think in general the ideal age gap would, as you suggest, be 2 to 5 years greater male age. Given that people are so different from each other, in a healthy society we can expect to see age gaps all over the map. One of the couples I know whose marriage I would give the best chances of success, married when she was 24 and he was 22.
I do think that large age gaps aren’t necessarily _wrong_ and that some men may have some personality traits that make them a good match for women substantially younger, and that when coupled with the natural advantages of age bringing earning power and youth bringing fertility, could make for a successful couple. I certainly don’t think that’s right for everyone though. Not sure who “Roissy” is.
Lynn Gazis-Sax, as usual I appreciate your charity and good judgment!
I’m not sure why a man would want to increase the period of time his wife will likely be a widow. I’m also not sure why evolution would favor a man waiting to have children - and thus risking infertility, death, all the available mates being snapped up, and therefore never having kids at all.
matey - “flyover land” is a put-down used by urban denizens of the American coasts (like NYC and LA) to refer to the non-coastal middle of the country. “Flyover” because if you’re going between the only worthwhile places in the country, you have to fly over it in an airplane.
Oh! thanks myth, I thought it may have been something to do with motorways. In the UK flyovers are part of urban motorway sections. I don’t fly, mostly because I can’t afford it so I wouldn’t know anything about that. Never been to the US either, so know even less about that. So can’t respond to the comment Gonz. Maybe if you put it in a more international way, which included less references to monied pursuit (which don’t partake of).
Chalk me up as not giving a flying crap about how much money a man has or his earning potential. (I guess a huge, crippling debt that neither of us had any hope of paying off would be a turn-off; but that’s why we have bankruptcy, isn’t it?) Although I can see how this is a privileged position compared to someone who may have otherwise preferred a boyfriend her age or even younger but who actually has to worry about having enough money to get by and thus might consciously or unconsciously put her wallet above her heart or at least find money to be a turn-on.
(Plus I have often heard that women are more emotionally mature than men of the same age group, so that could play a role if it’s true.)
So my position is that age-disparate relationships are probably right for many combinations of individuals for various reasons other than economics (which can play a role in reality but doesn’t make a good combination out of a bad one), but we would probably see a noticeable decrease in older-men-younger-women if women had truly equal employment opportunities and support for balancing kids and career.
And interestingly, we do, when there is a ‘free market’ for marriage. At least in the US, the age gap for first marriage is a couple of years, not a decade or so.
Mythago,
I don’t believe I ever said the ideal age gap was a decade or so, though it’s probably ideal for some couples, and not for others. In general I think the most ‘natural’ age gap is something on the order of 3-5 years.
In the United States, our ‘natural’ tendencies are distorted by factors such as the decline of the extended family, capitalist economics, and ideological pressures from people like Hugo, all of which militate against women getting married at younger ages. I don’t think there is much ‘natural’ about family formation patterns in America.
I laughed to see “Hugo” and “militate” actually used in the same sentence. Anyway, I doubt you can pinpoint “natural” tendencies, period, since you’d have to access people marrying with no cultural context at all — some sort of acultural control group. Not gonna happen.
What, Metamanda? You don’t think that viewpoints like Hugo’s are the dominant ones in our society today?
It may be hard to identify what’s natural, but it’s fairly easy to say what’s grossly unnatural, and late-capitalist American society today in every regard- environmental, economic, political, theological, social, and sexual- is a perfect example.
Hector, you’re not as much a traditionalist Catholic as you seem to be some vague sort of Burkean Luddite, looking back optimistically at some sort of communitarian agrarian paradise that, um, never was.
Hector,
I’d say that in most of the country, feminist viewpoints are [far from] the dominant voices. Where I’m living now, the 3-5 year age gap in relationships that you think is most natural is extremely common (and almost always with the male being older), and when people marry for the first time, they marry early.
Of course, I do live in a smaller town, not a huge metro area (but not a completely culturally isolated place earlier), so maybe there are some cultural differences to take into account, but even when I lived in Madison, WI (which has a reputation as a culturally progressive city that is friendly to feminism), people married relatively early in life. Is there any place in the United States where this isn’t the case? (I’m asking that literally, not rhetorically, since I can’t claim there isn’t such a place.)
So basically, I really wonder what perspective you are coming from in which you are so convinced that feminism is so extremely prevalent in the culture.
>Is there any place in the United States where this isn’t the case?
SF bay area. Bastion of hippie, commie, arty, feminist, hairy-armpitted gay-loving polyamorous potheads. And a few computer geeks.
>What, Metamanda? You don’t think that viewpoints like Hugo’s are the dominant ones in our society today?
Well, I was teasing you a bit because Hugo seems very un-militant. But to answer your question, it depends on what segment of society you’re looking at (see immediately above) but for the most part I think not. (I grew up in the Midwest) And anyway, even around the bay a lot of my friends got married in their mid 20s to people about their own age, so I don’t really buy that my generation’s being poisoned against young(ish) marriage by people like Hugo.
>it’s fairly easy to say what’s grossly unnatural, and late-capitalist American society today
I don’t disagree with you about American society being unnatural. But in and of itself, I don’t consider “unnatural” to be either bad or good. It’s natural for women to die in childbirth something like 10% of the time, so I’d much rather be unnatural in that respect.
Anyway, I think it’s more useful to think in terms of needs and capabilities and well-being than in terms of what’s natural and what’s not. Women and men are increasingly capable of being pretty economically self-sufficient. We’re capable of keeping our children alive and healthy so we don’t need to have a ton of them as a sort of insurance policy against disease. So we don’t need to marry super-early or obsess about peak fertility.
(Also we’re capable of eating Big Macs for every meal, but that’s not good for your well-being.)
We may be talking past one another, because I suspect that “natural” has a particular connotation of purity and rightness to someone who believes that God intentionally created nature. (If I’m putting words in your mouth, I apologize.) I’m not religious, so I think of nature as amoral. It doesn’t mean that I advocate an anything-goes approach to life, I do think that some things we do are healthy and some unhealthy, I just don’t think the “natural” thing is always the best thing.
Metamanda,
No doubt in many ways we’re better off than we were, once. I don’t think we should literally go back five hundred years, certainly not in every regard. But just because we erred too far in one direction in the past, does it follow that we haven’t erred too far in the other direction today? Luther said humanity was like a drunk on a horse: if he falls off the horse to the left on Tuesday, on Wednesday he will make a determined effort to lean to the right, so he will fall off on that side. There’s much truth to that.
I actually had a bit in my previous comment that I deleted because it was getting too wordy, that excess capitalism and isolation in sprawly suburbs away from friends and family is neither natural nor healthy in my opinion. That is maybe getting a little off-topic.
More on topic, and where we may disagree is I don’t think a rising age of first marriage is a bad thing, nor greater female financial independence, rather it leads to better-considered matches. There’s less pragmatic necessity now to marry in order to survive — on the one hand that means people marry later and are more likely to break up. The flip side is that arguably, the ones that work out are more fulfilling because both parties actually want to be there*. One of my several communities (remember I’m from the Midwest? Now add non-American immigrant community to that.) is pretty traditional, low divorce rate, high stigma on divorces, but definitely some of those stables marriages aren’t so happy. Talking to a woman in her 60s who looks back on her marriage with a lot of regrets is something that will come dangerously close to bringing me to tears.
We have higher expectations of marriage now than ever, and maybe that is leaning too far to one side of the horse, maybe the expectations are unrealistically high, that this one pairing should fulfill all our emotional needs. But I do like that I’m free to decide what I expect from a committed relationship without the whole world pushing me into it too fast. I’m being given a lot of rope here, and I think I can figure out how not to hang myself with it. Certainly I find it preferable to almost any other social configuration around marriage.
*I’m paraphrasing the thesis of Stephanie Coontz’s “Marriage, a History”. You might find it pretty interesting, if you haven’t already checked it out.
I want to make sure I’m understanding you here: In a natural world free of capitalism, small families and Hugo, fifteen-to-twenty-year-olds would ‘naturally’ gravitate to men old enough to be their fathers, and middle-aged men would ‘naturally’ gravitate to women ten or twenty years their junior?
I’m curious as to why you think that choosing roughly same-age partner is unnatural.
Re: I want to make sure I’m understanding you here: In a natural world free of capitalism, small families and Hugo, fifteen-to-twenty-year-olds would ‘naturally’ gravitate to men old enough to be their fathers, and middle-aged men would ‘naturally’ gravitate to women ten or twenty years their junior?
Um, no, Mythago. First of all, children from 15-17 are not legal adults, and must not be treated as such. Regarding _legal adults_ which were the point at issue in this thread, I think that the most common age difference will be the guy being about 3-5 years older. However, I think that if a man and woman with a large age difference happens to fall in love, then that’s perfectly fine, it might just be the best situation for them given their personalities and natures, and no one- especially not you or Hugo- should try to make them feel bad about their choices. I have no need to listen to either you or Hugo when deciding who to date.
If a 20-year old and a 30-year old fall in love, then I say all power to them, and wish them luck. They’ll certainly need it, since people like you and Hugo enthusiastically try to sabotage their relationship before it even happens.
Hector, I’m very intrigued. How precisely are Hugo or I “sabotaging” anyone’s relationship?
Mythago, I’m also very intrigued. How is you telling me that I can’t date younger women, any different from my older relatives telling me I can’t date white women?
Hector - I think you’ve mis - understood Hugo’s intentions. This debate is not about whether or not men are ‘allowed’ to date younger women. It has more to do with trying to counter a view of women as becoming redundant to dating after a certain age. It’s about trying to counter a fetishization of younger women and the myth that there is some ‘lizard brain’ response, exclusive to men, which responds to youth. It’s also about exploring the issues around the fetishisation of younger women to the exclusion of more mature ladies - that seems to mean those past 30 ish.
Also, Hugo et al are discussing extreme age gaps - i.e. those of more than ten years (those of 15, 20, 30, 40 years) so your example of a 20 and 30 year old is not relevant to this thread (or any other on this site). Having read your posts on this topic, I really have no idea why you are arguing against Hugo’s position because to all intents and purposes you seem largely to agree with it. Hugo himself is in an age gap relationship, and your fight for the right for a 2 - 5 year age gap around here really is a pointless pursuit - nobody aroud here cares very much at all about that. BTW, the average age gap of married couples is now 2 years.
My old school friend’s dad asked me out on a date the other month, and I was really shocked by it. He is my friend’s dad and a bit like my dad to me, there is a generational gap and I have always felt daughterly around him. Although I don’t judge him for it and am flattered, I find it odd that he would want to leap across the generations - we really wouldn’t have that much in common. He is in his late 60s and I in my late 30s, I wouldn’t pursue a 20 year old, because the level of maturity and experience is way too disperate. This is the kind of thing Hugo wants to debate, not small age gaps.
Also, he has often said that many of these relationships work, and that he isn’t against them perse, so that’s not what this is about.
Matey,
“It’s also about exploring the issues around the fetishisation of younger women to the exclusion of more mature ladies - that seems to mean those past 30 ish.”
I think you lost me there. Hugo’s point that age disparate relationships should not be idealized is far different than shaming simple desire as being merely a fetish. Given a 50 year old and a 20 year old with equally attractive personalities, equal maturity, and equal congruence between their interests and goals, and mine - I’d generally want a date with a 20 year old. Call me odd if you want…
By the same token, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that same 20 year old, with two potential dates, one an old geezer like me and one a 20 year old hunk, with equal personalities, maturity, stability etc… - picked the 20 year old suitor. I’d be a bit out of my league in that regard.
I’m with Hugo. There’s a big difference between what you desire and what is good for you as a whole person. But it is a point that can be easily made and effectively argued without shaming.
Matey,
I don’t care if you don’t want to go out with a 20 year old. That’s not the point. The point is that there are lots of people who do, that you have every right to, and if the two of you are attracted to each other then no one should try to make you feel ashamed. I feel no obligation to date 30 year olds rather than 20 year olds just because it would accord better with feminist ideas, since I don’t believe in feminism to begin with.
If you are attracted to people closer to your age, that’s fine, and if someone else is attracted to younger women, then that’s equally fine. I don’t really think that Hugo would be fine with a 30 year old dating a 20 year old- I certainly have friends who have shied away from such relationships because they didn’t want to be socially looked down upon by feminists like Hugo. To be blunt, I think that’s wrong.
Sweating Through Fog - I can’t see the connection between fetishisation and shame. I don’t see any fetish as shameful, I think perhaps my grandmother’s generation might in a Victorian kind of a way. I said absolutley nothing about shame and am quite shocked you read what I said that way.
To me fetishisation = interest (here sexual) in a thing or quality to the exclusion of other stimulous. In the case of this discussion, an ineterst in younger women by men, purely because they are young, and hence the absence of ineterest in more mature ones.
An example in my life could be that I watch America’s Next Top Model exclusively as a way of switching off. There are probably many other tv shows which would do the job for me but I will not engage in them and have an irrational attachment to that particular show. I hold no shame about my fetishisation of ANTM, why would I?
I am absolutely with you on the charms of youth, I said that myself. Hugo hasn’t though.
Hector - I’m very suprised you think feminism is so influential. Also, I, and I very much doubt, Hugo would wish shame on anyone for their romantic choices. However, one of the issues raised in these discussions Hugo sets up on older men younger women, is the sense of shame some women feel just because they are getting older - they can often feel to be less valid as human beings just for being over 30 - and can be rejected by men in their own age group in favour of much younger women. Like my friend’s dad chatting me up and not one of his peers, for example. This is an important part of what these discussions address and that is the only way I can see shame coming into the discussion.
Nobody is telling you who to go out with, we are discussing a phenomenum… However, you have spent quite a bit of energy telling women not to have children over a certain age, and how much damage they’d be risking by not doing so, so in the interest of avoiding hypocrisy, I’d leave the acqusations of judgement and shame mongering out of it if I were you.
Matey,
Thanks for clarifying. It seems we’re in agreement :)
Matey,
I suggested women might want to have children at a younger age _for their own good_, not for _my_ good or the good of men in general. Because I want such women to be able to have children, and also because I’m opposed to IVF (not least because it usually involves the practice charmingly called ’selective reduction’.) Call it paternalistic, if you wish, but don’t call it malicious, because it isn’t. And if any woman wants to play the odds, whatever. I certainly don’t mention biological clocks to strangers on the bus, if that’s what you referring to.
Incidentally, I don’t think that it’s wrong to condemn certain sexual choices- I’m emphatically not a libertarian, or even a social liberal. I condemn _a lot_ of sexual behaviors and choices, including some that Hugo sees nothing wrong with. Hell, I’m no saint, and I have done things (including sexual things) that I think are immoral. What I disagree with isn’t that Hugo is condemning certain sexual behaviors, but that he’s condemning ones that I don’t see anything wrong with.
By the way, you may have a point in your advice to me in that other thread. I may have spoiled a first date last month (she was in her late 20s, like me) by mentioning biological clocks and statistics about the likelihood of birth defects. Then again, it may just not have worked out because we live five states apart…:) I will think about your advice about not reminding women about declining fertility, for next time!
your grandcildren would be mighty grateful, I’m sure
Please point out anytime, anywhere, I have told you that you “can’t” date younger women. And while you’re at it, still waiting to hear how you think I “sabotage” anyone’s relationship. Do you have some paranoid fantasy that younger women you approach are looking down at their cell phones and whispering “Damn - this is the one mythago texted me about”?
I don’t suppose you see the irony in insisting that it’s OK to condemn others’ sexual choices, but only when they’re ones you personally dislike.
Mythago,
No I don’t see the irony. The choices I condemn aren’t things I ‘personally dislike’, they are things that I think are objectively against natural law.
So your beef is not that other people are telling you what you can and can’t do, only that the basis on which they nag you is incorrect? If a relative of yours had a ‘natural law’ argument as to why you shouldn’t date white women, you would respectfully disagree but not be bothered that they felt it their business to tell you how to run your romantic life?
And still waiting for you to explain how anyone is “sabotaging” relationships or has told you that you “can’t” date a younger woman. Not really expecting anything more than hyperbole but still willing to listen.
Mythago,
You create a culture hostile to such relationships, and by constantly criticizing such relationships you make it less likely to succeed. that’s how you sabotage them.
Hector - most of Hugo’s posts deal wth the acceptability of extreme age gap relationships, where the man is much older than the woman, in our society. To be fair, I do feel myself more EXPECTED to be with an older man (by this I mean more than 10 years), than not, and I feel VERY uncomfortable about that, so I feel I have the right to discuss it. There is a history of women being about 8 or so years older than their husbands in my family - and this is something my mother’s generation do not talk about, they’ve all lied about their age (which is an immense pressure to have to face), and 8 years is not even an extreme gap. So if you want to fire up about predjudice in romantic choices due to age, why not look at the pressure women face about being an older, or even, just not younger, partner to a man. If you look at most media - films etc - relationships where men are much older than women are extremely prolific, the norm. In fact you probably don’t even notice it’s happening. George Clooney and his female leads 20 years younger certainly don’t make front page news for that reason - Maddona’s affair with a much younger man absolutley did. What about all the realtionships between peers in age which don’t even get started because men are bombarded with the idea that women are redundant to them after a certain age, and they must try to be with a younger woman? This is the sort of thing Hugo et al, myself included, are discussing. Relationships in which the man is much older than the woman are very much acceptable in western society - nobody but me even batted an eyelid when my friend’s dad, who is 30 years my senior, asked me out, but my mum has had to lie about an 7 - 8 year age gap (I’m not 100% certain of my mum’s exact age)for practically all of her forty odd years of married life.
Hector it might be an idea if you read through Hugo’s other posts on this topic, you’ll find them in a list to the right. You’ll get a much better idea of where he, and other feminists, are coming from on this topic.
Matey,
I’m sorry that you feel pressured to be in relationships you don’t find right for you. But given that I’m not the one pressuring you, or women like you, I’m not sure what I can do about that. I hope you are able to tell off the people pressuring you, and find a relationship in which you can be happy. My concern is that the feminists appear not to want the same thing for me.
Your experience doesn’t dovetail with mine- in my experience, modern U.S. society is deeply hostile to age-disparate relationships, and Hugo’s ideas are basically the norm.
So I’m personally screwing up your chances, as a middle-aged man, of hooking up with a dewy-eyed, fertile 21-year-old? Wow!
You really are so personally invested in this that you can’t distinguish between condemnation of exploitation and condemnation of a relationship with an age gap. Sad.
Mythago, I’m in my late 20s, not ‘middle aged’.
I’d suggest that the real exploiters of women are the promiscuous players who like to take women home from the club for one-night stands. Of course, those are exactly the sort of people who were empowered by Roe v. Wade, as Akerlof’s famous article argues. One would think that the erstwhile defenders of Roe v. Wade would have a little humility about their grave error, but apparently not.
Hector, thanks for the sympathy. But erm, I wouldn’t let pressures like that stop me even though they meant my mother, aunt and grandmother lived their lives as a substantial lie, and hence carried considerable shame.
I can’t understand why a discussion such as this one would put you off, surely you have a stonger sense of self than that? From what I see of American culture: music videos, films, tv, age disperate relationships where the man is much older than the woman are extremely prolific and presented as very normal, much more so than relationships vice versa. George Clooney is a Hollywood star, no? and Women in Hollywood have a far shorter career life span than men, so this does happen in the US, even if you haven’t noticed.