Improved
6112 HealthChanged
3786 LivesSaved
3568 Lives1 lives impacted in the last 24 hrs Learn More
Photo: Getty Images
Women are finally kicking butt and taking charge of their careers; so much so that in 2010, women made up the majority of the workforce in America for the first time.
But advances in the workplace seem to come at the cost of digressions in relationships, and the control women have over them.
According to the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (NLSAH), which collects data well into adulthood, it’s actually men who hold the power in premarital heterosexual relationships.
With women becoming more educated than men, getting more advanced degrees and making up the larger portion of the workforce, the probability of finding a man who’s a "great catch" is diminishing.
Earnings for 25- to 34-year-old men have fallen by 20 percent since 1971 and only 43 percent of American undergraduates today are men according to the NLSAH.
According to associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas Mark Regnerus, when attractive women will still go to bed with you, life for young men, even those who are floundering, just isn't so bad. Regnerus doesn’t proclaim that all men direct the course of their relationships – plenty don't – but what many young men wish for--access to sex without too many complications or commitments--is exactly what men are finding in today’s marketplace.
Regnerus said that if women were more fully in charge of how their relationships transpired, we'd be seeing, on average, more impressive wooing efforts, longer relationships, fewer premarital sexual partners, shorter cohabitations, and more marrying going on.
Instead, none of these things is occurring. Not one. The terms of contemporary sexual relationships favor men and what they want in relationships, not just despite the fact that what they have to offer has diminished, but in part because of it. And it's all thanks to supply and demand.
That a significant number of young men are faring rather badly in life, and are thus skewing the dating pool, doesn’t completely throw the nation’s gender ratio out of balance, but there does exist a growing imbalance between the number of successful young women and successful young men.
Women's "erotic capital," as Catherine Hakim of the London School of Economics has dubbed it, can still be traded for attention, a job, perhaps a boyfriend, and certainly all the sex she wants, but it can't assure her love and lifelong commitment. Not in this market. It's no surprise that the percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds who are married has shrunk by an average of 1 percent each year this past decade.
Regnerus concludes that while young men's failures in life are not penalizing them in the bedroom, their sexual success may, ironically, be hindering their drive to achieve in life.
Regnerus reminds us not to forget our Freud: Civilization is built on blocked, redirected, and channeled sexual impulse, because men will work for sex. Today's young men, however, seldom have to.
Sex is Cheap
http:/www.slate.com/id/2286240/
Sexual Economics: Sex as Female Resource for Social Exchange in Heterosexual Interactions
http://psr.sagepub.com/content/8/4/339.short
The End of Men
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135/
Add a Comment1 Comments
I think that professor is assuming that women are the only ones who want commitment, and men are the only ones who want freedom. I think the newer generation might want something in between. So the assumption shouldn't be that women aren't getting what they want and men are getting sex at a lower cost. It's not like women are being forced to have casual sex, it's a choice.
March 3, 2011 - 3:15pmThis Comment