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Comment by auntyJemima | Hacker News Reader

Males generally dont marry up?

Couple things come to mind. Throughout my time, I've seen that women have their fair share of not wanting to marry down either. You want to say generalizations generalizations. Sure, but I think the age old stereotypes do have a hint of truth to them and the Bloomberg page here also states, "High-earning women (doctors, lawyers) tend to pair up with their economic equals, while middle- and lower-tier women often marry up."

You say problem in quotation marks and I don't know why that is? If people are not finding their partners, that's a huge problem.

Here's the anecdotal: My sister and her friends are all pretty educated women. Unfortunately, their standards have really gone up since receiving said education. I'm not saying this to bash, it's simply my observation. These days, they're all still single and reaching/past 30 and no man can scratch their itch. The whole thing is problematic.

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Of course you'll find some males that "marry up", but the data proves what many of us have known forever - as a man, you should strive to be elite in something, preferably something useful and sexually attractive. Otherwise you're just another brick in the wall.

Where this is all going to blow up in society is the fact that women are now better-educated, and will soon make more money than their male counterparts, who are slowly getting more discriminated against (see Yahoo lawsuit) and less engaged in the proverbial rat race.

A case in point is looking at highly successful black females. They have a rough time in the dating scene, and this is extremely well-documented. Over the course of the next generation, I see this spreading to other females as well.

What effectively is going to happen is that you'll see more men dropping out of the marriage pool, the pareto principle in dating will become stronger than ever, and reliance upon the nanny state to help single mothers raise their children will likely go up too.

Hate it all you want, but these are three extremely well-established trends and I don't see them getting any better. Tinder is the canary in the coalmine. This is where we're heading.

A country needs strong, highly-engaged men who act as leaders. America is losing that more each and every day, and it saddens me.

I agree a lot with you. Time will tell and we can just hope to carve out the best for ourselves in this big cold world.

> as a man, you should strive to be elite in something, preferably something useful and sexually attractive. Otherwise you're just another brick in the wall.

The way you phrase this, the more probable cause would be that women don't want to marry down, hence men are motivated to be better (and they know that by being "just another brick in the wall" won't get them the partner they want").

This agrees with my observations of the world. Men don't care about accomplishments, they (we) just want a woman that is beautiful; whereas women care much more about a man's social status (warning: this is a very broad generalisation and of course doesn't hold for everybody).

Regarding your point about black women:

At least in North America, Black females, like Asian men, have a harder time in the dating scene partially due to their gender/ethnicity combination. Both sets endure media representation and stereotypes that play against their sexual desirability. I'm sure people here will profess that they are immune to any images cultivated by the media and I'm not going to discount their experience. However, I think it's naive to believe that images we consume on a daily basis, such as the gender/ethnicity makeup of desirable lead characters or negative representations in the news don't unconsciously affect us. Anecdotally, I have met more black men who said they would never date a black women and Asian women who said they'd never date Asian men compared to white people who say they'd never date a white person. Online dating stats from eHarmony, okCupid, and coffeemeetsbagel reinforce that observation.

On top of that, people generally have a statistical preference for those within their own race. And if black men have a higher tendency to be imprisoned than other men, that puts black women at an additional disadvantage to finding a partner.

I guess my overall point is issues black women face are very different and unique to what Hispanic/White/Asian women face.

> ...in North America, Black females, like Asian men, have a harder time in the dating scene

data to back this up: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/race-attraction-2009-2014/

As an Asian man - If I was single and I "hit on" a woman on the street once a day, it's more likely than not I'll be in a relationship within the month. It's not that hard, I often wonder how easy it is for non-Asian men. Do you just turn on Tinder and find yourself sleeping with women within 24 hours?

You've got more bravery than most to just walk up to a lady during the day and say hi. That more than makes up for any disadvantages your race may put you at.

I have seen and experienced this, from the inside.

I'm an educated black man (MS Degree) with a good job (Fortune 500 company) and my female relatives, many of whom are also educated and successful have difficulty with establishing and maintaining relationships.

Obviously not all, but many black women have unrealistic expectations. As other have already pointed out, women are adverse to marrying "down" so when a woman reaches a certain level of education/career advancement, it's extremely difficult to find a mate that meets her criteria. Lists of things, like Over 6 feet tall, lots of muscles, Bachelor's degree or higher, Churchgoing Christian, no children, good relationship with his mother, not domineering but not too passive, earning at least 6 figures and other wish-list type stuff. There are women who won't give a man the time of day unless he meets all of them. They, as you can well imagine, are lonely.

There are cultural taboos against black women becoming romantically involved with non black or hispanic men. I have only personally known one black woman who was involved with an asian man(his family came here from Vietnam and he grew up in "the 'hood") and only a few who are involved with white men.

I have never been in a relationship with a black woman. A date here and there. A fling here and there but never a relationship. Where I live, a video game playing, Dungeons and Dragons fan, comic book collecting, politically active guy doesn't tend to get much romantic interest from black women. Then, there's also the phenomenon of the black women who don't want anything to do with you getting upset because you're dating outside of the race.

I have also noticed that as we approach and pass 40 years of age, these women with their stratospheric standards are forced to carry on alone and bitter or drop their standards. Some of them get rid of them entirely just to get a man. I have even heard a fair bit of professional women getting involved with street dudes.

I guess my overall point is issues black women face are very different and unique to what Hispanic/White/Asian women face.

Agreed. Some of the issues are cultural, some are societal and some are of their own making.

Re-reading this a couple of days later, I can see how a part of it could be misinterpreted so I wanted to clarify.

I should have said that many of my female relatives have these problems.

In retrospect, it looked like I was saying all of them.

> I have met more black men who said they would never date a black women and Asian women who said they'd never date Asian men compared to white people who say they'd never date a white person

Anecdote: a second-gen-immigrant Italian friend of mine said her mother declared that my friend was not allowed to marry an Italian man, the reasoning being "I didn't raise my daughters to be mothers to their husbands". My friend said that from what her mother saw, Italian-culture men behaved like other men when married to a non-Italian woman, but when married to an Italian, there was a cultural expectation similar to mothering involved.

data size n=1, anecdata, all that stuff.

> A country needs strong, highly-engaged men who act as leaders. America is losing that more each and every day, and it saddens me.

Literally every president in US history has been a man, 80.6% of Congress are men, 95.5% of Fortune 500 CEOs are men, and you're sad that it's getting marginally harder for men and that the country is lacking in strong male leaders?

Men-as-homogeneous-group fallacy. Given a high variance, it's entirely possible that the top [small-percentage]% of men hold presidencies, CEO positions, etc, while the large majority of men are suffering a degradation in status, respect, resources, etc. (And objectively so -- look at earnings trends in inflation-adjusted terms for men vs. women over the past 40 years.) The way these two are conflated seems to be at the root of a lot of animosity in the Gender Wars lately.

I'd tend to agree with GP that while existing as a white male today is still "easy mode" in many ways when you do push yourself, there's definitely this feeling that society is celebrating everyone else while you're sort of left on your own without much encouragement.

It'd be interesting to see historical statistics on the variability of different "success" metrics with regard to sex.

I don't really agree with the sentiment but your example is also pretty poor rebuttal because those are some of the laggiest indicators.

They also represent exactly what the poster wanted: the leaders of America (who are mostly strong aggressive men).

I find it rather interesting that people advocate for such things as basic income (wherein a basic level of financial incentive is obviated), all the while steadfastly grasping at the notion that sexual/ marital incentive is essential for a thriving country.

Well, anecdotal evidence to match your anecdotal evidence: I'm a female with a master's in software engineering and am marrying a guy with one semester of music school who's been a social worker for 10 years, in the spring.

But less anecdotally: for the first time in history, the percent of couples in which the woman has obtained a higher level of education than the man is higher than the other way around: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/12/record-share... Keep in mind that this is ALL couples, whether they were married last month, or 50 years ago, so the trend can be expected to lag behind current graduation trends. So both men and women seem to be figuring it out, your sister aside.

"Does marrying someone with less education mean “marrying down” economically? Not necessarily. When we look at the newlywed women who married someone with less education, we find that a majority of these women actually “married up.” In 2012, only 39% of newlywed women who married a spouse with less education out-earned their husband, and a majority of them (58%) made less than their husband."

Not really that surprising. Irrespective of gender, a terminal degree rarely leads to increase job earnings except for MD, JD, MBA, and similar.

Right, my interpretation of other comments about education, was that women were marrying down based on education level. But economically this isn't true. They still marry up.

I'd be surprised if degree level was a major factor by itself. E.g. If the woman has a masters but the man has only a bachelors, she would discount the man as a potential mate. He may still be socioeconomically on par or better.

> Males generally dont marry up?

My wife has a PhD, and is a Senior Data Scientist (why not Chief, who knows), and belongs to a noble Swedish/Finnish family.

I am P.O.C. trash, from a (mostly) poor town in S Tacoma, WA.

I hit the jackpot.

> Unfortunately, their standards have really gone up since receiving said education. I'm not saying this to bash, it's simply my observation.

I suspect that part of it has to do with the circles you hang out in. If you are a non-professional man, you are less likely to interact with professional women. If you do, you will have more chance to pair-wise bond. Anecdotally, a guy I train Krav Maga with, works at the maintenance crew at a local hotel. His wife has a degree in Aerospace Engineering. They met at a gym.

Parkland?

Yes. Though I often times claim Spanaway, since I attended Spanaway Elem, Spanaway Jr High, and Spanaway Lake Highschools.

I'm pretty fond of Parkland and Spanaway. I went to PLU.

Nice. Growing up, I loved going swimming at the PLU pool.

Also it's a small world when an HN reader that attended college in the small town I grew up in, would find my comment and correctly guess that small town.

S Tacoma, wow, she must be a saint :)

is she hot? men dont value women as much for professional achievements...

Yes.

https://www.google.com/search?q=beauty+is+in+the+eye+of+the+...

Also it took me a good solid year of my A-game to win her over.

In marriage intelligence is more important than status. Men normally don't want to marry a smarter woman then them and the opposite on women. 1600 karma gives you some relationship potential and places you above trash..

Height for men is like weight for women. Women want taller and men want lighter.

Money for men is like looks for women. Men want a wife with good looks and women want a successful man.

Intelligence for men is like likability for women. I think there are a lot of parallels.

Height for men is like weight for women. Women want taller and men want lighter.

No no no no no. Height for men is like age for women. A woman can lose weight if she wants a particular man, but, just like men cannot make themselves taller, women cannot make themselves younger.

Also, some men like a BBW. I suspect this is much more common than women who actively prefer short men. (I have been a BBW. Some men really, really like that.)

Deal breakers: intelligence level very far from mine, politics and ethics very far from mine.

Turn offs: taller then me, under average looks, older then me, personal life more complicated than mine.

Edited -- male point of view for a potential wife

> Men normally don't want to marry a smarter woman then them

Maybe that's true for a certain type of man suffering from insecurity.

In general I find that men love to find a woman who is smart and practical. After all, this is about your life partner.

> 1600 karma gives you some relationship potential and places you above trash.

I think you might be valuing people rather strangely, don't you think?

I'm not sure that's true, most of my close male friends prefer smart women but generally not in the same exact area as them.

I personally think having slightly divergent competencies is more stable than closwrr matches since it'd be less competitive or directly comparable.

Learning is also fun, and it can drive some pretty cool conversations.

Bit of anecdote to back this up, I personally wouldn't like to date a woman smarter than I am. I want her to be smart, just not quiiite as much.

Guess I'm just insecure.

> 1600 karma gives you some relationship potential and places you above trash.

First time I've heard that spending more of your time posting comments to the internet raises your dating potential. Karma comes from comments. More comments, more karma.

> My sister and her friends are all pretty educated women. Unfortunately, their standards have really gone up since receiving said education.

Once you reach a certain level in earnings you will have a very hard time finding someone that earns approximately the same amount.

I'm sure that this is currently even harder for men.

In this situation you really only have the choice to either marry down or never have a family of your own and stay alone for the rest of your life.

The thing is, you don't really "marry down". Usually people in the US/EU don't have to fear that they will have to face starvation or anything like that if they marry the wrong women/man so what is marrying down even about?

If one partner already has a lot of resources, why would he/she then require the other partner to be his/her equal in this regard?

When you remove economic resources from the equation you'll find that there are many perfectly fine potential partners out there with all the attributes that one could hope for.

> Males generally dont marry up?

> I've seen that women have their fair share of not wanting to marry down either

"Males generally don't marry up" and "Females generally don't marry down" are exactly the same claim.

Not really, if you read between the lines and realize that they are not just claiming fact, but also cause ("men don't want to marry up" vs "women don't want to marry down").

And which one is the cause here? I don't see why anyone wouldn't WANT to marry up.

I'm pretty sure that there are much fewer women in the high status category than men, so these men make the only rational decision (if they don't want to stay alone) - they marry down.

> Males generally dont marry up?

It's the politically correct way of saying women don't marry down.

Cf. the works of the great poet of our times, K. West.

Men, generally, can't marry up because women, generally, won't marry down.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/07/06/has-being-si...

If you're a man trying to marry up, you're facing extra challenges if the woman values her family's opinions at all. Not too long ago in pretty much all the civilized world the Father controlled who his daughters wed, you had to impress him even more so than the woman.

> My sister and her friends are all pretty educated women.

What do you mean by this exactly? PhDs? MDs?

> These days, they're all still single and reaching/past 30 and no man can scratch their itch.

Could you give examples of the occupations of the rejected suitors?

Yes, they include PhDs, DDS, Architecture, Mech Engineering. Their rejected list is guys that don't have much all the way to degrees in mining engineering. Software engineering tends to be what they "settle" for or are ok with. One, because software engineers make decent enough money and if they discounted them, they'd be throwing away a huge and competent group of men.

I can't speak for him but I'm a bit over 40 and single again, and looking. What I'm seeing in the DC metro area is a ton of single women in my age range who are single and never married, and all of a sudden now they want to get married and have kids. (Some of them want kids, some don't.) So not "pushing 30", but "pushing 40". Other data I've seen shows that there's a big surplus of single women in both the NYC and DC metro areas. OTOH, in Seattle and the Bay Area, there's a big surplus of single men. (There's a smaller surplus in Portland.)

My problem is that I don't live quite in the DC area, I'm about an hour away from downtown DC. And what I'm finding is that the desirable single women all live right in downtown DC, and do not want to date a man who lives an hour away. Now, if there were a healthy market of compatible men, this attitude would be quite understandable. But we're talking about a bunch of women who are bitching that they can't find any decent men to date, but then I come along and I'm told, "you look great, but you're too far away!! Sorry, but give me a ring when you move closer."

So IMO, these women are extremely picky and unrealistic. If I find someone I really like and might want to marry, I would move to be closer to her, just like married couples routinely move long-distance because one of them got a new job. I've even stated this up-front, as I do not plan to stay in my current location long-term (I'm a software engineer like probably half the audience here, our jobs don't last that long and we move around a lot). So as far as I can tell, many of these women have done this to themselves by being way too picky and having overly high expectations. They think they're going to find a guy who looks like George Clooney or whatever, has a $250j/year career, and lives across the street from them.

Might be related to how inflated the praise for higher degrees is. I mean, I know a JD or medical degree is no small feat, but it doesn't mean you're suddenly only good enough for the best of the best or are in some privileged genius tier (that goes for men and women).

Sadly, there are plenty of people in the world who are great at memorising but are actually horrible at applying their knowledge. While such degrees can be impressive achievements, it says very little about a person. I've met brilliant high school graduates and plain stupid people with phds. A lot of it depends on the person.

Ha, same area here, but exploring the pushing 35 range.

From what I've seen, I don't think they actually expect to meet George Clooney. After living with their independence and high paying job, 100% of which they can spend on them-self, usually enabling tons of international travel. They don't actually want to settle down and put work into a relationship, but their friends and family constantly pester them to do so.

So they settle for appearing desperate to keep their friends and family happy, but keeping standards high so that either the sacrifices to have a relationship would be worth it to them or they don't get a relationship they didn't want anyway.

I'm not sure about all that, but I will vouch for the tons of international travel bit. In fact, it's so bad I feel like a lot of these women are woefully ignorant about anything in the US that's outside of a few major cities, because they never go anywhere outside their city; any time they have a little vacation time they're flying to Argentina or Africa or something.

I disagree about them not wanting to actually be in a relationship, but I think what's happened is that they're so used to being single and free, and never having been in a serious relationship for that long, that they really have no idea how to do it, and it's probably a lost cause. They're now realizing they have to get started right now if they want to have natural kids, but they're not prepared to make the sacrifices you have to make in order to be in that kind of relationship.

In addition to my last comment regarding these ~40yo women now wanting to have kids, what's even worse is that it seems a ton of them are getting themselves inseminated (artificially or otherwise, probably artificially for these high-income women so they can screen the genetics of the donor more accurately) and deciding to become single moms.

As someone who was raised by a single mom, it's a horrible experience, and prepares you for a life of never being able to be successful in an adult relationship, because you've never seen such a relationship except maybe on TV (which we all know is not reflective of reality at all).

I do not see a good future here for our society. I'm not a social conservative in most ways (I'm a big believer in poly relationships for instance), but what I'm seeing with the 30-45 women makes me very worried for the future of our society. Maybe the Millenials and Gen-Zers will do a better job than us stupid Gen-Xers; they seem to be much more open-minded and willing to try out different relationship styles, rather than not having relationships at all.

The sad bit is that guys are more interested in their youth (or lack of thereof at 30) and looks rather than education... Hence CEOs marrying young secretaries. Cruel joke.

perhaps one reason people don't marry up or down often is that they do not tend to frequently interact. In a professional environment how often do you meet up with people not as the same or nearly the same level as you? Do many workers fraternize with their bosses when many are just more likely to complain upper management doesn't understand?

I would put most marry up/down on those who have frequent non professional outside activities. Whether its religious, a particular hobby, or simply a circle of friends whose careers all diverged.

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