Di Amerika Serikat:
Women don't want men? Ha!
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While it's easy to blame men, many of the wounds women bear from
failed relationships and loneliness are self-inflicted.
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0701210502jan21,0,7092589.story?coll=chi-news-hed
By Jeffery M. Leving and Glenn Sacks
Published January 21, 2007
The recent census data finding that for the first time the
majority of American women are unmarried is being greeted in a
largely celebratory tone. One newspaper explains, "Who needs a
man? Not most women." MSNBC warns, "Watch out, men! More women
opt to live alone." CBS says, "More women saying `I don't.'" One
newspaper cartoon depicts a happily divorced woman remembering
her ex-husband bellowing, "Where's my dinner?! Iron my shirts!!
Lose weight!!!" Several others depict women pondering the single
life as their fat, lazy husbands drink beer and watch TV sports.
One female blogger summed up the female blogosphere's
reaction--"Hurray for all single women! You go girls!"
The message is clear--men don't measure up, and are no longer
needed nor often even wanted. Since women have careers now, we
are told, men's traditional contribution--financial support--has
become largely irrelevant, and men do not now nor did they ever
contribute much more than that.
In reality, men give a lot to their families--as much as women
do. The current trend away from marriage and toward divorce
and/or remaining single has more to do with overcritical women
and their excessive expectations than it does with unsuitable men.
The most common charge leveled at men is that they don't hold up
their end in the home. Men do work, many critics say, but women
work too, and also do most of the child-care and housework--the
"second shift."
Research contradicts this. Census data show that only 40 percent
of married women with children under 18 work full-time, and more
than a quarter do not hold a job outside the home. According to
the Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2004 Time Use Survey, men spend 1
1/2 times as many hours working as women do, and full-time
employed men still work significantly more hours than full-time
employed women. When work outside the home and inside the home
are properly considered, it is clear that men do at least as much
as women. A 2002 University of Michigan Institute for Social
Research survey found that women do 11 more hours of housework a
week than men, but men work at their jobs 14 hours a week more
than women. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, men's
total time at leisure, sleeping, doing personal-care activities
or socializing is a statistically meaningless 1 percent higher
than women's. The Families and Work Institute in New York City
found that fathers, despite their greater market labor load,
provide three-fourths as much child-care as mothers do. And these
studies do not account for the fact, strongly supported by
federal Department of Labor data, that men's jobs tend to be more
dangerous and physically straining than women's.
To what, then, do we attribute women's discontent with marriage
and relationships, and the fact that they initiate the vast
majority of divorces? A new Woman's Day magazine poll found that
56 percent of married women would not or might not marry their
husbands if they could choose again.
Nobody would dispute that, in selecting a mate, women are more
discerning than men. This is an evolutionary necessity--a woman
must carefully evaluate who is likely to remain loyal to her and
protect and provide for her and her children. If a man and a
woman go on a blind date and don't hit it off, the man will shrug
and say "it went OK." The woman will give five reasons why he's
not right for her.
A woman's discerning, critical nature doesn't disappear on her
wedding day. Most marital problems and marriage counseling
sessions revolve around why the wife is unhappy with her husband,
even though they could just as easily be about why the husband is
unhappy with the wife. In this common pre-divorce scenario there
are only two possibilities--either she's a great wife and he's a
lousy husband, or she's far more critical of him than he is of
her. Usually it's the latter.
Despite last week's media homilies, it's doubtful that many men
or women are truly happy alone. Much of women's cheerful "I don't
need a man/I love my cats" reaction has a hollow ring to it, and
sounds a lot more like whistling in the dark than a celebration.
Yes, there are some men who make poor mates, but not nearly
enough to account for the divorce epidemic and the decline of
marriage. While it's easy to blame men, many of the wounds women
bear from failed relationships and loneliness are self-inflicted.
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Jeffery M. Leving is a Chicago lawyer and author of "Divorce
Wars: A Field Guide to the Winning Tactics, Pre-emptive Strikes,
and Top Maneuvers When Divorce Gets Ugly."
Glenn Sacks is a columnist on men's and fathers' issues.
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
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