I was reading this rather lengthy piece in the Washington Post about how young women are afraid to fall in love and realizing that I don’t really understand this emerging generation. But then it occurred to me: there is already a major gender gap with women favoring the Democratic Party. Is this new generation going to have any time for Dan Qualyle’s paroxysms about family values? I mean, let’s look at what these women are saying.
To tell a man “I need you” is like saying “I’m incomplete without you.” A young man might say that and sound affectionate. But to an ambitious young woman, who has been taught to define power on her terms and defend it against all comers, need signals weakness…
…A college senior from Dallas with deep brown eyes and thick hair to match was describing a man she had hooked up with a couple of times. Despite her best efforts, she said, she was falling for him and that worried her.
“It will suck if it’s bad,” she said, “but it will suck even more if it’s good.”
She explained: Her number-one goal, for as long as she could remember, was to excel in school so that she might someday land a great job that would make her financially independent. In high school, she maintained an A average, played volleyball and rowed crew, edited the digital yearbook and played on a church basketball team that won the state championship. Her pace in college was similarly brisk, and she didn’t see how, even in her senior year, she could afford to invest time, energy and emotion in a loving relationship.
At her 21st birthday party she talked about this with a girlfriend who understood. As the friend said, over the recorded sounds of rapper Jay-Z, “I don’t have time or energy to worry about a ‘we.'”
Or take a look at this exchange:
Student 1: and we layed [sic] in bed and talked for like four hours and like had sex during the whole thing; it was really like a moment; like he held me sooo tight for the rest of the night; i woke up like really close to him; and i felt something . . . .
Student 2: that’s incredible intimacy . . . do you love him?
Student 1: i am scared of loving him.
Student 2 because of what being in love will do to you
Student 1: because of what does that say about me . . . i’m just a weepy girl who relies on someone . . . i want to be independent and i think that it is important for women of our generation but by saying i love someone and need him it’s like contradictory . . . hypocritical . . . but i also don’t want to give into love because i am scared he won’t call me . . . and i will be heartbroken and then feel like a stupid girl that should have known better.”
This opens up a whole lot of avenues for discussion. But one thing I think is safe to say is that these women aren’t going to be very sympathetic to the Republican Party message on abstinence and the centrality of marriage, and the importance of a mother in the kitchen…basically the whole package.
Am I wrong?
involve a certain lack of trust in a relationship. Will it mean they are weak? Will it mean they are dependent? Will the fellow even call back? I wonder how the guys feel?
pick republicanism, we are in big trouble. It is the nature of smart young people to break molds and the status quo, and the generation of the sixties and seventies certainly did that. However, a lot of them became more conservative as they got into their forties and fifties. I guess what I am saying is that you are describing a fairly normal phenomenon among smarter, ambitious young folks that probably was greater 30 years ago. However folks seem to change away from that with age.
Do you believe what you are seeing in your story is greater now than 30 years ago or less?? If greater, well that is good for Dems at least in the short term. If less, it is not so good now or later comparatively.
haven’t caught up to reality.
Most of these young girls have been brought up on “either/or” depictions of relationships — either you’re the 100% career woman, hopping from relationship to relationship while never becoming totally involved, or the wife/mother with the job on the side. That’s the picture that’s seen in a lot of movies, TV shows, and the like.
Real relationships, on the other hand, are rarely that black and white — they involve myriad shades of grey. A good relationship involves compromise, negotiation, giving up one thing to get something better…but you can’t show that in a 23 minute (after commercials) sitcom or a 90minute chick flick.
Maybe it’s better to wait to get married anyway — I didn’t marry till I was 32 (and the spouse was 35). We both had a lot of growing up to do before we were ready for each other. Maybe once you have a complete sense of who you are, then you’re ready to see yourself as part of a twosome…
I wonder like what she felt when like she woke up and like felt something…? Sorry, I’m having a 90210 moment.
I thought even a young woman in the emerging generation would know what it is she felt when she rolled over in the middle of the night.
Now I have to clean off my computer screen…
Oh migod! Like get it off quick before it like ruins your keyboard!
😀 😀 😀
okay, glad YOU said it. I was trying to behave. 😀
I certainly don’t know the long-term political ramifications, but I hope these young women don’t end up like a couple of my friends, who focused on their careers for so long that by the time they got married and desperately wanted children, sorry, too late, missed their window of opportunity.
Skimmed through the article, and truth be told, that’s exactly how I was from the ages of 15-22. Back in the mid to late 70s we hung out in groups rather than couples, and for whatever reason I backed off from offers related to dating or attending the prom – can’t explain it, it just weirded me out. In contrast, my husband had been in long-term relationships prior to our meeting, so we were coming from completely different universes, where he had trouble understanding my independent nature.
What I do know is this, for me, it wasn’t a learned behavior, because even in my toddler/pre-school years, my parents referred to me as an “independent little cuss”. In contrast, it sounds like these girls have been spoon-fed something negative about their self-worth and relationships, and it sounds really, really sad. Especially for the young men in that age range. It’s one thing to be independent, but it’s another thing altogether to view yourself as weak for falling in love. yikes.
I was an independent little cuss too. And I was NOT going to get married and have babies. I was going to have a career and just maybe, someday, have a child or two, with or without a man.
So what happened? Got married at 19 and had 4 kids by 29. Except for the kids I’d do what I thought I would when I was 17…I’d do everything differently. But I wimped out and went for safety.
wow, SN – just the fact that you said you wimped out makes me sad. Look at those four beautiful results of your so called “wimp out”. (Speaking of which, I hope your daughter is doing really well with her recovery!)
My father’s Ukrainian culture was wiped off the face of the map, through stigmas about immigrants, but there was ONE term that remained in his language. (the spelling of which I’d demolish, so I’ll just leave that alone) Throughout my childhood I thought it was a term of endearment they saved just for me… but I found out as an adult that the word meant “little shit”.
It’s all in the tone, not the actual meaning. Little shit sounds like an endearment to me. 🙂
(psst…I figured it would, otherwise I wouldn’t have shared it) 🙂
That’s interesting Anomalous. My brother and I had the same experience with an Italian “endearment” with roughly the same meaning – stronzo – although I think it was usually direct towards him rather than me.
Say it with a sweet smile or else you will have a fight on your hands.
And so it goes…takes so little to find the endearing commonalities among us (even though – truth be told – you would have gained just a little bit more street cred had you been the frequent recipient of the phrase stronzo.) :^)
g’night (or g’morning, as the case may be)
Daughters don’t need no street cred… kitchen cred, definitely!
Anyway, I was called testa dura, literally meaning hard head.
Now why would anyone think that I’m stubborn? 😉
This seems like one of those freelance articles you might find in Redbook. Actually I see upon further review it’s just a free advertising piece for the author’s full-length book.
I understand the attitudes of the women in this article but they all seem to be part of a minority – people with “careers”. I didn’t see a word about what people are doing in the vast slice of Americana where there are no careers, just a lifetime of being the working poor.
I don’t think you can squeeze any group into any box. People will do what they want to do. But so long as two incomes are necessary to raise children, people (even those in the article) will get married.
Pax
Felt the same way, soj. Those girls did not reflect the attitudes of any of the young women I know (and thanks for pointing out the advertising angle, didn’t pick up on that through my brief skimming)
In line with your comment, I just got off the phone with a niece, who had three children by the time she was 19. Now that she’s 22, she just enrolled in college, and I wanted to let her know how proud I was of her efforts. In response, she told me that her college education would be inconceivable if her husband hadn’t stepped up to the plate to take on so many extra responsibilities, and to give her the moral support she needed.
There really is a growing divide in this country between those with choices and those without. And the media reflects that by building these memes.
a weird formatting thing (on my end I’m sure) is not allowing me to see all of the other comments–part, but not all–which makes reading them annoying…anyway
I think this does overall bode well for attracking young educated women to a liberal stance, but it also falls right into a cloying right-wing position: that independant women are killing the American family and demasculating our men at the same time!
I think it’s great that women are geting out of college and going after some careers. And men should work with that…find a mixture of time and care giving that allows both to enjoy the professional life and the family life that works for them. F* anyone else who thinks your wife is spending too little or too much time at home or vice-versa for the hubby…
As I said in my title edit: Live your life…you only get one
Somehow this seems appropriate for this thread. (Give it a sec to load).
That is horribly offensive. “Happy VD” indeed.
Blue Mountain was a good site until they sold out. I hope you will never be tempted to cash out and let the frog pond become a cesspool.
I think the comments so far are missing the message here.
Women are more liberated now than ever. I think it’s FANTASTIC. They are not kowtowing to a role, they are expressing total freedom to chose. Isn’t that what my generation fought for and manifested?
Are you all whining that these young women and men aren’t fitting into the stereotypes you submitted to? (cf. Second Nature’s comment about wishing for an independent life without kids, but finding herself unmanifest)
I think this is fantastic. It’s a brave new world out there, it’s what equality really is, and no one here seems to grasp that this is what’s happening. We are getting true equality, and these young people are the manifestation.
Hurrah! Raw though it may seem, the post-War generation’s kids really have it going on. Accept it folks, they aren’t guilted into roles, the culture is shifting!
I’ve fallen between the cracks, because I was thinking like this long before it was fashionable, which probably explains why I’m still single, after all these years. But a true partnership is incredibly hard to find, and I could never bring myself to settle for less.
I don’t know. Viewing love as weakness is, in fact, very Republican.
Much ado about nuthin. I prefer that a girl of only twentytwo- is more concerned with homework than marriage.
This author, sounds like a covert neocon shill to me.
Women, continued to seek equality despite their silly religious right revival in the 80s and this 50s mentality will have even less of an effect on these girls than it did on their mothers.
Furthermore I believe them when the say they have no time for a relationship. We don’t have paid leave in this country for new parents and we have no universally subsidized daycare. If it causes a drop in the birth rate that is societies problem, not the problem of ambitious girls.
I’m still trying to dig myself out of the gender shitpile that was dumped on me and my generation (I’m 55) and still trying to find some authentic sorts of relationships but so much is poisoned. It’s pretty much the same old shtuff in different clothing trumpeted as the truth for everyone over and over again. I blame it for causing my friend Patty so much pain that she committed suicide. I was feeling pretty OK after nearly a year of anxiety and melancholy until yesterday when I had some sort of Valentine’s day relapse. Guess I haven’t quite figured it out yet after all…
I am 36, and discussing moving in with my 25 year old girlfriend (or rather she with me, i’m the homeowner).
“I don’t have time or energy to worry about a ‘we.'”
I know exactly what that means, and I have the same worry. I am so caught up in my own shit: single parent, deeply in debt, trying to develop in my career…
Oh they say they don’t want to fall in love, want to be independent, etc. But all that goes out the window when they meet a guy who is good looking enough, smooth enough, etc.
Well I don’t have to worry ever about a woman not falling in love with me because she’s “afraid to”. All my life when I’ve told females I had feelings for them, all I get is “I only like you as a friend” or “you’re not my type” or “I’m not ready for a relationship”, oh but they’re ready for a relationship with a different guy, just not me!
I’m sick of hearing of women WANTING this guy or that guy, but they’re afraid of being hurt. At least these guys have the ego trip of knowing good looking women want them at all.
Women apparently don’t want a guy like me, who wouldn’t care where he was or what he was doing, as long as he was with her. And who asks her opinion on all kinds of things, politics, relationships, religion, etc. And whatever she says sounds good to me. Apparently women don’t want a guy who thinks that much of her.
There’s “seduction” gurus who teach losers how to get women to be hot for them. Basically it goes like this: impress her, then pull back, impress her then pull back. Make her work for his affection, not the other way around.
Well that’s too much effort, to try to impress a woman. I play PS2 and I go on the internet. That’s it, end of list. I like being safe. I like not trying new things because the less you experience, the less can happen to you.
I’m NOT exciting, I’m NOT fun, I’m NOT in good shape, I’m NOT financially stable, I’m NOT confident nor independent, and I’m NOT interested in having a family because I’m too lazy and self-absorbed to want to spend my time and money raising kids. But I am safe, polite, and would never hit her or cheat on her. That should be enough.
I’m also sick of people thinking that if a guy is past a certain age, never had a relationship and a virgin, that there’s something wrong with him. Have they never stopped to think that maybe he’s just a perfectly normal guy with low self-esteem and self-confidence? A perfectly normal guy who just doesn’t have much interest in other people, except wanting a girlfriend because he has needs? I mean there are countless guys out there just like me, so it’s perfectly normal.
I need a hot looking g/f to hang all over me in public, make me feel important, make me feel attractive, etc. And I should be able to have that just as I am.