Quote of the week

"The war of the sexes is over, and we won. We won when women started doing pole dancing as exercise."

~Ryan Gosling's character in Crazy, Stupid Love


(Is it just me, or are we seeing Game being taught--like it is in the movie--more now in popular culture?)

Which is more common: single moms or married homemakers? In the debate concerning sex, marriage and family, I'd like to avoid the extremes of folks who say on one side that the diversification of family life is to be celebrated and those on the other side who claim that traditional family life is dead and Armageddon looms. Big themes like this have to be addressed with data in pieces, so here's my first installment.

Using General Social Survey data (N = 1,872), I calculated the percentage of all white moms ages 20-45 in this decade who have a least one child who: 1) have never been married; or 2) are married homemakers. Which group do you think is larger? Out all of these moms, 11.4% are never-marrieds; 18.9% are married homemakers. When I was a undergraduate almost 20 years ago, I read that the number was close to 20%. It hasn't changed. The American family is becoming de-institutionalized: absent social pressures and economic incentives to conform to the traditional ideal, people are pursuing personal preferences. Behavior is now reflecting individual personalities more, so the future is likely to be a real mix of arrangements, but many people, like my wife who is a homemaker, will choose a traditional (and societally constructive) lifestyle because it suits them. Of course, I'd prefer to see a traditionalist revival, but I'm not that optimistic.

Trends in attitudes toward Affirmative Action for women

Males, N = 1,490

Females, N = 1,808

There is so much talk in HBD World over the battle of the sexes, I need to remember to weigh in with data where I can.

The General Social Survey posed the following question: "Some people say that because of past discrimination, women should be given preference in hiring and promotion. Others say that such preference in hiring and promotion of women is wrong because it discriminates against men. What about your opinion - are you for or against preferential hiring and promotion of women? Do you favor/oppose preference in hiring and promotion strongly or not strongly?"

The graphs show trends in the responses for white men and women. My first observation is that 23% of men in 2008 need to be bitch slapped for favoring discrimination against men. What the hell is wrong with you?

Second, while a majority of women are against gender preferences, the number favoring it is going up a bit. This is true for both sexes, which the exact wrong trend. The country has become gender neutral at the workplace. What is called for is less sex-conciousness, not more. Wanting to put a woman at the front of the line because she has a innie instead of an outie is a power grab, pure and simply. Justice plays no role in it whatsoever. It's a let's-stick-it-to-a-man-today mentality. This is a bad sign. People are increasingly buying into identity politics, and it's got to stop.