Strong families include marriage and children, and strong families strengthen communities, states, and nations. However, young women are turning away from love and marriage, according to an article by Maria Baer and Brad Wilcox in the Deseret News.
Maria
is a journalist and co-host of the “Breakpoint This Week” podcast with The
Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Brad Wilcox is director of the National
Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and senior fellow of the
Institute for Family Studies.
Legend
has it that the Amazons, the warrior women of Greek mythology, built a
civilization on a single premise: Women could build a world of their own
without men.
The
Amazons kept no husbands. They raised only daughters, sending their sons away,
and they even cauterized their breasts so nothing would get in the way of their
ability to fight. The legend reflects a fantasy that has appealed to different
times, places and people: that a woman becomes strongest not by pairing with a
man but by providing for and protecting herself — often with the support of
some strong sisters.
Millennia
later, many young American women are embracing this Amazonian strategy of
detachment from men, minus the sword and the horse. They’re doing it by
deleting dating apps, posting “boy sober” TikToks, enjoying Sunday brunches
spent with just female friends, and hardening their conviction that men are
more trouble than they’re worth.
Young
women say they are put off by men who toy with their bodies and emotions, and
those who seem stuck in “limbo between adolescence and adulthood,” dubbed
child-men. They are discouraged by mainstream media depictions of men
as emotionally and socially stunted, as well as those presented by influencers who
get clicks by painting men and marriage in the worst possible light.
In
short, growing numbers of young women are being tempted by heteropessimism.
This
pessimism is reflected in young women’s declining faith in love and marriage.
Only 24% of women 18–29 believe “married mothers are ultimately
happier than other women,” far lower than any other group. High school girls’
hopes for marriage are also retreating: In 2010, more than 80%
expected to marry; now it’s just 67%.
Dating
tells the same story: We’re in a “dating recession.” Pew found 39% of
single women under 40 aren’t even looking for a relationship at all, and our
own research at the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley
Institute shows more than 80% of eligible women in their 20s and 30s aren’t
dating anyone seriously. A growing number of young women seem content — or
resigned to — going through life without a man.
We
understand the appeal of the Amazonian strategy. But the apostles of women
going their own way — like the Hollywood actress feted in The New York Times for declaring herself
“choicefully single, happily, gloriously single” — miss something crucial: For
all too many, this path leads not to liberation, but to a more
anxious, lonely and unhappy life. Unmarried, childless women in their 20s and
30s are nearly three times more likely to be unhappy with their lives compared
to married mothers the same age (25-39), according to the General Social
Survey. Heteropessimism really is a trap.
Perhaps
that explains why so many hurting women in their 30s are showing up for help at
the office of Suzanne Venker, an author and life coach who recently discussed
the pattern with Chris Williamson on his “Modern Wisdom” podcast. These
30-something women are coming to Venker desperate to start or sustain a good
family life but with no idea how to do so. Most spent their 20s building the
scaffolding of independence — careers, savings, status — exactly as second-wave
feminism had scripted, while dating and family sat on the back burner.
By
the time they feel “ready” in their 30s, the switch doesn’t flip on command.
Many found it hard to find a good man given that the pool in their immediate
circles had shrunk; others found unanticipated difficulty in pivoting from a
life focused on career and travel to marriage and young kids; still others
found getting pregnant difficult or impossible, especially if they were in
their late 30s. The Amazonian detachment they leaned into in their 20s, it
turns out, does not reverse itself just because a woman decides she’s finally
ready for a family.
Venker
now has a project “to help younger women avoid the pitfalls” that she sees in
her older clients. She offers three guideposts:
First,
if you find a good guy, be open to marrying “youngish” (mid to late 20s,
broadly defined). The husband hunt gets harder after 30, and today’s dating
market isn’t doing anyone any favors. Women looking to make a smarter choice
should be open to playing the odds early, starting with the biggest poll some
of them will ever encounter: college. This also widens the window for building
a family….
Second,
she recommends dating with intention. “There’s just so much pretending going on”
in modern dating, Venker say, and her fix is blunt: “Just get it out on the
table in the first three dates” in terms of what you’re looking for in life and
love – in terms of family, career and whether or not you and your partner are
aiming for something more casual or committed.
If
family matters to you, figure out if the man you’re sitting across from on a
dinner date is marriage material. This includes sizing up a man’s character and
his professional possibilities – not his wealth, but his reliability as a
provider….
She
points to a telling gap in public opinion: 71% of Americans believe a man
should be able to provide for his family while only 32% say the same of women….
Third,
Venker says women who are particularly family-minded should choose a career
that complements their future family dreams rather than competes with them. In
college, for instance, this means picking a major “that works well with the
kind of life you want to have down the line,” flexible enough to be “done
part-time or from home,” rather than choosing an expensive degree that locks in
a decade or more of debt just as her priorities start to shift….
This
strategy isn’t for every woman, but her point is that those who want to
prioritize family would be wise to aim for careers with built-in flexibility –
nursing and teaching are classic examples, financial advising and consulting
are newer ones – that allow for part-time or freelance work and make it easier
to combine work and motherhood.
In
essence, Venker is asking young women to do what might seem unthinkable: plan
for a future they’re not sure they’ll want, because they’re immersed in a
culture that prizes Amazonian detachment. In this culture, to date with
marriage in mind, and to choose a career with a future family in mind, is to
swim upstream….
However
regressive some commentators find it, most women end up being ambitious for
family life, even as many are also ambitious for rich intellectual and
professional ones too. And the women who build families with men in marriage
are among the happiest in the country….
