I agree that our societal norms haven't caught up with the fact that there are no longer enough high status men and low status women for all the women to marry up anymore, so the social pressure is still there but it seems to be changing fairly quickly.
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/apr/08/marriage-and-c...
Do I detect a roissysphere shibboleth? :)
Even if all women wanted was power, we are playing a zero-sum, I-got-mine, race-to-the-bottom, everyone-loses game if we demand total devotion to status, and I don't think most women want that either. Already 25% of stay-at-home parents are men. The majority of women are now in the work force. Egalitarian marriages last longer. Things are changing, and we can help them change faster by opting out of that self-destructive game.
That doesn't mean giving up on being able to find a romantic relationship, however. There is a difference between being a bum and not seeking to dominate the people around us to get ahead at all cost. I'd recommend reading http://postmasculine.com/ for the dating advice that worked best for me. Much like weight loss, there are no short cuts to becoming capable of having satisfying relationships. It is hard work to move from desperation to a place where relationships are one possible way your life could be a bit nicer, but certainly not the only one. On the other hand, I found it worth the energy.
I'm not insinuating that women are generally gold-diggers. I'm saying that ultimately status and income are considerations that come into play when it comes to the mating game. Physical attractiveness aside, a male doctor or male CEO is going to attract more interest than a male barista by virtue of his occupation and income. Income and wealth for men is a sometimes a consideration not different from height.
Let's put it another way: A minority male in the U.S. like an Asian male who earns a certain amount above the average is going to have significantly a lot more choices in interracial pairings than if he were at a low paying job. Statistics show that Caucasians females rarely marry Asians in the United States, but when they do, that pairing has the highest median income level compared to every other pairing in the U.S., including Caucasian/Caucasian and Asian/Asian. Anecdotally, all the Asian men I know who married Caucasian female are well-paid relative to the average Asian American male.
You clearly do not live in San Francisco.
If you sacrifice happiness for marriage, and get a crappier marriage than you would otherwise have in the bargin, what is the point?
Not in Silicon Valley. In Ohio, maybe.
I recommend reading David Buss's textbook, Evolutionary Psychology, 4th edition. In particular, Women's Long Term Mating Strategies, where the first heading is Preference for Economic Resources. Women consistently rate importance of economic resources in partner twice(!) higher than men. This is consistent from 1930 to today, and does not change whether most women are in the work force or not. As a textbook, it has lots of references you can check yourself.
Exactly. Women want a man that can provide (this is usually achieved through money and power). Just like men want a woman that's attractive.
I don't know why people want to go against human nature or try to pretend that it's a bad thing or it doesn't exist.
There was a study done sometime back at a Swedish university (I can't find the link at the moment) where they had the same mindset as you. A family raised a son and totally removed all male-oriented things from his life. They even gave him dolls to play with. He ended up gravitating towards male-centric things and they stopped the study.
One of the best study is International Preferences in Selecting Mates. This is a large study (N=9474) with samples from six continents, from cultures with monogamy and polygyny, etc.
No reasons except that we already know from separated twin studies that genetics plays a strong role in behavioral traits. Then also as you look at other places in the animal kingdom where learned behavior takes a greatly reduced role to wired/instinctive behavior we see many analogues. Birds provide many examples whereby the male must demonstrate his ability to provide an environment, sustenance, and protection for potential mates. Some male birds build their nests that the females examine before choosing a mate. Other birds demonstrate athletic abilities through dance.
Saying that it's just as likely that male/female behaviors are learnt as they are inborn is akin to saying that it's just as likely that having a womb to give birth with is just as likely learnt as inborn.
It's funny how selective our analogies to nature are sometimes.
Thinking up an example of a different trait attributed to the opposite sex in humans is completely irrelevant.
If you want to address this subject in a meaningful way -- rather than find a nit-pick over an analogy while obtusely missing the point, maybe you should look into refuting the mountain of twin study evidence that shows that nurture lost in the nature vs nurture debate.
Second the call for a rationale for this. In fact, I would wager that the opposite is true.
Do you have any data for that, or even a rigorous definition of an "egalitarian marriage?"
How is race among the others in the status ladder?
Isn't that a double edged sword? That prestige and power is an attraction and sometimes necessity for men to court women. While I know it does happen, it's rare to find women who marry 'down' in the status ladder (be it race, income, or position). And as a marginalized male minority in the U.S., I know for certain that even good well-adjusted women wouldn't have given me the time of day if I wasn't earning a certain amount or at a high level or at a great company.