I enjoyed this podcast. I remember going through all of this when I was dating in the 90’s. It’s all very murky. Weighing societal expectations, racist beauty myths, sexist double standards my character strengths and flaws and life desires even before trying add in this guy who has all that also going on in him. I found this podcast just as overwhelming.
I feel fortunate that I never dated on an app. I’m the type of person who will want to watch a movie and then end up watching 2 hours of trailers and give up on watching a movie. So I would probably never swipe in the direction you’re supposed to.
I don’t know why I wanted to marry, it was probably the societal respectability thing . I was a horrible dater. It did feel like a life project - like buying a house. Before my husband at 29 years old, my longest relationship was 3 months. I have ended multiple dates at appetizers. When my sons were starting to date I told them that my favorite word when dating was NEXT!
I remember telling myself, I only have to find one guy so do the work and get a good one or don’t do it at all. I also wanted a home where both is us felt like we could drop all that societal sexist racist patriarchy , men have to be strong, stuff at the door. I think we mostly managed this but it’s really hard because men have few incentives to give on their side. I also married an only child and his father and grandfather were only children ( they created the term “self centered”) so getting this guy to do his share, remember that his wants are just his was a good 7 year project.
It’s his birthday today and right now he is making space in the garage because we’re getting a new refrigerator that I brought without his approval and I’m in bed typing this.
PS. One thing that any black woman will tell you: Always be able to provide for yourself and your kids. Even if you win the marriage lottery and find faithful Brad Pitt with a good job - car accidents, cancer and active shooters are real things. If something happens to him, your kids will still deserve a decent launch.
PSS. Don’t have kids if you’re not willing to do 70 - 80% of the mental, physical and emotional work.
Beverley. Creating a home where you can drop all that social garbage at the door sounds like really hard work, but you did it. And you are still doing it. Congratulations on the new fridge!!!
One more thing : the part where you’re talking about the woman who worked all her life for a family being on her death bed and no one visiting. I could hear the pain in your voice and the fear that this could happen to you.
If society has it set up that you’re a housekeeper, safe sex partner and primary caregiver and you respond by meeting your husband sex needs, keeping house and raising kids with no demands for yourself. When those jobs are done or you’re no longer wanted for those jobs - why is anyone obligated to stay with you at the end of life. Who is sitting by the household cook or nanny’s bed side when she goes.
Raise your kids from about 2 to understand that you’re a real person not a mommy - let them know you good and bad. (trust me they’re going to find out or make up the bad anyway). When my kids were very little I told my husband the end goal of parenting is to get unsolicited phones calls when they’re adults and they don’t need anything. Parenting is a crap shoot - you can do everything right and your kid could still die from lukemia at 6 or and can die alone when you’re old because you have crappy kids or they’re too poor to travel back home or they are the kind that just can’t deal with death.
Really good podcast! Caused me to consider whether marriage is an overall good thing. Even though I divorced I thought of that as my failure, not an institutional failure. I suppose we’ve been sold this since birth.
I worked in the welfare dept in Oakland beginning in 1973. I read the old case dictations about household cleanliness and disassociation. The policy was if the man was in the home you were not eligible for cash assistance.
Social Workers made home visits and checked for evidence of a male such as shoes under the bed, I kid you not. Later the man could be there but you had to establish he had 40 quarters of work history and was doing job search or underemployed or that he was disabled.
Regarding rating women’s desirability by race, it is closely tied to how submissive men believe women will be. Black women are believed to be assertive, Asian women submissive. I have heard men say out loud they sought an Asian immigrant bride because American women in general were too assertive.
What a great conversation. Thanks, Dr Henderson and Lyz, for sharing it with us. Patriarchy and its institutional twin White Supremacy are comprehensively pernicious, pretty much the point of MYaM but additional perspectives always improve our worldview.
Well, unless you're the notorious Daniel Patrick Moynihan, that is. As a recovering political science major, I wondered even when I was enrolled (lo these many decades ago) how we could reconcile Moynihan's "liberal" urbanist reputation with the toxic impact of The Negro Family. We could not and we cannot; clearly we ought not. That damned report created the DLC's jumping-off point for "ending welfare as we knew it" and the demolition of last century's entire welfare state under Bubba Clinton. When do we declare a finish line for its half-life? Because only then can we begin to turn the beat around.
The myths of the Moynihan report are still going strong. A lot of new books "The Two Parent Privilege" and a lot of other thinkers including David Brooks are still using it to justify marriage as a solution for the social safety net. Part of why I wanted to write this book was because liberals believe this ish just as much as conservatives. So untangling the myths are a lifelong project, I think.
David Brooks! My stomach just turned! His current “how to know someone” tour is so off putting. Now he wants people to lecture people to be nice because the MAGA people dismiss him as an elitist and the left dismiss him for being David Brooks.
Moynihan et al didn't tangle up this analysis in a day, for sure. It will take at least that long, just so long as we start untangling, right? I know your journalism and Dr Henderson's research and a lot of other work is catalyzing that start, and I appreciate all your efforts.
Like all American institutions, marriage is compromised by our original sin (and all the other sins)... unless you're David Brooks. I am imagining his OK Cupid profile doubled as a want ad for research assistant -- very efficient -- and if not for the pesky irony of still being married to Wife The First while writing a book about character with the support of said research assistant, ugh, I try not to judge. We've all been through some shit, and there's always more than one side to a story. With Mr Brooks, though, I feel that urge to be impartial somewhat less.
To today's theme, however, and that simple declaration wherein emancipated women were leery of trading one form of subordination for another... wow. Powerful and, like the unfortunate Moynihan report, still resonating today.
I enjoyed this podcast. I remember going through all of this when I was dating in the 90’s. It’s all very murky. Weighing societal expectations, racist beauty myths, sexist double standards my character strengths and flaws and life desires even before trying add in this guy who has all that also going on in him. I found this podcast just as overwhelming.
I feel fortunate that I never dated on an app. I’m the type of person who will want to watch a movie and then end up watching 2 hours of trailers and give up on watching a movie. So I would probably never swipe in the direction you’re supposed to.
I don’t know why I wanted to marry, it was probably the societal respectability thing . I was a horrible dater. It did feel like a life project - like buying a house. Before my husband at 29 years old, my longest relationship was 3 months. I have ended multiple dates at appetizers. When my sons were starting to date I told them that my favorite word when dating was NEXT!
I remember telling myself, I only have to find one guy so do the work and get a good one or don’t do it at all. I also wanted a home where both is us felt like we could drop all that societal sexist racist patriarchy , men have to be strong, stuff at the door. I think we mostly managed this but it’s really hard because men have few incentives to give on their side. I also married an only child and his father and grandfather were only children ( they created the term “self centered”) so getting this guy to do his share, remember that his wants are just his was a good 7 year project.
It’s his birthday today and right now he is making space in the garage because we’re getting a new refrigerator that I brought without his approval and I’m in bed typing this.
PS. One thing that any black woman will tell you: Always be able to provide for yourself and your kids. Even if you win the marriage lottery and find faithful Brad Pitt with a good job - car accidents, cancer and active shooters are real things. If something happens to him, your kids will still deserve a decent launch.
PSS. Don’t have kids if you’re not willing to do 70 - 80% of the mental, physical and emotional work.
Beverley. Creating a home where you can drop all that social garbage at the door sounds like really hard work, but you did it. And you are still doing it. Congratulations on the new fridge!!!
One more thing : the part where you’re talking about the woman who worked all her life for a family being on her death bed and no one visiting. I could hear the pain in your voice and the fear that this could happen to you.
If society has it set up that you’re a housekeeper, safe sex partner and primary caregiver and you respond by meeting your husband sex needs, keeping house and raising kids with no demands for yourself. When those jobs are done or you’re no longer wanted for those jobs - why is anyone obligated to stay with you at the end of life. Who is sitting by the household cook or nanny’s bed side when she goes.
Raise your kids from about 2 to understand that you’re a real person not a mommy - let them know you good and bad. (trust me they’re going to find out or make up the bad anyway). When my kids were very little I told my husband the end goal of parenting is to get unsolicited phones calls when they’re adults and they don’t need anything. Parenting is a crap shoot - you can do everything right and your kid could still die from lukemia at 6 or and can die alone when you’re old because you have crappy kids or they’re too poor to travel back home or they are the kind that just can’t deal with death.
Really good podcast! Caused me to consider whether marriage is an overall good thing. Even though I divorced I thought of that as my failure, not an institutional failure. I suppose we’ve been sold this since birth.
I worked in the welfare dept in Oakland beginning in 1973. I read the old case dictations about household cleanliness and disassociation. The policy was if the man was in the home you were not eligible for cash assistance.
Social Workers made home visits and checked for evidence of a male such as shoes under the bed, I kid you not. Later the man could be there but you had to establish he had 40 quarters of work history and was doing job search or underemployed or that he was disabled.
Regarding rating women’s desirability by race, it is closely tied to how submissive men believe women will be. Black women are believed to be assertive, Asian women submissive. I have heard men say out loud they sought an Asian immigrant bride because American women in general were too assertive.
Thanks for this podcast!
What a great conversation. Thanks, Dr Henderson and Lyz, for sharing it with us. Patriarchy and its institutional twin White Supremacy are comprehensively pernicious, pretty much the point of MYaM but additional perspectives always improve our worldview.
Well, unless you're the notorious Daniel Patrick Moynihan, that is. As a recovering political science major, I wondered even when I was enrolled (lo these many decades ago) how we could reconcile Moynihan's "liberal" urbanist reputation with the toxic impact of The Negro Family. We could not and we cannot; clearly we ought not. That damned report created the DLC's jumping-off point for "ending welfare as we knew it" and the demolition of last century's entire welfare state under Bubba Clinton. When do we declare a finish line for its half-life? Because only then can we begin to turn the beat around.
The myths of the Moynihan report are still going strong. A lot of new books "The Two Parent Privilege" and a lot of other thinkers including David Brooks are still using it to justify marriage as a solution for the social safety net. Part of why I wanted to write this book was because liberals believe this ish just as much as conservatives. So untangling the myths are a lifelong project, I think.
David Brooks! My stomach just turned! His current “how to know someone” tour is so off putting. Now he wants people to lecture people to be nice because the MAGA people dismiss him as an elitist and the left dismiss him for being David Brooks.
I've already used "that fucking guy" as an exasperated response, but it does apply here.
hahaha this is the funniest and truest encapsulation of David Brooks I've ever read.
Moynihan et al didn't tangle up this analysis in a day, for sure. It will take at least that long, just so long as we start untangling, right? I know your journalism and Dr Henderson's research and a lot of other work is catalyzing that start, and I appreciate all your efforts.
Like all American institutions, marriage is compromised by our original sin (and all the other sins)... unless you're David Brooks. I am imagining his OK Cupid profile doubled as a want ad for research assistant -- very efficient -- and if not for the pesky irony of still being married to Wife The First while writing a book about character with the support of said research assistant, ugh, I try not to judge. We've all been through some shit, and there's always more than one side to a story. With Mr Brooks, though, I feel that urge to be impartial somewhat less.
To today's theme, however, and that simple declaration wherein emancipated women were leery of trading one form of subordination for another... wow. Powerful and, like the unfortunate Moynihan report, still resonating today.