Why There Are No Good Men Left: The Romantic Plight of the New Single Woman

by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead

A hard-hitting, groundbreaking exploration of the new mating conditions that are changing the face of love, commitment, and marriage as we know it.

A double revolution is at work in modern American A revolution in higher education has created the most professionally accomplished and independent generation of young women in history, and a revolution in mating has created a prolonged and perplexing search for Mr. Right. Based on extensive research and interviews, Why There Are No Good Men Left explores the romantic plight of this high-status woman with findings that are sure to rouse debate.

Cultural historian, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead documents the new social climate in which the demands of work, the epidemic of cohabitation, the disappearance of courtship, and the exacting standards of educated women are leading them to stay single longer–and to find the search for a mate even harder when the time is right. From the frontlines of college, where dating is dead, to the trenches of corporate solitude, Whitehead reports on a wholesale shift that has stacked the marriage deck against the best and brightest women.

The thirty-something, perplexed single woman is today’s new cultural icon. Why There Are No Good Men Left is the first book to take a serious approach to analyzing where she came from and to ask how she can realize her dreams of lasting love.

Genres: Nonfiction, Relationships

224 pages, Paperback

First published December 24, 2002

About the author

Co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University. She lectures and writes about family and child well-being. On April 28, 2004, she gave testimony before the US Senate sub-committee on children and families.

She grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin, earned a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, studied at Columbia University as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in American Social History from the University of Chicago. She holds an honorary doctorate in letters from Lawrence University.

She her husband, Ralph Whitehead Jr., have three children and live in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Ron Irwin]

Interesting book that is sure to ignite controversy in any cocktail party. There are two main points and one that is kind of frightening:

1. Women spend a great deal of their prime childbearing time studying and working (and dating). Actually, most of it.

2. Once their careers are up and running, they start to look for a serious partner (Whitehead says this happens at 30). This is too late.

Why?

3. Scary point: By the time a woman is 30, most of the "good" men from her peer group are taken. "Good men" in the author's view seem to be employed men who could be responsible fathers. 30 year-old educated women start looking around for husbands only to find that their male peers have either settled down or else all the men they meet up to 40+ who could be good marriage material want women who are 25 or younger.

Those younger women, in turn, are not looking for marriage, so they offer men an "easy" option of fun without responsibility to men who might otherwise be coaxed into marriage.

Bottom line? 30 year old women are toxic: men know they want marriage and kids, while the more attractive younger girls want fun.

BTW...women who are 35 or 40+? They face a harder path.

Scarier: Hard working women with good jobs requiring an education are starting to outnumber men in almost all fields. This is because a huge chunk of educated men are just disappearing from the social scene (presumably back to mom's couch or to basement apartments where they play World of Warcraft).

BTW This "missing group" of men is documented by New Zealand researcher Paul Callister, he calls it the "Man Drought" see http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/548...

So...30 year old women face a TRIPLE problem: the good guys get snapped up, or search out 25 year olds, or do not launch.

This means women have to set their sights lower (maybe marry a plumber or a less than good looking guy); decide to get married early, or find new dating techniques (the Internet?).

OR they need to decide if they want marriage or a job...and if they want the former they need to get working on it earlier.

Is this correct? I can say that men my age who are divorced or single have been surprised by how man women 30 or younger really want to meet them. It is also interesting to note how many men seem to be avowedly single, forever playing the field. An employed, good looking guy could regularly date women under 30 until he is 40 and only then move the bar up to women in their 30's and early 40s. Two of my peers got married in their 50s, for the first time, to beautiful, successful women in their early 30s.

The problem? Men who do this forget that younger women are demanding in all sorts of ways they did not anticipate. Being 45 and meeting the parents of your live in 29-year old gf is a little awkward. Hanging out in clubs with women who are used to going home at 4 AM can get tiring for a guy over 40. And her peer group is essentially boring---you can be a top exec socializing exclusively with women at the bottom of the corporate ladder. This is a brain drain for men who are used to being around high powered older people all day. The points of parity are just not there.

More than that, younger women who get that commitment from older Lotharios expect kids (this is why they entered this evil pact in the first place, otherwise they could just chill with one of the good looking failure to launch guys they know from college. She may have to pay for his drinks but he's lots of fun, never gets tired, and listens to the same music).

Pulling all nighters with a baby when you are 30 is easy. But 50 year old men who try to have kids find that its rather tough..one might think they start to envy their stay-a-home peers who cashed in their chips and married in their twenties and by 50 are sending their kids off to college while the dino-dads are wiping vomit off the granite counters and the Porsche's upholstery.

[Sarah Kinder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book for a school paper a few years back and loved it! I thought some of the points are extremely interesting. It’s worth a read.

[Jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't say I was much impressed. I did appreciate the explanation she gave about there no longer being a standard or social culture about dating. It's so up-in-the-air with all the different kinds of participants, that there is no norm. I thought her point about baby boomer parenting coinciding with that generation's daughters being the recipient of Title IX was a good insight. I did not love what I felt was a whole lot of personal opinion infused where data weren't available. I particularly noticed this, because my opinions greatly differ, being as socially conservative as I am. I've no issue with a difference of opinion, but I have big issues with the presentation of opinion as fact. Also, the editing needed help (the word "data" is PLURAL, please), though she did manage to avoid the horrid superfluous apostrophe. There was waaaay too much writing spent on the feminine sports culture. It was relevant to the topic, but not 20 pages relevant. I did appreciate the statement I'd been looking for, which was that while cohabitation as courtship is commonly viewed as a way of preventing divorce, "no good social science evidence exists to support the popular view that cohabitation improves the chances for a long-lasting marriage." She does concede that "Some evidence suggests that living together before marriage may increase the divorce risk for cohabiting couples if they eventually marry." What I found really moving was the story of the 42-yr-old professional woman who'd been shacked up with her boyfriend for 8 years. 9/11 was the day after she asked her boyfriend why wouldn't he just marry her. She was killed in the Twin Towers. He said, "Now I'd marry her in a second." Most of the book is fraught with excerpts like this: The relationship system...imposes no...moral judgments. Singles can tailor their relationships according to their own devices and desires, without fear of social or moral disapproval and without the social regulation that existed in the marriage system." I do buy that you don't want too much social dictating, but I also think it's possible to care too little. The idea nowadays that anything is socially acceptable is way too far in the opposite direction. However, the book depicts this as a positive change in our culture. She does give a nice explanation of how the benefits of cohabitation for men explain why there is no courtship crisis for high-achieving men (I feel compelled to add to that "without morals"). The more I read, the more I was incredibly grateful for my strong religious background that taught me foundational principles to avoid heartbreaking mistakes like cohabitation. I didn't have to experience it or read data to back up why it's a catastrophe. My biggest take-away was having an even greater appreciation for the remarkable and exceptional person my boyfriend is.

[Sasha Zuri · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an interesting read, felt like more of a journal but nonetheless interesting. Very heteronormative focusing on what is "straight" women. Really what it was that I got out of it was that if a woman is educated, has standards and goals she will be single. I thought at least by the end there would of been maybe a sliver lining, but I was sadly mistaken. Overall more like one of those books that you can bring up in as a party trick or use as a "fun fact".

[Brooke Bready · Rating 3 out of 5]

still reading, but it discusses how women have different values then from back in the day and how it is effecting them. Kinda depressing but true. There's a good chapter on women and men living together before marraige

[Julie Pixie · Rating 1 out of 5]

One good chapter on cohabitation, otherwise 'meh'