Comments by "SepherStar" (@SepherStar) on "From 'Iron Girls' to 'Leftovers' - Independent Women in China" video.

leviathan rising Yeah. Some people want a little more depth to their relationships. Does she know you are going to dump her when she reaches 23?
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leviathan rising Isn't it easy to say "Girls don't want me because I'm short" or "Guy's don't want me because I'm frumpy" or poor, or old, or a nice guy, or fat, or whatever. But look around you and you will see plenty of short, frumpy, nice, fat, poor old people in happy relationships. The problem is most often one of social skills...or a deficit there of, and personality. Most people would rather blame their single relationship status on external factors...I guess it stings a little less facing the fact that the problem is more internal.
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***** No, men don't age like wine. 20 something doesn't want to date grandpa. What's the problem anyway? Are you upset because the girls you wanted rejected you and now you are taking it out on older single women like they are the ones who rejected you once upon a time? Well new flash for you, those hot young thangs who rejected you are probably happily married by now and the women you are attacking are likely the ones you never asked out, or are the female equivalent of you. Is that why you are unhappy? The women who are left are the ones YOU rejected, and you are mad you can't get the ones you wanted, so you attack the ones you didn't want? Who would want a person like that. You see here, I don't buy for a second that no one would have had you, and I think you probably still can find someone with whom you could have a happy relationship, if you manage to get over yourself. Maybe it's a natural selection thing but it seems to me that you are doing everything in your power to make sure you remain single, by not only rejecting the pool of women available to you, but making sure that you are unattractive to them. Girls reject guys by saying no and guys reject girls by not asking them to begin with. I bet you never thought of it that way, did you?
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I think you mean the resentful "f#$%^boys" who turn their difficulties in forming relationships into bitterness towards women.
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leviathan rising The majority of women are producing a sufficient number of healthy eggs at 35 to have to worry about getting pregnant, and have to worry about it until their early to mid 40's usually. Men also lose sperm quality and fertility with age. Though this decline is not as marked at it is for women, it's significant enough that most sperm banks in the US and UK do not accept sperm from donors over 39. It's interesting to note that in most species, the females do not undergo menopause. Humans are anomalies in that regard. It's thought that one of the reasons human females undergo menopause is because of the fact that humans are one of the most resource intensive species on the planet. Our off spring takes longer to raise than most species live, and as our maturation rates slowed, it became less favorable for females to keep reproducing, which produces a resource drain, and more favorable for their role to shift from a reproducer to a co parent of the newer generations they begot...in other words, they go from being a resource drain to becoming a resource.
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I'd rather be an old bag with 12 cats than an old bag with a husband who doesn't care for me anymore because I'm old.
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Gabriel Lewicki That's the fantasy isn't it? It's always easier to think you are the one who doesn't want them, rather than they you, but when a person really doesn't want something, they don't think about it, or come online and rant about it. It's a non issue for them. For example, I don't care about being an Olympian, and I'm not much for sports, so I rarely, if ever, talk about sports or the Olympics. The fact of the matter is, most of these men who come online and rant about women do so because they want women and have a difficult time getting them. Sometimes these men have social deficits. Sometimes these men are on the unfortunate side of statistics. Sometimes these men do not meet some social standard, and sometimes these men literally don't have a female counterpart because of skewed sex ratios. If a person has difficulty obtaining or maintaining relationships, and this causes them distress, they should seek counseling and attempt to improve their social skills, rather than self isolate and direct negative emotions at that which they have difficulty obtaining. When they self isolate and spew hatred, they sell themselves short and drop any chance they might have had of a happy relationship with another person, to zero.
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Gabriel Lewicki Well now that you're aware of it, I guess you have taken the first step to stop doing it.
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kninez That's an outdated statistic that is apparently perpetuated by disgruntled people. The divorce rates today for marriages that began in the 2000's are only slightly higher than what the divorce rates were for marriages that began in the 1960's after the same amount of time...8 years of marriage. About 13% and 11% respectively. It's marriages that began in the 1970's and 1980's that have unusually high divorce rates. Those married in those two decades had divorce rates higher than the 60's, 90's and 2000's starting after the 5 year mark and climbed sharply to 45% and 50% after the 26 year mark. For comparison, about 38% of marriages that began in the 1960's ended in divorce after 28 years of marriage. So divorce rates are highest among baby boomers, and those who were alive during Vietnam and the hippie years with all of that drug and sex fueled debauchery, which isn't surprising.
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China is, and always has been, a status obsessed society. In the west, when you give someone a nice gift, you do so out of consideration for them. In China, when you give someone a nice gift, you do so to show them how rich you are and how much better you are than them.
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I don't see a problem but you know there are people in the world who think this whole 10 attracts 10 thing is unfair.
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I don't think there are many men out there, good or bad, who think "Oh my gosh, that easy girl over there is eyeing me! I must go hide before she propositions me for casual sex!"
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Coco Pops The oldest natural mother gave birth at 59, however she was taking estrogen at the time, as many women that age do, usually to prevent osteoporosis. There are older women who have given birth but this is almost always through IVF, where the egg comes from a donor and they act as a surrogate.The oldest woman to give birth was a woman named Rajo Devi Lohan, who was around 70 when she gave birth after three rounds of IVF treatment in which donor eggs were used.
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***** I'll take that as a yes.
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***** I'm asking. Is that the problem?
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Mark Rudy I believe you are referring to the paper called "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness" http://www.nber.org/papers/w14969.pdf I don't have time to read the paper thoroughly but if I read correctly, the decline in female happiness was across the board....single working women and married female home makers both had a decline in happiness, and the study could not pinpoint the cause, but rejected various theories on it. They did speculate though that the lives of women have become increasingly more complex and that women might feel they have to meet more standards than in the past. Or it could be that society in general is less happy and women are just more forthcoming with this, or it could have been sample selection bias in that they are just not looking in the right places for unhappy men. I seem to come across disproportionately more unhappy men on the internet than I do women. They are usually unhappy that they are single, or have had a bad relationship. I think men actually get more lonely when they are single than women, which is part of the reason I think it's unfortunate that some single older men are not receptive to dating women closer to their age. I'm not saying they should date a woman they find unattractive...it's imperative they be attracted to her, but they are often looking for women in venues where they do not have a chance to interact with her in person, and there are often dimensions of attraction that only come across in person. They are looking for women on venues that you type an age range in a box, and they might be preventing themselves from meeting a woman they would find attractive and are compatible with, by the number they enter into that box.
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Yeah I know. The horrible west, where women will have sex with men without marrying them and get a job to help their husbands make ends meet. We should go back to how things used to be where the man had to marry a woman to get her into bed and was expected to earn enough to buy a house and support a family on his own.
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Coco Pops I studied/work in a male dominated environment. Most guys really are fine people. Why do you think most guys are bad?
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***** I wasn't assuming. I was asking. Thus the question mark.
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That is correct. However this issue of left over women is not entirely due to women's liberation, and is in fact, partially due to the persisting idea that women marry up and men marry down, because traditionally, a woman should be of lower status than her husband in China. If you had complete women's liberation then she would be more receptive to marrying someone less educated than her, or poorer than her, or shorter than her, etc.
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I'm a firm believer that there should be a full time parent in a family, whether it be a woman or a man.
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Gabriel Lewicki "I said that women's liberation was not about "gender equality" but about giving women additional benefits, and in an attempt to refute my claim you have given me a list of benefits that women's liberation has given to women..." That's like saying ending slavery was not about race equality, but about giving black people additional benefits.
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Mark Rudy I don't know any 35 year old woman who considers herself infertile unless she actually is. We have a large number of older couples in my city starting families past 35. I'm in STEM and the reason women tend to become discontent with their careers as they get into their mid 30's is because they tire of lack of promotions and the culture. I can't speak for women in other fields. But I can tell you, my grandmother, who married when she was 19 and had 5 kids was so miserable that she wasn't smiling in any of the family photos when she was a housewife. If I had married and had a family when I was young, I know I would have been miserable. What if you, as a young man, were expected to marry and settle down in your early 20's before you even had a chance to explore the world and understand who you are a little better? I think most men would go insane. There's no reason to think women are really any different, particularly because through most of human history, marriage and child bearing had often been somewhat of a forced affair for women and this took away any pressure to evolve an actual preference for marrying and baring children young. So do I regret not marrying young and having kids? Heck no, I would have been absolutely miserable! I would have been sitting there thinking of what I could have done with my life, and to be honest, I think it would have been unfair of me to pretend I was attracted to or loved a man who I didn't. Would I like to marry now? If I find someone I like enough to marry and who likes me enough to marry me, but I do prefer to be alone rather than with someone I don't actually have any interest in or who does not have any interest in me. I might be career oriented but if I marry a man I would like it to be someone I could be a good wife to. Would I want kids? I wouldn't mind them but I would not be devastated if I didn't have them.....I would just think it's a little unfortunate for the world. As for those 35+ single career women who do lament that they can't find anyone, we both know that that's hogwash. These women, as always, just can't find someone they like and maybe they need to accept the fact that they are the female version of those lonely old guys who can't find someone because they are only receptive to dating women between 18-25.
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Mark Rudy That was the ideal 60 years ago but ideals and reality are often very different. I don't know that the women were actually happier. Maybe they were, or maybe they just said they were, because part of the ideal was that a woman was not just any home maker, but a happy home maker, and people were big on keeping up appearances. You are not any more wrong for wanting a chaste, pretty, young, submissive, pure, yet secular wife who worships you, any more than any woman would be wrong for wanting a rich, young, handsome husband who shares her values and only has eyes for her, and they live happily ever after like in a fairy tale. But we must remember that potential spouses are not objects we can customize, or that exist merely to please us. They are other human beings like ourselves. They have minds and desires, like ourselves, and imperfections like ourselves, and often hope we will be forgiving of those imperfections as we hope they are forgiving of ours. Anyway, may you find someone you are happy with and may she also be happy with you.
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***** No, it's your story. But if you don't want to tell it, that's your call.
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My mom is taking care of her mother. Her brother is useless. How it tend to work in most cultures traditionally though is the son's wife takes care of his mother and father in old age. As far as every woman on the planet being a gold digger...to me a gold digger is a woman who goes after a man with a lot of money for the sole purpose of getting to his money, and she does not care about anything else. That's not most women. Most women, if they want to start families, and if they intend to be traditional home makers, are obviously going to look for a man who can support a family, but this is far from being a gold digger because these women generally also look for a man who they love and who would make a good father.
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Mark Rudy If a woman does not want a family, if a man does not want a family, they should be aware that they have the option of not having one. I can talk a lot about women being pushed into STEM fields. Mainly, that it rarely happens. At least not in the sense of a girl or woman not having any interest in STEM, pursuing, qualifying for, and graduating from a STEM program. They are very rigorous and competitive and many people just do not have the love to tolerate them, or cognitive capacity for them. I think this "push", at best, can only serve to remind women who might be interested that a STEM field might be an option for them. I'm skeptical that many older single career women had put off marriage and a family for their career, until it was too late. One of the best places to find a mate is a college campus, because you have a high density of young people of the same age group, the most of whom will be marriage ready by the time they graduate...if not with an undergraduate degree, then with a graduate degree. I think the truth of the matter is, that many of these women are the women for whom it just didn't happen. Maybe they were not big on the social scene, or were social misfits. Maybe they had been in a relationship that fell apart. Maybe they just didn't attract many guys or the one guy who was attracted to them never got the nerve to approach her, or maybe he did, and she didn't reciprocate for whatever reason. And then you graduate and get a job and your chances of meeting someone with mutual attraction and compatibility drop off significantly because the population pool you are in shrinks.
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emma pemma I don't think that's really true. I think most guys are ok people. But the ones who aren't tend to congregate in groups, so they look like they are more numerous than they are.
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Mark Rudy Well misogyny should be frowned upon, as should misandry, caste discrimination, racial prejudice, etc. Anyway, I'm glad that I don't live in the world you fantasize about where I would only be seen to exist to please a man and would not have much of a say in the matter. As I previously said, should I ever marry, of course I would strive to be a good wife to my husband, but the key concept here is that it would not be forced or coerced in anyway. I would be doing so because I truly loved him. If an older man has some hard requirement that a woman be under 30, that's fine with me, but it seems that a large number of men are not successful in this endeavor when they pass the 35 year mark, and are thus relegating themselves to a life of loneliness.
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Coco Pops When people turn 18 they are free to pursue who they wish, provided those they pursue are also over 18. Some men want younger women, some women want rich men. I will tell you, when I was a young woman, I would not have dated a man who was much older than me and who only dated younger women, for reasons which are probably obvious to you. Believe it or not though, a lot of older men don't want significantly younger women for the same reason that a lot of women don't want significantly younger men. People who are looking for depth in relationships want someone they can relate to, and who are at a similar place in life mentally as they are.
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Coco Pops I didn't say being 18 makes you an adult. But like it or not, a person is a legal adult at 18, and free to make their own choices, and if an 18 year old girls chooses to date a 40 year old guy, there isn't much anyone can do about it. But you and I know that those girls are in minority, and those relationships usually don't last long, and most girls do date someone from their own generation.
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Gabriel Lewicki Women's liberation in the west sought to give women the right to vote, equal work for equal pay, equal job opportunities for equal qualifications and skills, and equal credit lines for equal credit worthiness. It also sought to criminalize marital rape, dispel notions of female purity, and allow women easier access to medications often used to prevent contraception (the latter which certain political factions are still trying to block). It was never socially acceptable for women to marry down in China among the Han people.
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Mark Rudy I think in most cultures throughout human history, marriages were arranged between parents or the woman's parents and a male suitor, and the girl was not necessarily married up but, as this could not always be managed, but to someone of the same status. But China really puts the emphasis on marrying up. They really are particular about these things compared to the west. Are women more inclined to want a mate who can provide more resources? If they are inclined towards traditional roles and wish to start a family. But when the woman doesn't intend to fill a traditional role then that's not so much of an issue unless society makes it one.
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Mark Rudy I think you misread what I wrote. I'll clarify. I think, due to China's sex disparity, more men rose up than women, but as you pointed out, an upper class man can marry a lower class woman in Chinese society because that is marrying down, and in accordance with Chinese custom, and in accordance with Chinese custom, women are still expected to marry up, so yes, if she is a doctor she would be expected to marry a more prestigious doctor or CEO or something like that. Anyway, I think we will eventually women in China start to marry down as the younger generations start to care less about what their parents and grandparents think.
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Mark Rudy Understand that, unlike in the US, women in China have historically worked. In addition to domestic responsibilities, most women worked alongside men in the fields or street stalls and shops. You can see this in drawings, and historic photos of Chinese peasants. It's only the nature of work that has changed in China as the country has modernized. Are more women upper class than in the past? Probably, but that is probably not the reason these women are single. China's one child policy has caused male babies to be favored and there are probably also more men in the upper class than ever before, and the ratio of men to women in the upper class has probably grown. These upper class women, in old China, would have married upper class men but the upper class men they married would have likely have had more than one wife. That doesn't happen today. It's one man per woman. These lower class men are the ones who are actually being affected by the actual lack of women in the country.
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No, traditional Chinese mentalities are just still prevalent in a society that was never balanced. It has always been their tradition that women marry up and men marry down. It would have been shameful for a woman to marry a man of lower status than she, and a man to marry a woman of higher status than he, and it's still considered shameful today. The difference is that China no longer has polygamy and concubinage. In the past, the few high status men would have had multiple wives and a few concubines, and this would ensure that high status women always had a higher status man to marry. If feminism had taken hold in China then these high status women would be able to marry lower status men without being shamed for it. If these girls fell in love with say, some street noodle vendor, and married them, their family would disown them for the shamefulness of it all. In the west, a woman who's a CEO could marry the burger flipper at McDonalds and the only thing people would say is "What a lucky guy!"
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Mark Rudy Well sir, you are entitled to have a vision of a dream woman and a dream marriage and a dream life, no matter how particular, how high your standards, or how hypocritical, and a woman is entitled to have hers as well, but few people get their dream spouse unfortunately. If a person is lucky, they might still end up with someone they can fall in love with and who falls in love with them back.
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Mark Rudy Youtube was acting up and there was an edit to my comment you might not have read before you replied, if you wish to go back and read it. You should not make assumptions about an older woman's past. Not all older single women ran around with bad boys. There are thousands of reasons an older woman could be single, for example, a woman who actually did have the values you want, who was not religious, may very likely be single because most men do not have those values and expect a woman to have premarital sex with them. So chaste, modest women who are not religious often have a hard time finding someone who will stick with them and marry them. Cancer, particularly breast cancer, is another thing that keeps women from relationships, and can do song long after they are cured as many of these women have scars that they are embarrassed by or that shallow men can't get over. Some of these women lost their fiance to tragic circumstances and some of them may just be socially shy and have never dated at all. I certainly have never dated a "bad boy", and there really isn't a market among the secular men for women who don't do premarital sex. so women like that will very likely be single.
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Mark Rudy It sounds to me like you are looking for a devoutly religious woman.But these women typically marry devoutly religious men who are also right out of high school. Or sometimes a religious college anyway, and they also tend to expect their fiances to be virgins. I'm curious, did you ever pursue these women when you were a young man? Anyway, maybe instead of "awe" you mean "appreciate" and maybe instead of "subservient" you mean "dedicated"? A woman should not be a stepping stool for you to feel superior. I would not want to be a wife to a man who would use me for that purpose. If I were a wife and home maker, I would hope that my husband perceived me as someone strong enough to stand on my own, and that I was with him out of love and a desire to be his wife, rather than an inability to take care of myself.
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Mark Rudy I understand what you are saying...I guess though it depends on how you perceive the concept of being pushed into a STEM field. I agree there is a push to get more women into STEM fields. But it's one of those "You can lead a horse to water" things. It has to be thirsty to drink. They didn't have any of these STEM programs for young people when I was a kid, much less ones directed at girls. I just always loved science. I don't have a problem with STEM programs that target a specific demographic but I don't think anyone should be excluded from them. If you want to direct a STEM program at girls fine, but if a boy comes a long and wants to join, he shouldn't be turned away. As to the women who wrote the articles you mention, I don't think focusing on their career is the cause for most of them. I think it's an excuse, maybe whether they realize it or admit it or not. They didn't find someone in college. I mean what does focusing on a career actually entail that it prohibits finding a mate? If you think about it, it shouldn't prohibit it all that much. I suspect these women failed at finding a mate regardless of their career.
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@rebeccaperry-piper2733 I'm not a doctor but I am pretty sure your doctor was incorrect or maybe joking. Human eggs only last a few days after they are released unless they are frozen, and if they could last years, your doctor would have no way of knowing when any individual egg was released.
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