
How Single Women Are Changing Society - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/how-single-women-are-changing-society
======
zxcvvcxz
To give another perspective, let's examine some of the negatives associated
with single motherhood:

[http://www.photius.com/feminocracy/facts_on_fatherless_kids....](http://www.photius.com/feminocracy/facts_on_fatherless_kids.html)

As someone who grew up in a single mother home, with many friends in the same
boat, anecdotally I can say that it is not preferable in any way.

Hypothesizing an evolutionary basis for this, I would say that high investment
dual parenting has been the most effective method of raising successful and
productive children. Societies which embraced this as the norm have flourished
- others, not so much. For more on this topic, see J.D. Unwin:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._D._Unwin](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._D._Unwin)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> As someone who grew up in a single mother home, with many friends in the
> same boat, anecdotally I can say that it is not preferable in any way.

I've never been there. But from my outside perspective, I would think that it
might be preferable to abuse, though maybe not preferable to almost anything
else.

> I would say that high investment dual parenting has been the most effective
> method of raising successful and productive children.

I think that "high investment" is an important note. Even in dual parenting
situations, the temptation is to want parenting to be low-investment. (I'm a
parent; I definitely struggled with that.)

~~~
DanBC
> But from my outside perspective, I would think that it might be preferable
> to abuse, though maybe not preferable to almost anything else.

We think that step-parents are more likely to sexually abuse, or to physically
abuse or to murder their step children than biological parents.

[https://www.nspcc.org.uk/globalassets/documents/information-...](https://www.nspcc.org.uk/globalassets/documents/information-
service/research-briefing-people-who-abuse-children1.pdf)

~~~
icebraining
Yet a household with a biological parent and a step-parent is considered a
"nuclear family" just as well.

------
marodox
Why does the article only focus on single women? For every single women, there
exists a single man.

Is it because it is seen as socially acceptable for men to lead single lives
while not so much for women?

Edit: My questions sounds kinda rhetorical. I'm genuinely curious.

~~~
return0
I think because it's more likely women will become single mothers than men
becoming single fathers.

~~~
gsibble
For every single mother there is a single father.

~~~
return0
> In 2006, 12.9 million families in the US were headed by a single parent, 80%
> of which were headed by a female.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_parent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_parent)

~~~
facepalm
Fathers who don't live in the same household as their kids are still
fathers...

~~~
emodendroket
But that is not what "single parent" means.

~~~
facepalm
Thanks, didn't know that.

------
berman
The title is "How Single Women Are Changing Society"... Where is the question
answered? Oh, I see, here:

> Their impact on politics could in theory be tremendous.

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emodendroket
This analysis seems awfully shallow. What about their economic situations? I
remember reading a lot of pieces cheering the rise of the female breadwinner,
but many of those cases involved the man simply losing his job and the woman
keeping the same, lower-paying one she had before. Are we just painting a
happy and progressive veneer on the same sort of economic decline? It's
curious that this is not even mentioned as a factor when they talk about
living situations.

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return0
It's not voiced by the author, but the article makes a case for communal
raising of children, which doesn't sound like a bad solution.

~~~
fiatmoney
"Communal" being in this case "government".

"the democrats should be beating down their door, promising to wash their
cars, watch their kids"

~~~
return0
Not necessarily. it may be an arrangement that springs up locally.

~~~
kough
When I was much younger my parents belonged to a "play group", where parents
would take turns baby sitting each others children. Simple printed cards were
"paid" each visit and could be redeemed upon other visits. It worked out
pretty well and we kids all got to play together. One astonishing outcome: I'm
still good friends with someone I met before I have any conscious memory. Kind
of cool, right?

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awl130
the author is mistaken: single womanhood is not necessarily where female
empowerment, or america, is headed. quite the opposite actually. women in
scandinavia have been actively decoupling child-bearing from marriage for
decades now, and the results are somewhat counterintuitive: marriage rates
have been _increasing_ , and at an _earlier_ age[1], because scandinavian
women have less concern about balancing career with bearing offspring given
all the social and governmental support they now receive.

scandinavia has been a leading indicator of almost every social trend (and
concomitant government policy) in north america: relaxation of gender roles,
women in the workforce, women in politics, decline of marriage, increase in
co-habitation, social services for women, etc. every other indicator is as
expected: scandinavia's female workforce participation is higher, women in
government is higher, etc.

however there is one cautionary indicator that is lagging in scandinavia, and
that has to do with women in leadership roles in business. one possible
explanation is that scandinavian businesses, especially global ones, are privy
to the international market. thus while scandinavia may comprise the most
liberal countries in the world, their business leaders are competing against
foreign businesses, some from developing countries, that are hungry and could
give a f* about gender politics.

[1][http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php/...](http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php/Marriages_and_births_in_Sweden)

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f34fq34f
Children from single-parent families are more likely to have problems in
future with education, income, criminality... In other words if you correct
for single parents, differences between races disappear.

------
FussyZeus
I would postulate that any arrangement where the parents, regardless of
number, can be happy and productive is an arrangement that results in a happy
and productive child.

Instead of studying the various methods and deciding which one is best as
though it would make a single difference to the people at large (as if there
are people planning their lives by the statistical "best life", whom we should
probably ship to Area 51 since they are clearly not human) how about we just
agree to all mind our own damn business and let people live how they want to
live, with a spouse of the sex and color they prefer, or none at all, with 6
children or with none, and just get on with our lives?

