> The argument about shame based "norms" keeping people together aside, it was in many places, quite literally the law that forced women to stay with their husbands.
So you wave aside my actual argument, about norms, then proceed to refute a straw man? Let’s posit that laws against spousal rape and gender discrimination are good things. Are those the only things that have changed in our culture and in the laws? Can we have laws allowing people to escape abusive marriages, while discouraging the vastly larger number of divorces that don’t involve those things?
More than half of Americans, including over 40% of Democrats, disagree with the proposition that “changing gender roles have made it easier for women to live satisfying lives.” https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/10/18/wide-partisan-gap.... By contrast, just 10% think that contraceptives should be banned. There is clearly a significant number of people who think the changes you list are good things, while disagreeing that all of the social changes that have happened are good.
There is in fact widespread discontentment about the status quo among women. Women report wanting more kids than they end up having. Women report wanting to get married but being unable to do so. Many women aren’t super thrilled about a culture where people call them “crazy” for wanting normal things like a marriage and kids at the biologically normal ages (20s) for having those things. (This is completely unsurprising, because women disproportionately bear the burdens of our social changes that have freed men from the responsibilities of fatherhood.)
As to Bangladesh—it’s a poor agrarian society that suffers from the problems endemic to poor agrarian societies. In particular, strong economic incentives to marry off girls. My dad, in fact, works on public health programs to discourage child marriage in Bangladesh. But there’s a pretty big gap between child marriage (something most Bangladeshis agree we should eradicate) on one hand, and normalizing and enabling pervasive divorce and out of wedlock childbirth on the other.
But on the flip side of all that, Bangladeshi society is at least somewhat functional despite crushing poverty. What would Bangladeshi villages be like if men could decide, like in America, that they don’t want the responsibilities of fatherhood and it was socially acceptable for them to abandon their families? The society would break down completely. Death and calamity would result, because unlike in America the government can’t afford to throw money at the social ills that would result.
Another thing that changed is that American women are less likely to be murdered by their partners - as in proportion of those murders went down. That is while murders went down. Ability to leave verbally abusive partner that is like that in private without being reduced to powerty is a big thing. It is possible to prove violence, but super hard to prove verbal abuse. And verbal abuse can be even worse.
As of Bangladeshi, look up their domestic violence reports and juvenile deliquency reports. The domestic violence is basically normal and accepted part of life. And we are taking about pretty severe stuff - murders, acid attacks, serious beatings. Juvenile deliquency is huge problem.
Death and calamity are Bangladeshi life pretty often, in particular if you are woman. And kids get to watch all that and are affected by all of that, creating cycle of trauma and violence.
It is not better for children to be with violent parent nor is ot good for them to see one parent attack the other. Yes, out of wedlock or divorce is better for them then domestic violence situation.
The homicide rate in Bangladesh is half of what it is in the US, and not far off from wealthy countries with gun control, like Canada or Belgium. Yes, there are a lot of bad things that happen in Bangladesh--it's a very poor country, with limited law and order, political unrest, and significant problems with organized crime and gangs. One wonders what things would be like if--on top of all of that--more than a quarter of kids were growing up fatherless like in the US.
The impact of single parenthood is much lower then you assume.
American crime rates went down considerably. So did juvenile violence rates, drug taking and alcoholism. And teenage pregnancies went down too. All the while divorces went up. Stop demonizing kids of single parents and for that matter Americans.
Also, American domestic violence rates went down. While the reporting of it went up as women can get actual help nowdays, so there is a point in doing it. These would not even count as crimes in many of "harmonious" families with taboo around divorce.
Also, in Americans crime statistics, murders are higher relative to other crimes, because of prevalence of guns. America is not perfect, but it's youth is way better then you make them be due to your strong bias against kids who had divorced parents.
I'm not "demonizing" anyone. But it's important to look at social changes not only with an eye to how they affect individuals, but how they affect everyone. We can't just sympathize with the kids of single parents, but must find the sympathy and kindness to ask whether there are more such kids than there should be and whether there is anything we can do about that.
(As to “bias against Americans.” On the issues of marriage and family, a lot of the things that are “normal” in America are deemed at best highly regrettable where I’m from. Now I’m as much of a flag waver as the next immigrant. But in this particular area I’m not convinced that Americans are on the right track.)
What would Bangladeshi villages be like if men could decide, like in America, that they don’t want the responsibilities of fatherhood and it was socially acceptable for them to abandon their families? The society would break down completely. Death and calamity would result, because unlike in America the government can’t afford to throw money at the social ills that would result.
And that’s exactly what we see in places like Chicago, but nobody who is allowed to speak can put 2 and 2 together. Except when Barack Obama mentioned it that one time, which was promptly forgotten.
> So you wave aside my actual argument, about norms, then proceed to refute a straw man?
He eviscerated your actual argument that Bangladeshi marriage norms are something to aspire, considering how they treat 60% of their under age 18 girls (but 4% of their boys).
So you wave aside my actual argument, about norms, then proceed to refute a straw man? Let’s posit that laws against spousal rape and gender discrimination are good things. Are those the only things that have changed in our culture and in the laws? Can we have laws allowing people to escape abusive marriages, while discouraging the vastly larger number of divorces that don’t involve those things?
More than half of Americans, including over 40% of Democrats, disagree with the proposition that “changing gender roles have made it easier for women to live satisfying lives.” https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/10/18/wide-partisan-gap.... By contrast, just 10% think that contraceptives should be banned. There is clearly a significant number of people who think the changes you list are good things, while disagreeing that all of the social changes that have happened are good.
There is in fact widespread discontentment about the status quo among women. Women report wanting more kids than they end up having. Women report wanting to get married but being unable to do so. Many women aren’t super thrilled about a culture where people call them “crazy” for wanting normal things like a marriage and kids at the biologically normal ages (20s) for having those things. (This is completely unsurprising, because women disproportionately bear the burdens of our social changes that have freed men from the responsibilities of fatherhood.)
As to Bangladesh—it’s a poor agrarian society that suffers from the problems endemic to poor agrarian societies. In particular, strong economic incentives to marry off girls. My dad, in fact, works on public health programs to discourage child marriage in Bangladesh. But there’s a pretty big gap between child marriage (something most Bangladeshis agree we should eradicate) on one hand, and normalizing and enabling pervasive divorce and out of wedlock childbirth on the other.
But on the flip side of all that, Bangladeshi society is at least somewhat functional despite crushing poverty. What would Bangladeshi villages be like if men could decide, like in America, that they don’t want the responsibilities of fatherhood and it was socially acceptable for them to abandon their families? The society would break down completely. Death and calamity would result, because unlike in America the government can’t afford to throw money at the social ills that would result.