How Female Employment Skews Female Choices

Men nowadays are forever complaining about women choosing irresponsible guys as their romantic partners and even fathers of their children, which is, at least, partly true. They are trying to explain this phenomenon by female biology which apparently forces women to become attracted to the unemployed alcoholic jerks and violent abusive criminals while avoiding a respectable if boring accountant.

Just like in the case of same sex attraction, science hasn't yet managed to locate the gene responsible for female choices so the biological explanation of women choosing losers is still a theory, not a fact. Biology certainly predisposes people to value certain traits in their mates, but strangely, until recently women didn't appear to be chasing the dregs of society in order to procreate with them. Could it be that the reason for this irrational behaviour is socialising, not biology?

I have at home a collection of ladies' magazines from the 1930s, which feature tons of romantic stories. In one of them, a beginning author has been in love with a girl for several years, but waits with proposal until he can provide her with the same material comforts she had in her father's house. Generally, the stories push the idea of marrying your social equal and the responsibility of the husband to provide. In another story, a man refuses to work to support his family and he is shamed by another man into working.

Now when we switch to modern so-called social romance (as distinct from the fantasy romantic stories about princesses, pirates and medieval knights) we often will encounter a situation when a heroine engages in "missionary dating", rescues a bad boy by her feminine charms, gets involved with her social inferior against her family wishes (think of the movie Titanic) etc etc. This sort of behaviour is often portrayed as heroic, after all, she is fighting against prejudice! What can be more noble???

On the other hand, women nowadays are pretty much expected to work and earn their own income, especially in North America. It's less so in my neck of woods, where most married women still choose to work part-time, thus they pay more attention to the prospective husband's income and social status. However, when the woman is fully economically self~sufficient and expects to stay so throughout her whole married life, naturally, she isn´t much bothered about her future husband´s career prospects. Of course, she may change her mind when the children come, but then it´s usually too late.

If a woman is trying to make a responsible choice though and hence is interested in the man´s status and income, she is more often than not lambasted as a gold~digger. D*mned if you do, d*mned if you don´t.

The point I´m trying to make is that nobody can be two things at the same time. A woman can´t be simultaneously a strong independent career womyn and a sweet submissive Suzy homemaker. Right now the society, including the government, expects all adult women to have a job outside home. The skewed female choices are one of the results.