[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.

[bradleyjg]

Mostly because there's a big marketing push behind the book "All the Single Ladies" which recently came out. Either this article was pitched by Simon & Schuster's PR team or it is lucky free publicity generated in response to the buzz created by the other articles successfully pitched by them.

A mid to high six figure book advance is really high for a non-fiction book these days. They are hoping they have a blockbuster on their hands.

[zck]

> Why does the article only focus on single women?

Because it's worth investigating subgroups, so we can understand whether society treats those groups differently from other groups -- and if so, how.

[marodox]

I guess I'm just used to all those Japanese articles about their growing single working culture. Those usually focus on how both sexes are giving up relationships in favor of their careers.

[nibs]

Not entirely. Depending on the country, there is often a gap between the number of men and women. Mortality for young men in some countries is still much higher than women (ie. Russia). [1] By 65, there is less than 0.5 men per woman. And even at 15-64 age range, it is 0.9 men per woman. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#Sex_rat...

[duaneb]

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

This assumes that society is the only variable in being single. I'm guessing this is not the case.

If I were to hazard a guess, the tact was chosen because there's been an uptick in single women (notably, for the first time in US history, more adult women are single than married). There are other facets to look at, but this might be the most visible in terms of expected social change from the feminist perspective I was brought up with.

[retbull]

Or its simply isn't about single men. Who cares if it is only about them not every other group has to be mentioned in every post even if they also have a stake in the discussion. I can write an article about the issues of db optimization without saying a single word about MySQL. Same situation.

[Frozenlock]

It does sound rhetorical. A more 'honest' approach would be "Is it because it is more socially acceptable for one sex to lead single lives, not so much for the other?"

I don't really see why you'd assume that women are more frowned upon in this situation. I mean, there's even a picture of SUPERWOMAN in this article! And yet, your initial position was to think that women were the 'victims' here. (For lack of a better word.) Interesting, isn't it?

If anything, single women are shown as courageous and going against the tides. If a man decides to lead a single live, he is not seen as a hero. At best it's inconsequential, at worse he's a loser.

And this tendency of inconsequential/loser for the men applies to many situations.

[phkahler]

>> Why does the article only focus on single women?

Because she thinks that women should live independently of men. She thinks we should restructure society and the way we raise children around that notion.

[emodendroket]

We can ask questions about why it happened and whether it was positive, but the ship has already sailed.

[te_chris]

Why does every article like this inevitably lead to men wondering why it's not about them? (I'm a man).

[marodox]

I just curious with this article specifically because its about the idea of the classic heterosexual relationship, which is inherently about men and women. It just seemed it was missing 1/2 of the story.

[return0]

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

[facepalm]

The article wasn't about single mothers, though. In fact it cited not having to have kids as one of the benefits of being single.

[return0]

Then we are not talking about a lasting change in society but about a suicidal trend that shouldn't be 'celebrated' so carelessly.

[facepalm]

Presumably the book has all the answers. I'm not planning on reading it, though.

[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

[facepalm]

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

[dllthomas]

Also, one father can account for multiple single mothers (and vice versa). There is no inherent one-to-one relationship here.

[emodendroket]

But that is not what "single parent" means.

[facepalm]

Thanks, didn't know that.

[aikah]

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

> 45% of single mothers are currently divorced or separated

Which means that potentially 45% of these 80% had the father in court fighting for his kids custody, and we all know how biased to justice system is toward men in that case. My point is don't make it sound like fathers just abandon their kids.

[dragonwriter]

> Which means that potentially 45% of these 80% had the father in court fighting for his kids custody

No, it doesn't. (Divorce/separated is irrelevant to that, since parental rights for both parents generally exist from birth regardless of marriage so long as paternity is established, and so separation or divorce from marriage is not a prerequisite to custody proceedings. The "potential" number is much higher; though the actual number is lower.)

> and we all know how biased to justice system is toward men in that case.

Yes, courts are substantially biased in favor of men in contested custody cases; men end up with custody less often in divorce because men are less likely to seek custody.

> My point is don't make it sound like fathers just abandon their kids.

Unfortunately, the fact is that fathers, all too often -- both without marriage and when it fails -- just abandon their kids.

[facepalm]

"Yes, courts are substantially biased in favor of men in contested custody cases; men end up with custody less often in divorce because men are less likely to seek custody."

More likely, men only go to court when they see a chance of winning to begin with.

[duaneb]

Biologically, perhaps. Not legally. Custody battles settle this rather emphatically.

[aklemm]

Raising a child and merely fathering a child are completely different things. Surely you must understand that?

[mikeash]

It's not a one-to-one correspondence. Nothing says the numbers have to match up. In an extreme case, an individual single father could potentially correspond to dozens of single mothers. An individual single mother is more limited, but could still match up with a dozen or so single fathers.

[fiatmoney]

If you look at the actual demographics, for every 1 single mother there is well under 1 single father.

[facepalm]

Because the author is a single woman who wants to sell her book. Actually there are already lots of people living as singles, and there isn't really that much of a pressure to get married. She is building up a straw man to make her book seem more important.