| Note: To be clear, I do not agree with the OP's characterization of "women being more valuable to society" and thus treated better. In general, men have the advantage. But homelessness does tend to affect men more. Most homeless are men. A couple sources I found places the number in the mid 60% range. http://homeless.samhsa.gov/ResourceFiles/hrc_factsheet.pdf
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/who.html You say some women can't get a boyfriend at all. I expect it's true for most of them that they can't get a boyfriend they want. But many of them might be able to get a very disagreeable boyfriend, if their choice was living with him, or living on the street. It's not a very good choice. In fact, it's generally an awful choice. But it's still a choice. Obviously, there are homeless women, but they tend to be less vulnerable to homelessness. Orwell wrote about this in down and out in Paris and London. Mind you, this was in the 1920s, but it's evocative: >Tramps are cut off from women, in the first place, because there are
very few women at their level of society. One might imagine that among
destitute people the sexes would be as equally balanced as elsewhere. But
it is not so; in fact, one can almost say that below a certain level
society is entirely male. The following figures, published by the L.C.C.
from a night census taken on February 13th, 1931, will show the relative
numbers of destitute men and destitute women: Spending the night in the streets, 60 men, 18 women.
In shelters and homes not licensed as common lodging-houses, 1,057 men,
137 women.
In the crypt of St Martin's-in-the-Fields Church, 88 men, 12 women.
In L.C.C. casual wards and hostels, 674 men, 15 women. [ This must be an underestimate. Still, the proportions probably
hold good.] It will be seen from these figures that at the charity level men
outnumber women by something like ten to one. The cause is presumably that
unemployment affects women less than men; also that any presentable woman
can, in the last resort, attach herself to some man. |