72% of Blacks Born to Unwed Mothers

72 percent of black babies are born to unmarried mothers today, compared to 17 percent of Asians, 29 percent of whites, 53 percent of Hispanics and 66 percent of Native Americans.

A YahooNews headline advises, “Blacks struggle with 72 percent unwed mothers rate.”

One recent day at Dr. Natalie Carroll’s OB-GYN practice, located inside a low-income apartment complex tucked between a gas station and a freeway, 12 pregnant black women come for consultations. Some bring their children or their mothers. Only one brings a husband.

Things move slowly here. Women sit shoulder-to-shoulder in the narrow waiting room, sometimes for more than an hour. Carroll does not rush her mothers in and out. She wants her babies born as healthy as possible, so Carroll spends time talking to the mothers about how they should care for themselves, what she expects them to do — and why they need to get married.

Seventy-two percent of black babies are born to unmarried mothers today, according to government statistics. This number is inseparable from the work of Carroll, an obstetrician who has dedicated her 40-year career to helping black women.

“The girls don’t think they have to get married. I tell them children deserve a mama and a daddy. They really do,” Carroll says from behind the desk of her office, which has cushioned pink-and-green armchairs, bars on the windows, and a wooden “LOVE” carving between two African figurines. Diamonds circle Carroll’s ring finger.

As the issue of black unwed parenthood inches into public discourse, Carroll is among the few speaking boldly about it. And as a black woman who has brought thousands of babies into the world, who has sacrificed income to serve Houston’s poor, Carroll is among the few whom black women will actually listen to. ”A mama can’t give it all. And neither can a daddy, not by themselves,” Carroll says. “Part of the reason is because you can only give that which you have. A mother cannot give all that a man can give. A truly involved father figure offers more fullness to a child’s life.”

Statistics show just what that fullness means. Children of unmarried mothers of any race are more likely to perform poorly in school, go to prison, use drugs, be poor as adults, and have their own children out of wedlock.

The black community’s 72 percent rate eclipses that of most other groups: 17 percent of Asians, 29 percent of whites, 53 percent of Hispanics and 66 percent of Native Americans were born to unwed mothers in 2008, the most recent year for which government figures are available. The rate for the overall U.S. population was 41 percent.

This issue entered the public consciousness in 1965, when a now famous government report by future senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan described a “tangle of pathology” among blacks that fed a 24 percent black “illegitimacy” rate. The white rate then was 4 percent.

I’m not sure what’s shocking: That the rate for blacks has tripled in my lifetime or that whites have now surpassed the level of pathology Moynihan described.

FILED UNDER: Health, Race and Politics
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Franklin says:

    It’d be nice to have a further breakdown of how many of them intended to get pregnant vs. those too dumb or timid to use the proper protection properly. Also, I might note that the percentage might be significantly higher if abortion was outlawed (not making that a plus or minus, just pointing out the obvious).

  2. Trumwill says:

    It’d be nice to have a further breakdown of how many of them intended to get pregnant vs. those too dumb or timid to use the proper protection properly.

    Another factor to consider is the increasing dearth of men for which it is worthwhile for women to start a family with. Particularly in the black community where men are so much more likely to be in and out of prison in the past and our culture has become considerably less generous to men with less education with regard to the ability to make an impressive living and support a family.

    Also, I might note that the percentage might be significantly higher if abortion was outlawed (not making that a plus or minus, just pointing out the obvious).

    Might be, but there’s a strong argument the other way as well. The illegitimacy numbers and their relationship with birth control and abortion both are not friendly to the theory that they would promote stronger family structures through accident reduction. The cases where they do this seem to be outnumbered by the effects that these options have had on cultural-sexual behavior more generally.

  3. Alex Knapp says:

    This would be more useful if it broke down the numbers between single unwed mothers and mothers who are cohabitating with the father.

  4. Toads says:

    Except no one wants to confront the REASON for this illegitimacy :

    Feminism, that lobbies for government subsidies of unwed motherhood.

    If you subsidize something, you get more of it. The bogus ‘deadbeat dads’ campaign is just a mask to conceal that feminists taught women to exclude a father who wants to be there (taking the father’s money is fine, though).

    Read why Republicans will never be able to cut government spending. It is because Republicans are afraid of feminists.

  5. The Borris says:

    I would be interested to see how these rates would be affected if we stop catering
    to the dim-wits in society. Stop giving people free help for being stupid.

  6. Eric Florack says:

    Intended to get pregnant?
    I tend to doubt it was all that many.

    “The black family has crumbled more in the last 30 years than it did in the entire 14 decades since slavery.” Dr. Julian Hare, Dir. – San Francisco

    I submit that destruction started with the advent of the “great society”.

    No, this is not a matter of poverty.

    • 70% of African-Americans do NOT live below the poverty line.
    • 61% of middle-class Blacks own stock.
    • 40% live in suburban neighborhoods.
    • ½ trillion dollars/year generated and circulated.
    • Several named as wealthiest individuals in the nation.
    • Black households earning over $100,000/yr. increased tenfold since 1960’s.

    What it is, rather, is the destruction of the black family by means of government support, and the removal of the cultural stigma attached to such behavior.

    Let’s not forget a few other facts, just as important as the live, out of wedlock birth rates:
    43% of all black children are aborted, nearly 3 times higher than for Whites, and since Roe</i) the numbers are staggering…Over 15 million African-American babies have been aborted Gang… think about this… that's a number that is 14 times the
    total of all U.S. soldiers killed in all of America’s wars over the years from 1775 to present.

    A black woman is 25 times more likely to contract AIDS than a white woman and represents 72% of all women with AIDS. African-Americans are 20 times more likely than whites to have gonorrhea. AIDS is now the #1 killer of black women, age 25-44. • 67% of black women with AIDS contracted HIV thru heterosexual sex.

  7. John Gardner says:

    A question all cultures have to answer is “Who shall pay for bastards?”

    We’ve answered that by decreeing (through AFDC, etc.) that the rest of us will. Lo and behold, we have a lot more bastards …

  8. Tom Schaffner says:

    I wonder what percentage of these unwed mothers is underage. Perhaps we should start vigorously enforcing statuatory rape laws as a deterent. Of course, we’d just end up with an even higher percentage of young, black males in jail or the court system.

  9. K T Cat says:

    Franklin, “It’d be nice to have a further breakdown of how many of them intended to get pregnant vs. those too dumb or timid to use the proper protection properly. Also, I might note that the percentage might be significantly higher if abortion was outlawed (not making that a plus or minus, just pointing out the obvious).”

    The obvious isn’t obvious or even correct. The percentage of blacks born to unwed mothers has gone up even though abortions are legal and we teach sex education and contraception in our schools. Not only has it not worked, it’s actually made things worse. It’s impossible to look at the statistics and suggest anything else. You can’t substitute medical procedures and condoms and pills for traditional morality. We’ve tried that for more than 40 years and it’s been a total failure.

  10. Toads says:

    Tom Schaffner,

    Perhaps we should start vigorously enforcing statuatory rape laws as a deterent.

    What a stupid idea. No wonder conservatives are such useful idiots for feminists.

    The answer is to fight FEMINISM, not make ‘statutory rape’ laws even more absurd than they already are.

    Note that every answer some lame-ass conservative posts will involve punishing men, rather than holding women to adult levels of conduct.

  11. Fen says:

    The cycle perpetuates itself though fatherless (rudderless) black “men” for whom “making her have your baby” is a rite of passage.

  12. Mike Ralls says:

    Does anyone have the figures on what % of children who are born outside of marriage go on to have children outside of marriage themselves? This article says it’s higher than among those who were born inside of a marriage but does not give specifics and I have been trying to find that figure for years now.

    Thanks,
    Mike

  13. Frank H says:

    Consider this analogy: The black communities where this single parenthood occurs represents the modern matriarchy wherein wome have all the power ( at least all the power that exists) and it is to the detriment of all concerned. The Fundamentalist Muslim communities wherein the men have all the power (again, at least all the power that exists there) represent the complete patriarchy and it is to the detriment of all concerned.

    In the American political scene, the feminists keep pushing us toward the matriarchy. It may well be just the means toward their end: Marxism and socialism, but in any case, the reult will be brutal and unforgiving, and in the end, destructive to the society we’ve created here over the last two hundred years or so.

    It is politically incorrect to say that, in some cases, the empowerment of women has been a negative force, but the truth is, it has. Women, especially black women, need to learn that that children really do need both parents becasue the state, as surrogate father, is completely inadequate.

  14. Ali says:

    “The answer is to fight FEMINISM”

    From Wikipedia’s definition: “Feminism refers to movements aimed at establishing and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women.”

    Fighting FEMINISM is not the answer. The existence of equal rights for all people is not something to fight against.

    Fighting social welfare programs that encourage the breakdown of the family so that all people become dependent on government assistance, however, is.

  15. KarenT says:

    Wonder if the low percentage of out-of-wedlick births has anything to do with the academic achievement of Asians being higher than that of “privileged” whites?

  16. Megaera says:

    How on earth can this possibly surprise anyone? If you subsidize any behavior, good or bad, you will get more of it. Take away the stigma or the negative consequences of any action, whether it be overeating, drug use or unmarried motherhood and You. Will. Get. More. Of. It.

  17. Kelly says:

    Once I was attending a wedding with my daughter who was about 7 at the time. She stated that she was going to have a baby before marriage so she could “choose her flower girl”. I took it seriously and later on I told her other people may do that, but in our family we don’t. She named off people we know who have done it that way. I told her no one, not my siblings nor my cousins, not me, or anyone on her dads side has had an out of wedlock baby and it wasn’t going to begin with her. Sure she was young, maybe it was even a funny comment, but I may as well start teaching her now.

    Our best friends are African American, solidly middle class and married for many years. They have 5 kids and two of the girls have gotten pregnant. These girls grew up in a stable, middle class home, but they did just what was endemic among their peers. people across the street from us same thing; African American, stable marriage, their daughter who had a full athletic scholarship to a very good university got pregnant her Senior year. Her academic career went down the drain after that. I don’t begin to understand it.

  18. Roux says:

    Why get married when you have government benefits? There is no reason these women will get married and it’s the government’s fault.

  19. pashley1411 says:

    This is just the flipside of welfare cities, like Detroit, which no longer server a useful human or economic purpose, but have become welfare warehouses.

    There is nothing clever or insightful about this; now that it is no longer socially useful to marry, you’ll have to cut back benefits to the point it becomes economically useful, or, may I say it, necessary, to marry (like its been back to hunter-gatherer days). And then women and wives can continue their civilizing role on the men, which, again, how its been back to hunter-gatherer days.

    As a polity, we aren’t even close to figuring this out.

  20. Lester says:

    I wonder what the rate of unwed motherness is in Africa and African cultures in the Caribbean. Just saying…

  21. tom says:

    i know a group of young women – all working in the same place, making 25-40,000 a year, unmarried mothers living with the fathers in a marriage like relationship. when i ask them whty they dont marry these guys, they tell me they would lose a big tax benefit if they married. i don’t know know if it is true or not, but they all think so. would they lose an earned income tax credit? or something?
    any one know?

  22. Toads says:

    Ali,

    You are an idiot. If you think ‘feminism’ is about equality, then I have two bridges to sell you in Brooklyn.

    Feminism is about forced transfer of wealth from men to women, in return for nothing.

    You need to educate yourself. Go read this to smarten up.

  23. tman2000 says:

    My modest proposal is this: criminalize the inability to support children and also have them.

    To make it fair, the only standard for judgment is whether the kids can be fed or not (so no CPS bs, no cultural mandate favoring marriage etc.). Of course you’d end child welfare subsidies point blank.

    To make it more fair, do 2 strikes you’re out. That way, if a family falls on hard times, you know, it happens.

    So, there would be child welfare for the first strike.

    In fact, even after strike 2 you get child welfare. However, you’d be on a probation of sorts.

    Would this mean going to a minimum security prison as a male? A family center as a female? Mandatory birth control shots to receive government aid?

    I don’t know, sort of spooky to think about, but the whole idea is that it would be very clear cut.

    The premise is: we can’t just keep subsidizing the procreation of children to mothers who can’t afford them (notice that all races are affected). We can’t let the children starve.

    So we criminalize irresponsible procreation, so that there’s an objective legal status for those who need to receive child welfare, but shouldn’t be permitted to keep having more kids. Nor would they want to receive this punishment. I wouldn’t favor mandatory bc, but perhaps as I’ve said as a trade? But women feel entitled when it comes to children, and are emotionally defensive at the talk of taking kids away etc. Even if it’s in the best interest of children.

    If the idea still seems awful, think of it from this angle: males that go around impregnating women but not quite sticking around would go to jail on strike 2. There, it would be harder to impregnate women.

    Something like that… a modest proposal.

  24. John says:

    The world desperately needs some kind of simple, affordable contraception to end this scourge on society. Some pill that terminates sperm production until the antidote is taken, or soemthing.

  25. punditius says:

    Tom – yep, they are right. I work for the IRS so I pay some attention to this sort of thing. The interplay between progressive tax rates and income limitations on the earned income credit & other credits mean that the wage earner hits a point where it is more economically rational to forego increased income rather than lose the credits. These women may be stupid, but they are not dumb.

    Basically, unmarried mothers aren’t really unmarried – they are married to the government.

    In a sense, the problem with out-of-wedlock children is like that of illegal immigrants. We have so damn many of them now that any solution to the problem is going to result in a great deal of immediate human misery. And since there are politically effective interest groups who focus on the present rather than the long term, it seems unlikely that we can do anything about either problem.

    Black women seem to have the additional problem of a low supply of marriageable men. That problem is exacerbated by the need of the Democratic party to make sure that urban blacks stay on the plantation. Outfits like Walmart are kept out of Chicago, rather than directed into the ghettos where they could provide jobs for men. (In part, this is due to the need to placate the other Democratic constituency, the unions, but in part it’s because if black men get jobs, start forming families, & move into the middle class, the Dems might lose their votes. The Dems are the party of those dependent on the government and the ultra rich – the Republicans are the party of the middle class. The Dems will be a permanently minority party if the black vote moves into the Rep column in the same ratio as everyone else.)

    All these things are intertwined to the point where I don’t see how anything much can be done about it. But a good start would be to institute a flat tax for individuals, and eliminate ALL credits and deductions for EVERYTHING, beginning with dollar one. This gets rid of some of the incentive to have children on the dole. Next, drastically reform the drug laws to decriminalize most drugs, and regulate them like alcohol. This might keep the next generation of black men out of jail, so that their “criminal” record doesn’t hurt them. Another thing is to override city ordinances which have the effect of keeping jobs out of the city. If the Commerce Clause justifies Obamacare, surely it justifies a federal law against interfering with interstate commerce by keeping Walmart out.

    Fat chance.

  26. frond says:

    tman2000, not that I’m against your proposal – or at least something like it – but one big question is, What do you do with the kids these serial breeders already have? The long-missed Ken Hamblin called them “brood mares” for a reason…they don’t have just one kid. What do you do with seven when mom is in jail?

  27. Lunacy says:

    We have removed all shame. Some of us even make it seem cool and desirable.
    Add that to the subsidy (for which there is also no shame) and you have an increase.

    Not only is there no shame to bearing bastard children, there is no shame (and a cool factor) for fathering bastards.

  28. Sean says:

    We’re closely approaching Liberal Utopia. A whole race bred specifically to dependent upon political largesse of their Democratic Party benefactors for survival. Up next: hispanics.

    Will be interesting what the next few years bring, though, since we’re bascially out of other people’s money. Those dependents aren’t going to take kindly to cuts in their checks in benefits.

  29. Amos says:

    Franklin says: “Also, I might note that the percentage might be significantly higher if abortion was outlawed (not making that a plus or minus, just pointing out the obvious).”

    Not so obvious.

    Not only does the evidence fail to support this, as KT Cat notes, (and we should go further to note that abortion clinics target black neighborhoods, and that abortion rates among blacks is far higher than other groups), but logic doesn’t support it, either.

    Let’s say that I’m a young man and I get a woman pregnant.

    If she says keep it and I agree, I win.
    If she says kill it and I agree, I win.
    If she says keep it and I disagree, I lose.
    If she says kill it and I disagree, I lose.

    In other words, I only win if I agree. I have responsibility but no power. She, on the other hand, has power and can use it to get rid of responsibility. The logical choice, or it would seem to many, is to walk. Only then can you assert some power over your own life. “I don’t want a baby. You breed it, you feed it, bitch.”

  30. Mikey says:

    I lived in a black world for 26 years. Most black guys had illegit babies here and there, but, also supported them somewhat, and often lived with the mother. For Christmas, birthdays, new clothes, whatever, the fathers contributed. They would babysit, take kids to school and doctors, but NOT get legally married. They usually loved and cared for their “bastards.” Why? Earned income credit, food stamps, free medical (in Ill.), sect 8 housing,free breakfast and lunch in school, free school reg. fees, and a bunch of misc. freebies from different charities. $10-20 K per year as I see it.

  31. Ali says:

    “I have responsibility but no power. She, on the other hand, has power and can use it to get rid of responsibility.”

    This is a sad fact of biology, to be honest. I can guarantee you the woman is no happier than you are about the fact that you can’t get pregnant and carry the baby to term in her stead.

    Hopefully we’ll someday have the technology to extract an embryo and grow it up in vitro, so that a man who had unprotected sex with a woman who wasn’t yet ready to have a baby could ask her to give it to him without committing nearly a year of her life to fulfilling his desire.

  32. Hejde says:

    Has anyone bothered to juxtapose the high rate of single mother households in the black community with the rise of muslims in the black neighborhoods?

    Seems to me that one might be pushing for a clash between stone-age paternalism and a variant of maternalism?

    In any case that situation is not tenable in the long term. Any country, which allows this kind of social tension, is headed for serious trouble.

    There is a good reason, that the foundation for a stable western society is resting on a nuclear family. Allowing inequality as expressed in single mother households and in muslim led households cannot end well.

    Just my 2¢

    peace

    Hejde

  33. Sigfried says:

    “Feminism” is not the problem here. What has changed, and changed greatly, in the years since Moynihan, is the factor of jobs that pay a rate capable of sustaining a family unit. My father, without a degree beyond high school, working one job with occasional side work and National Guard duty, was able to keep my mother from needing to work so she could raise three children in a lifestyle of relative ease. Compare inflation with wage growth since 1965, and factor in unemployment; that is a recipe for destruction of the family unit. Feminism came about because it had to, to give women a place in employment so a family would have sufficient income to sustain itself; it was economic necessity, not some Marxian “wealth transfer”, at least from the citizen’s point of view. Why the government made the laws and policies that made this necessary, and continue to assail the family unit, I do not know. But until the right cause of the problem is faced the solution is likely to remain out of reach.

  34. Peter-Andrew:Nolan(c) says:

    Yes. 72% of blacks born to unwed mothers and those boys growing up without fathers are turning to crime and gangs more and more. All thanks to ‘feminism’ and the idea that ‘fathers are not necessary’. As a father who had his children kidnapped and then extorted for money and has been working on a resolution and path to justice for three years now, with practically ALL western women hurling hatred at me for doing so, I have no sympathy for any woman who has a crime committed against he by one of these fatherless boys.

    You women made your bed? Now you are going to sleep in it.

  35. Peter-Andrew:Nolan(c) says:

    Sigfried says: Sunday, November 7, 2010 at 17:21
    ““Feminism” is not the problem here”
    You would have to be a mental retard to say that Sigfried. Try reading a book before you talk. You might have been thought wise if you kept your mouth shut. Feminism causes fatherlessness, and fatherlessness causes massive social disorder. This has been known for 2,000 years. Or did you not read your bible where it says “do not oppress the widows and fatherless.”

    In roman times slave children went with mother so as to keep the boys oppressed by not giving them a man to bond to and to look up to. Have you not actually informed yourself that the Rockefellers were the driving force behind feminism in the US? Here’s a tip. Watch Aaron Russos interview with Alex Jones where he reports one of the reasons to introduce feminism was to force the women into the work force and indocrinate the children at a younger age in schools. This is enhanced by removing the father. Sigh. Ignorant people comment everywhere.

  36. M. Simon says:

    The Drug War is making it worse:

    Demographics

  37. Frank H says:

    Regarding Ali’s comment:
    “Fighting FEMINISM is not the answer. The existence of equal rights for all people is not something to fight against”

    If I thought for a moment that “feminism” was about gender equality, I’d buy your statement. But I do NOT. Every woman whom I have known that claimed the moniker of “feminist” was about female advantage and female-victimhood rather than actual justice and equal treatment under the law.

    To be called a feminist should be an insult, in my estimation, because it evokes misandry and sexism.

  38. Ali says:

    Frank, could you define what you mean by female-victimhood and female advantage?

  39. DADvocate says:

    Another factor to consider is the increasing dearth of men for which it is worthwhile for women to start a family with.

    LOL. But these men are OK to have sex with and get impregnated by.

    For nearly 50 years we’ve created a society hostile to men and marriage/divorce laws that make it not worthwhile for a man to marry. But, whatever, it’s still all the fault of men. American women are the most pampered, pandered to group in history but, still, any problem they have or create is the fault of men.

  40. A feminist says:

    All I can see here is a string of guys bitter about paying child support – and blaming women.

    Great co-opting of the original intent of the article.

  41. mae says:

    “As the issue of black unwed parenthood inches into public discourse, Carroll is among the few speaking boldly about it.”

    Well, I do believe that the problem of single motherhood featured quite prominently in a book by the infamous and much maligned Ann Coulter. So as the issue inches into public discourse, it may in part be thanks to her.

  42. Toads says:

    All I can see here is a string of guys bitter about paying child support

    Nope. I have no kids.

    But ‘child support’ is just alimony, as women don’t spend it on kids, but rather on themselves.

    Plus, why is a woman given custody? Custody should be joint.

    Better yet, people with children cannot get a divorce on a ‘no fault’ basis.

    Feminism is the most evil ideology in the world today. Read more about it at :
    http://www.the-spearhead.com

  43. Toads says:

    All I see are a bunch of fat, ugly feminists who want to be moochers off of men because these feminists can’t earn a living themselves.

    Plus, they want to send men to the gas chambers unless they agree to enslavement.

    In my experience (which is real-world, unlike with feminists), it is fathers that put children before themselves. Mothers who divorce are using the children as pawns through which to extract money from the poor dad, who didn’t want to be separated from his children and have them put in danger when mommy entertains drug dealers.

  44. Toads says:

    You would have to be a mental retard to say that Sigfried.

    Seconded. ‘Feminism’, which is really state-backed female supremacism, is THE biggest scourge in American society today.

    Read why at http://www.the-spearhead.com

  45. Patsy says:

    abortion is as much a scourge as being ‘married to the government’.

    since abortion is so easily available, it is easy for the father to feel like he didn’t sign up for a committment to be a parent and so, if a woman chooses not to have an abortion, he can tell himself (and her) it is her choice to have the baby, therefore, HER responsibility.

    the ONLY equitable solution to this poverty-perpetuating cycle is stop it in its tracks via abstinence, which hurts no one, and helps everyone in myriad, proven ways.

    we can see how successful sex education freedom for 50 years and sex education for 30 years has been. in other words, NOT.

    and throwing one’s hands up and saying “they’ll do it anyway” is obviously no solution.

  46. An Interested Party says:

    Nice how this subject has prompted the carting out of all the usual tired conservative shibboleths…government bad, check….feminism bad, check…black people bad, check…and all this talk of how the government fattens up these unwed mothers and their children…it’s like welfare reform never happened…I’m surprised no one has thrown out the specter of the cadillac queen…oh well, at least someone did point out how the so-called “War on Drugs” has made this issue far worse…not surprising though that more commenters didn’t bring that up…

  47. Toads says:

    it’s like welfare reform never happened

    It didn’t. Welfare moved from the state, to the poor father who was extracted from his children against his will, and now lives in near slavery.

    Feminism is the culprit here. Thankfully, more people are realizing this.

  48. Toads says:

    Patsy,

    the ONLY equitable solution to this poverty-perpetuating cycle is stop it in its tracks via abstinence, which hurts no one, and helps everyone in myriad, proven ways.

    No it doesn’t, you unrealistic fool (unless you want to implement strict Islam across America).

    The SOLUTION, which so many pathetic, woman-worshipping, needy conservatives are too dumb to grasp, is to CHANGE LAWS REGARDING DIVORCE AND CHILD SUPPORT SO THAT THEY ARE NOT THE EASY GRAVY TRAINS FOR WOMEN THAT THEY ARE TODAY.

    But conservatives are too dumb to get it, even though they claim to understand economic incentives.

    If a woman can get a free ride for 20 years from a man just by tricking him into getting her pregnant, a lot of women will (and do) entrap men this way. A man has no opt out, the way a woman can opt out via abortion.

  49. Frank H says:

    From ali: ‘Frank, could you define what you mean by female-victimhood and female advantage?’

    Female victimhood: among other things, the exploitation of domestic violence trends, including the frequent use of false accusations in a legal system that is vastly less interested in abusive women than abusive men when it is clear from virtually of the credible science that men and women are equally abusive to one another.

    Female advantage: among other things, the persistent focus on educating girls and pushing them into scientific and technical professions not just through advertising, but also through aggressive affirmative action campaigns targeted at major employers.

    There are many books written on this topic, ali. you may choose to remain ignorant, but your challenge doesn’t change the facts.

  50. Eric Florack says:

    I wonder what the rate of unwed motherness is in Africa and African cultures in the Caribbean. Just saying…

    The observation is an excellent one. If I’m reading you correctly, we seem to agree that the issue is not race, but culture. Specifically, a culture damaged by government.

  51. Ali says:

    Frank, why do you say that I insist on remaining ignorant, when I have politely requested further information from you about your position?

    Regarding your points, I agree that domestic violence should be treated equally among men and women. I am not aware, however, that *feminism* has led to legal disinterest in cases where women harm men. Have any of the books that you’ve read credibly implicated feminism as a causative factor? Can you direct me to the books that you’ve read, so that I can work from the same cases that you are examining and make my own judgments?

    “the persistent focus on educating girls”

    I… don’t really know how to speak to you about that, Frank. The implication that we shouldn’t educate girls is horrifying.

    However, I don’t agree in affirmative action programs based on gender or race, so on that we can agree. In science, though, I do think the programs that are in place to assist parents of either gender are necessary to retain the best minds. There is never a good time to have children, when you’re training to be a scientist. Do it in grad school, and you endanger your doctorate. Do it as a post-doc, and you endanger your publication list and your prospects of gainful employment. Do it as a young principal investigator, and you risk running out the tenure clock because you didn’t get a grant because you were taking care of your children. Many institutions have extended the length of time that they give young parents to get their grants. Because women are often the primary caregivers, they probably take advantage of them more often, but men can take advantage of those programs, too.

  52. M. Simon says:

    Nice how this subject has prompted the carting out of all the usual tired conservative shibboleths

    The failure of the War On Drugs is a conservative issue?

    Who knew?

  53. Toads says:

    The failure of the War On Drugs is a conservative issue?

    Who knew?

    Every left-wing thing that fails becomes re-branded as a right-wing failure.

    The Nazi Party in Germany is but one example of a leftist failure retro-branded as right wing.

  54. takeshi says:

    I tend to believe that most of what we make of “social morality” is not based on an altruist set of tenets per see, but in the stark reality that our friends/family/children will find themselves faced with if they violate our “rules.” Thus the historical shame associated with unwed motherhood finds its roots in the cold, starving truth of those who bore children out of wedlock, not in some warm fuzzy “social morality.” People fear starvation, they don’t fear their neighbors disrespect, at least not to the same degree. Want to eliminate unwed motherhood? Let those who can’t support themselves starve. Back comes the social “shame,” down come the numbers. Cruel yes, but the long term consequences of hand holding are worse. Or did you enjoy your full body “microwave” search at the airport last week?

  55. Toads says:

    Ali,

    I am not aware, however, that *feminism* has led to legal disinterest in cases where women harm men. I am not aware, however, that *feminism* has led to legal disinterest in cases where women harm men.

    In the oft chance that you actually care about facts, read the following :

    http://www.the-spearhead.com
    The Misandry Bubble.

    But I highly doubt that anyone could truly be unaware of the vast legislation designed to excuse women for serious crimes, while punish men severely even without due process.

  56. An Interested Party says:

    “Who knew?”

    I did not make the claim that the failure of the War on Drugs is a conservative issue…

    “Every left-wing thing that fails becomes re-branded as a right-wing failure.”

    The War on Drugs is a “left-wing thing?” And you have the nerve to call anyone else a fool…

    “The Nazi Party in Germany is but one example of a leftist failure retro-branded as right wing.”

    No one outside of far right echo chambers believes that the Nazis were “leftists”….nice try, though…

    “Let those who can’t support themselves starve.”

    Oh yes, please urge the politicians you support to pursue that policy…see how well it works out for them and you…

  57. Toads says:

    No one outside of far right echo chambers believes that the Nazis were “leftists”….nice try, though…

    If by ‘far right’, you mean the 90% of the population that is to the right of you…

    Yes, Nazi Germany was left wing. State control of many industries (including healthcare), and their name in German was actually ‘Nazi socialist party’.

    Genocide is exclusively a left-wing device, since the left views humans as an entry in the ‘cost’ side of the ledger, while the right views humans as an asset. Hence, all genocides have been left-wing in origin.

    Get an education (not a credentialization).

  58. Sigfried says:

    I never said that some women don’t use the current system to abuse men with our whacko divorce and support court setup. But when I see a federal government that has systematically reduced the world’s leading economy into a shambles of low-wage “service” jobs, where men cannot meet court-ordered payments, where crooked lawyers graduate into crooked judges to order such payments, with the “War on Drugs” providing welfare for said legal crooks while disguising the true lack of real jobs, and men and women each being encouraged to keep the other sex down instead of co-operating for the benefit of all–individual, family, community, country– I see evil in high places using “Feminism” as it uses “the War on Drugs” and whatever else is handy to turn citizen against citizen while distracting from the larger scheme against us all. You can call me an idiot all you want, but I’ll not blame half of the human race when I see the withering hand of government reaching out to afflict one and all with its soul-killing touch. Original sin is in both human sexes, but only a government can make sin an institution and destroy people wholesale instead of one by one.

  59. LaughOrCry says:

    Sigfried, in saying that women were forced into the workplace because of declining purchasing power of wages you are putting the cart before the horse. Up until the late ’60s some countries had the Family or Social Wage, which meant that a man’s wage, by law, had to be sufficient to support himself, his wife and his children.

    When women demanded, and got, equal pay legislation that of course meant abolishing the Social Wage. Women moving into the workplace increased the money that women as a group earned, but at the expense of men; the increased labour pool driving down wages: the same size pie is now cut up differently. Now two people have to work to earn what one person did forty years ago… see Elizabeth Warren on the effect this has had on families.

  60. LaughOrCry says:

    An interesting (IMO) take on two-income families (starting particularly at paragraph 6):

    http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2010/04/blindness-to-systems.html

  61. bandit says:

    Dems will continue to push for more social programs until the level gets to 100%

  62. TNmama says:

    How about mandatory sterilization after two kids on welfare? Isn’t that enough kids for someone on the dole? Sterilization for both males and females…….

  63. Jim M says:

    I think the main causes are Urban Renewal, which to many blacks meant “Negro Removal”, and the Black separatist movement. Urban Renewal destroyed whole neighborhoods and relocated the occupants in people filing systems called Projects. No one asked them what they wanted. Black separatism undercut much of Martin Luther King’s attempts to bring people together. Arthur Ashe discussed some of this in his memoir “Days of Grace”.

  64. submandave says:

    ali: “Hopefully we’ll someday have the technology to extract an embryo and grow it up in vitro, so that a man who had unprotected sex with a woman who wasn’t yet ready to have a baby could ask her to give it to him without committing nearly a year of her life to fulfilling his desire.

    I always hear some variant of this argument, especially as it relates to the pro-choice position, that because pregnancy and childbirth not only represents almost a year o fthe woman’s life and a potentially dangerous event (childbirth). I find this line of reasoning interesting, because usually the same folks who don’t want to “punish” the woman a year for a single mistake (to borrow the President’s phrase), seem to have no problem with forcing the man involved to incur financial liability for 18 years for the exact same lack of judgement or bad luck.

    I’ve always wondered how the actual risks stack up, so I did a little research. In the U.S., the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) was reported by UNICEF in 2005 as 11 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. In contrast, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics reported an average Work-related Death Rate in 2008 of 3.7 deaths per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers. This statistic is, naturally, very dependent upon occupation, with three reported categories exceeding the UNICEF reported MMR: Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations with 28.4, Construction and extraction occupations with 11.8, and Transportation and material moving occupations with 16.1. For simplicity, if we assume preganancy to be a one-year endeavor, then the risks faced by the mother and many men expected to pay child support incur in a year may be roughly equal. But the risk for these men does not end after just one year. What cannot be emperically determined is how many men are forced by threat of the law to continue working in higher risk occupations rather than using their time and money for education in pursuit of a lower-risk job, but I believe the premise isn’t that far-fetched.

  65. Peter-Andrew:Nolan(c) says:

    James,
    the solution starts here:
    http://www.peternolan.com/Forums/tabid/420/forumid/58/scope/threads/Default.aspx

    Men are well advised to refuse to engage with women who have not declared their lawful status. They do that? Most of societies problems will be solved. THEN we can clean up the rest.