But then it’s a feminist argument by a woman:
This argument was so compelling that it formed one of her initial hypotheses: “Is it career and educational aspiration that’s driving the turn to egg freezing?”
But when she started speaking to women, it became almost immediately clear that in fact it was something – or someone – else driving the globally expanding trend, which in less than a generation has gone from unheard of to, in some circles, almost ubiquitous.
More than 150 interviews later, her research – the largest anthropological study to date into why women freeze their eggs – concluded that it was men, not women, who were the problem. The biggest driving factor for women in the US was a shortage of suitable educated men, a problem which she terms in her forthcoming book, Motherhood on Ice, the “mating gap”.
Women tend – tend – to look for males of higher social status and educational achievement than themselves. Well, OK. So as more women get more educated the ratio of them to men more educated, that higher status, falls and so there’s less choice. Or, given that women now gain more advanced degrees than men, no choice. But the mating gap is purely a result of the choices of women so, the solution is for women to change their choices. Marry a plumber to have your kids.
Alternatively, educate women less and fewer of them hereby restoring the former balance.
But “I’m not willing to marry the available men” is not a problem with the men now, is it?
All in all a wonderful article. The gem for me was the observation that “All of the women who froze their eggs electively were cisgender.” Only an Observer or Guardian journo would need to point this out.
For Sale: Frozen Career Girl eggs.
Never used.
“The biggest driving factor for women in the US was a shortage of suitable educated men”
Probably because the “suitable” men are all already married. Women who insist that only an ‘alpha’ male is suitable might find that (i) such men are rare, (ii) such men are popular with other women (iii) men tend to look for other attributes in women than their high-powered career and success meaning they have a far wider choice for a partner and (iv) you just ain’t that attractive a catch, lady.
Can’t see this being a winning tactic. If their freezing their eggs because of a lack of suitable high achievement males being available to them now, what’s the chances of them being able to trap one later in life. High achievement males are hardly going to be receptive to childless raddled old crones. Tasty young totty will always rule.
Of course there’s always sperm doners one presumes. But high achievement males are hardly going to be selling the product of a hand shandy.
And then the important question- how many of these advanced qualifications are in social sciences, arts or German polka history?
But “I’m not willing to marry the available men” is not a problem with the men now, is it?
“I have a problem and it’s YOUR problem now,” has worked well for women since the Pleistocene.
Not even joking, civilisation was built as a result of two constant pressures:
1) The need to impress women and have sex with them
2) The need to quieten some of their complaints after they let you have sex with them.
Unfortunately for the Tomb Womb gang, a quietly desperate 39 year old HR professional who’s fucked most of the guys in Sales and now wants you to Matt Hancock all over her frozen egg tray or however that works… is a tough sell to most blokes with options.
Many of the women Inhorn spoke to said they wanted an egalitarian relationship
Those poor, lonely fools.
There’s nothing erotic or romantic about equality. “RESPECTED by the Muscle-bound Billionaire Werewolf Fireman” didn’t sell that many copies.
Mr Darcy didn’t marry Elizabeth Jane Bennett because she was his equal, but because her mysterious feminine charms had made him her willing slave.
It’s quite a poser – if your number one aim in life is to mastermind the new Bud Lite campaign then you’re hardly going to lumber yourself with the kind of boorish ox who used to drink Bud Lite before you “repositioned” it.
“But “I’m not willing to marry the available men” is not a problem with the men now, is it?”
Of course it is. Everything that happens to women that they don’t like is men’s fault. In this case its the mens fault for not being richer and more attractive.
If a meteorite hit the Earth and killed hundreds of millions the Guardian headline (it would survive, cockroaches always do) would be ‘Millions of women killed, men to blame for not destroying meteorite’.
‘it was men, not women, who were the problem’
Surprise, surprise!!
The problem with the female blame game is that it’s been overused and nowadays men accused of “Misogyny” or whatever for not putting up with the GirlBoss shouty bollocks no longer buckles under and does what is needed, but instead says “Yeah. Whatever” and walks away.
The blame is slipping off Teflon shoulders of men because the eternal lists of women’s entitlement (laughingly called standards), has become so preposterous that they ain’t even bothering any more.
Easier to play some video games and then go out with the lads for a few pints and watch the footy.
Sounds like the problem is back in women’s court regardless.
Equally, the last gasp of freezing their eggs probably won’t work either.
I spent £15,000 freezing my eggs at 36 and it completely failed, here’s how I coped with the heartbreak
John Galt –
Over a period of six months, I spent almost £15,000 on three rounds of egg-freezing. I stopped drinking, learned how to inject myself with hormones, underwent countless scans, and three sedations and egg collections. I was lucky; I had very few physical side effects. But it was the emotional side of things that I struggled with. I felt that I was a failure for having to do this, for not being “normal”, I was angry and sad that this was my life when everyone else I knew seemed to be getting married and having babies.
Grim. If women feel like the promises of modernity and equality are a cruel scam, well… they are.
Having it all. A complete set of contradictory opinions and beliefs.
The rise of egg freezing, granting new freedoms to women who can afford to, has also played out amid devastating constraints on abortion in the US after the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade.
2057 AD, in the NYC Fallout Reclamation Zone:
“Si, Carlito. The gringos used to spend billions of dollars aborting the children they had while young and fertile, then billions more on trying to rehydrate freezer-burnt geriatric eggs.
“As joo can see, it didn’t work.”
Don’t blame men then, ladies. Blame “Feminism”.
Plenty of blokes would like to settle down with some young totty and raise a family, but that’s no longer on the menu for some reason.
“But among those who did not object to partnering with somebody less educated, it still proved to be a problem because the men were often intimidated by the success of the women“
and
“ what she describes as “reproductive waithood” – the state women are forced into by a lack of suitable male partners.”
So the men were at fault as they were intimidated by super clever wimmins, or the women were forced to shun all the thick men they dated. Please just fuck off.
And this is just perfect
“ I learned the term ‘the Peter Pans’, you know the men who will never grow up. They may be educated men who have money and so forth, but they want to play around and have a lot of fun and may not partner at all, or may not partner well into their 40s and 50s,” she says.”
And when they do ‘partner’ in their 40s, it ain’t with shrivelled old hags who think the world owes them a perfect partner at their own convenience.
This article is an exemplar of peak Grauniad women.
Male incels: Wicked people who need to be ostracized and bullied more.
Female incels like these egg-freezers: Brave victims of The Patriarchy.
So, her few remaining eggs are already stale by those “late 30’s” and they aren’t going to be improved by being frozen for a few years and then re-implanted in her already dying/dead womb in her 40’s / 50’s are they?
Sounds like a scam for cat ladies to be honest.
JG – meh.
“Feminism”, I feel sure, is a cop out. We didn’t completely tranform politics, society and the economy in the 20th century because of Germaine Greer.
However, every cloud has a silver lining:
But in the meantime, she says, we should focus on celebrating women’s successes. “Women around the world are really doing amazing things in higher education,”
Sure, Jan.
Credentialism and forcing salaries to stagnate in every field they dominate. Yes, that’s quite an achievement.
Meanwhile, women themselves are unhappier than ever and their happiness is going even further down as time goes on. Unlike men whose happiness levels have improved slightly.
Doesn’t feel like the girls are winning by any measure which really counts (and money / credentials don’t).
@BiS,
I know it’s a typo, but the idea of ‘Sperm doners’ turned my stomach, as I was already suspicious of what a doner kebab was made of …
(Once upon a time, in Heidelberg, I passed a doner kebab shop advertising doners with garlic sauce, which as ‘knoblauchsosse’ was a little long for the chalkboard appeared as ‘mit knob sosse’. I don’t think I need to tell you what it looked like).
So Prof Marcia C Inhorn is happy to blame men for all of these failings (which all appear to be bad female choices to my assessment), but she has no desire to contaminate or undermine her study by actually asking even a small sample of then.
How very closed minded of her…
“ I gave myself the best shot at motherhood I could have done, ”.
I really don’t think she did. And that’s is really the heart of problem,
“Meanwhile, women themselves are unhappier than ever and their happiness is going even further down as time goes on. Unlike men whose happiness levels have improved slightly.”
I don’t think this is true, but I think it is for a certain sector of women. I think a lot of women have been seduced into certain degree courses, professions, moving to London. They were behind the curve. Getting a degree used to automatically open doors, doing office jobs used to pay great wages, and being in London used to give you a considerable premium on those.
You can see it with the writers strike in America. They’re all complaining about how they aren’t getting paid like people did on Friends, but yeah, there were a lot less people competing for writing jobs. And I’ve seen it with novellists complaining about their books selling for 99p. Yeah, there’s far too many novels being written.
Something I really wonder about is how many women are bad at judging the state of status. Like I think that 40 years ago, getting a job writing for one of the main papers was a pretty big deal. I think women move into something after they hear it’s high status. Which is after the peak has already passed, some disruption is occuring because of the costs, and then they have to study to get into it.
Like I think the most successful group of people in the UK right now are probably the Deanos. They have no student debt, they do useful jobs and they live in cheaper parts of the country. They manage to own a comfortable semi-detached house and a wankpanzer and will probably have kids.
BoM4 – Something I really wonder about is how many women are bad at judging the state of status. Like I think that 40 years ago, getting a job writing for one of the main papers was a pretty big deal. I think women move into something after they hear it’s high status. Which is after the peak has already passed, some disruption is occuring because of the costs, and then they have to study to get into it.
Yarp. See: the legal profession.
“Become a lawyer” was, generally speaking, good career advice for academically inclined youngsters in the 1970’s.
It’s foolish advice now, and has been for decades. Unless your Mummy or Daddy are already partners/KC’s, you’re almost certainly setting yourself up for a career of relatively shit wages trying to make money in law as a new entrant to the industry in 2023. There’s far more supply than demand, and wages reflect that.
Our law schools now look exactly like receptionist schools, it’s the same type of girls who would otherwise be studying beauty therapy or marketing. They’re still getting the “be a lawyer” life script handed to them, even though the world in which that was good advice hasn’t existed for donkeys.
Unless your Mummy or Daddy are already partners/KC’s, you’re almost certainly setting yourself up for a career of relatively shit wages trying to make money in law as a new entrant to the industry in 2023.
I’m not sure that’s entirely true. ‘Magic Circle’ London firms are starting graduates on 6-figure salaries. Of course, you’ll have to be very good (at law, anyway) and work extremely long hours for that money, and you won’t get that at a provincial solicitors.
Chris – NB:
The number of legal graduates in law across England and Wales for the 2021-22 academic year reached a record high 18,927.
Statistically, they’re more likely to get cast for Love Island than earn telephone book money in London.
Most of them will still be earning under £30K in ten years.
If they want men of a higher standard, then they need to be women of a higher standard. No more “body positivity,” no more nagging about politics, no more hideous fashion trends, no more mood swings and maybe learn a skill or at least learn to contribute to a conversation.
Until then, I have absolutely no sympathy.
For most of them it would probably be easier to learn to become 20 years younger
“I think the most successful group of people in the UK right now are probably the Deanos. They have no student debt, they do useful jobs and they live in cheaper parts of the country. They manage to own a comfortable semi-detached house and a wankpanzer and will probably have kids.”
I had to google this:
Deano:
A lower middle class couple living outside London in a new build house that arguably have more spending power than better educated people living in cities.
Apart from our house not being new, I think that this seems to describe my wife and I to a tee.
Further to that last comment, Mrs S has a degree but did a part time course over five years while working. I made a reasonable living as an engineer in the power fastenings industry. Being able to fix things doesn’t just give you earning power, it also means that you don’t need to pay other people to fix or build your stuff. Years ago I bought a dead motorbike for a tenner, fixed it and used it to commute for several years. Does my Korando count as a wankpanzer?
My wife’s first degree was from Cambridge …
After doing a bit more digging it appears that Deano is a derogatory term for people who are doing alright materially despite being what my old mum would have described as ‘common as muck’ having little intellect and no taste.
I’m not sure if I should feel insulted now.
I think most people who say Deano say it with love. But, are you (or the missus) a fan of the colour grey?
—
With the return of polygamy, women – as a whole – cannot get the men that they want. This isn’t a problem that men could fix. Women need to want the men they can get. And I think they generally do. The book is from the perspective of women who failed to do that.
(And, yes, young people can still make very good money by studying law and moving to London, even at not the very best firms. But, I can readily believe that you do have to be some of the best candidates even for them and that there’s a severe drop off for the other 95%.)
“Women need to want the men they can get. And I think they generally do. The book is from the perspective of women who failed to do that.”
However as economics teaches us, problems arise at the margin. The marginal problem woman does not have to be representative of the majority of women, or even close to that to still be a significant problem for society.