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Snubbing the Wedding Ring
A new research from Yale University is going right to the heart of an issue that is all too familiar in the African American community. That educated and successful Black women are finding it difficult to meet “Mr. Right.”
The research which has become the subject of many discussions in the media about the stability of the Black family in the Barack Obama era shows that few Black women with post-graduate degrees are getting married and having children. “
In the past nearly four decades, Black women have made great gains in higher education rates, yet these gains appear to have come increasingly at the expense of marriage and family,” said Hannah Brueckner, professor of sociology at Yale University and one of the authors of the research. “Both White and Black highly educated women have increasingly delayed childbirth and remain childless, but the increase is stronger for Black women.”
This new study produced by Yale University Center for Research on Inequalities and the Life Course, directed by Brueckner, has been described as the first of its kind for reviewing long-term trends in marriage among highly educated Black women.
According to the study, Black women who were born after 1950 were twice as likely as their White counterparts to never have been married by age 45, and twice as likely to be divorced, widowed or separated. “
Highly educated Black women have increasingly fewer options when it comes to potential mates,” Brueckner said. “They are less likely than Black men to marry outside their race, and compared to Whites and Black men, they are least likely to marry a college-educated spouse.”
Some highly educated and successful Black men have gone outside of their race to find their soul mates.
Vivid examples can be found in Julian Bond, veteran civil rights leader and chairman of the National NAACP, entertainer/activist Harry Belafonte, former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Anan, basketball great Charles Barkley and golf superstar Tiger Woods, who all married White women.
Because of the limited pool of available intelligent and accomplished Black men, some Detroiters are responding to the Yale report with cautious optimism.
“I think that Black women should explore other options (opposite sex), just as many Blacks have done throughout history. Love is not defined in terms of Black and Black, but perhaps, in terms of Latino, Asian, White, etc,” said Kimberly Hill, 37, a political consultant, lecturer and former aide to Congressman John Conyers.
Hill said Black women are faced with so many socioeconomic challenges that sometimes provide unintended roadblocks in developing relationships.
“For jobs that have traditionally been held by White men, there is almost an unbearable amount of pressure to perform exceptionally. Consequently, women are often forced to choose between career advancement or love,” Hill said.
“It is very possible to become so engrossed in the mundane functions of a career position that you lose sight of your outside interests, thus hindering your chances of finding love.”
However, Hill believes the dilemma facing Black women can be addressed.
“The answer is balance. As successful Black women we must learn to prioritize what is important in life, and balance must influence this equation,” she said. “A balanced woman achieves academic and career success, actively displays a commitment to bettering their community, has a social life, and most importantly, at least in my view has developed spiritual maturity.”
The study noted that despite the fact that Black women are more likely than White women to have children, 45 percent of those born between 1955 and 1960 didn’t have children by 45 compared to 35 percent of White women who were born in the same period.
The study, led by Natalie Nitsche, a graduate student in sociology at Yale, used data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey to reveal the marital status of Black women with postgraduate degrees.
For example, for Black women with postgraduate degrees born between 1956 and 1960, the average age they gave birth for the first time was 34, almost in the same range as White women.
However, when White women started reaching their 30s, many of them gave birth more than once while most Black women did not.
Ebony Reed, 31, deputy metro editor at the Detroit News, said there are a number of factors responsible for the shortage of Black men in our communities.
“If Black professional women are only looking in the Black community for a mate there is a limited pool of available men, based on high rates of incarceration, mortality and unemployment of Black men,” Reed said. “There are also lower levels of college degrees among Black men when compared to Black women.”
Reed, an accomplished journalist who received management training at the New York Times and at the Maynard Institute’s Media Academy at Harvard University, said the situation in Detroit is dire.
“For Detroit women between the ages of 30 and 40, there are approximately 30 percent more women than men in the city,” Reed said. “When you look at the Census data for the same age group across Michigan, there is only a 6 percent difference, based on the recent U.S. Census American Community Survey.”
Reed said that means women who live in Detroit face a much smaller pool of available men to start with.
“For example according to the recent Census, more than 50,000 women in Detroit, which is a mostly Black community, have a bachelor degrees or higher compared to only 31,000 of men,” Reed said.
At 26 years, Kelly L. Dickens, a successful producer and reporter for ABC12 WJRT TV in Flint, describes herself as “super single.”
“I have had about three relationships and I ended them because they simply weren’t working,” she said. “There was tension in a few of them because of my demanding job schedule and ambition. Right now I am single. I have no candidates. I’m not sure I totally believe that’s because there aren’t any available men who have my standards.”
Dickens said she and several other successful Black women are waiting for their “Barack Obama” to come and find them.
President Obama has become the new model of a charming Black prince for most Black women who see his strong family values and affection for Michelle Obama as renewed hope that they can find their own someday.
“For so long people have pretended as if it was close to impossible to have it all, but the President of the United States and Michelle shattered that glass ceiling,” Dickens said.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey of 2006 showed that 45 percent of Black women in America have never been married compared to 23 percent of White women.
That fear of being alone, whether it is during the holiday season or other special occasions forces some women to make rash decisions resulting in unsatisfactory relationships, and unfulfilling marriages that end quickly in divorce.
More recently the gender roles of women have changed, making them more demanding in professional fields traditionally held by men, which consequently affects relationships.
“I’ve heard a few men say that women nowadays just don’t know their ‘role.’ Being a woman in the work force, I work to tear down ‘roles.’ My coworker just said women fight for their rights and roles at work and then bring that same attitude into a relationship and it doesn’t work,” Dickens said. “I can see this happening, but I don’t think that is me. I think I can be a good mate but I don’t baby and coddle men. I will, however, be your number one supporter.”
Portia Roberson, who heads the U.S. Justice Department Office of Intergovernmental and Public Liaison, is not only a successful lawyer, but the native Detroiter is also a rising star in the Obama administration.
When reached on her cell, Roberson, who has turned 40, agreed with Kimberly Hill that Black women should expand their dating options.
“We need to widen our scope of dating and relationship possibilities. However, we are often convinced that only a certain type of man can be our soul mate,” Roberson said. “We recognize that men may seem to have a myriad of dating options, but they must challenge themselves to recognize that there remains real value and happiness in being in committed, loving relationships.”
Recounting her dating experience, Roberson said it’s never been an issue for her to date men of different status and income levels.
“I’ve dated men who made significantly more than I did and men who’ve made less. Black women, like all women, are looking for men who treat us respectfully, love us, and have healthy relationships with their families, friends and their God. Men who are confident, open and secure with themselves,” Roberson said.
Lonette McKee, actress and filmmaker, said it is a new day for Black women.
“Throughout my entire adult life I’ve always been in a live-in relationship with a man. I’ve been happily married and gleefully divorced. I’ve enjoyed great relationships with wonderful men and some, well, not so much. But things have changed. It’s a new day,” McKee said. “Women nowadays are holding down jobs, earning their own paychecks and taking responsibility for their own happiness and emotional well-being. We realize we’re capable of taking care of ourselves and don’t necessarily need or want men (or anyone else) to provide for us. There’s power in independence.”
C. Paschal Eze is author of the allegorical “Divorce Appetizers: All You Shouldn’t Eat and What to Do When You Eat Them,” that offers methods for maintaining a healthy marriage.
“I won’t be surprised if in the future you find many more diverse families where John is Brown, Mary is Yellow and Steve is White and their Mama is my lovely Black sister whose current husband is Yellow. I won’t be surprised if that same future produces more Black fathers of mulattoes who do not really care about our traditions,” Eze said whose book is being released on Amazon.com.
“Our Black culture may yield more ground in the cultural push and pull, losing some of its steam and substance. Yet, I must posit that love is wherever and whenever you find it — in White or Black, inner city or suburb, tall or short, online, word of mouth recommendation, at professional conference or choir practice — as long as it is love and not something that pretends to be love. I think the more our women go outside of our community to marry, the stronger the challenge would be on our men to rise up and take their rightful place in the hearts of these women. If they don’t fill the vacuum, you can bet others will, eventually.”
The divorce rate in the Black community is equally soaring, presenting another challenge to the Black family.
“Yes, the number of should-be-married and once-married ladies is huge. One may say it has even become a thing of pride to wave the once-married banner and talk often about ‘loving my daughter to death,’ as if the daughter is a finite consolation for not having a husband,” Eze said. “You know, it sort of reflects one’s level of social sophistication and spirit of independence. Beyond that, I think, in many ways, marrying and staying married has also become a matter of cash. Show me your wallet, and I will show you the type of woman that can stick with you, come summer or winter. But not all women are that way, I must add.”
But Eze added, “There are still women that will love their Black men for who they are, and will go the distance with them. There are also men who fold their hands and wait for the women to guide, feed, clothe and bathe them. Are they really men?”
E-mail senior editor Bankole Thompson at bthompson@michronicle.com.
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