It's cast as a crisis for the African American community, but the subtext is that women should settle down – and settle for less
Twenty years ago, just after college, I attended a birthday party for a friend. In the kitchen, standing round the drinks, a handsome guy chatted me up:
"So, do you have a boyfriend?" He asked.
"No," I replied.
"Oh, what's wrong with you, then?"
"Sorry?" I said, puzzled.
"I mean, dudes should be interested in a woman like you. If you don't have a boyfriend, something must be wrong with you. You must be one of those crazy women."
Over the last decade, America has been playing an increasingly aggressive game of "What's wrong with you, then?" with heterosexual single black women. US marriage rates are dropping, according to a recent Pew Research Center study. But African Americans marry even less often than their white counterparts. According to the 2010 census, just over 26% of white Americans aged 15 and older have never married, compared to 47% of the black population.
We are told that the "black marriage crisis" (pdf) affects none so much as black women. Though black men are equally unmarried, news articles, panel discussions, special reports and books solely lament the fact that black women are half as likely to marry as white women.
There are, of course, many complicated reasons for this gap. Experts cite numbers: there are more American black women than men; higher rates of interracial partnering among black men; bias against black men in the criminal justice system and the legacy of slavery. There is also the achievement gap: black women outnumber black men in higher education more than two to one, and this often creates a wedge of opportunity and class between them.
But no reason seems more compelling than the idea that black women need to change who they are and what they want. In Is Marriage For White People?, Ralph Richard Banks tells black women to date more nonblack men. In an interview with gossip site NecoleBitchie.com that exploded around the web, actor and singer Tyrese cautioned black women against being "too independent".
Comedian, radio host and now bestselling author Steve Harvey suspects women don't understand how men think. We need to, according to Harvey, meet men on their own terms. In his popular books, Act Like a Lady: Think Like a Man and Straight Talk; No Chaser, Harvey doles out advice on how to be "a girl" and cautions women that wanting a man who is "humble and smart, fun and romantic, sensitive and gentle, and, above all, supportive" is "unrealistic".
Harvey is not alone in thinking black women demand too much of their partners. Even as we are bombarded with advice on how to change to meet the desires of selective partners, single black women are constantly confronted for being "too picky".
And it seems black women are not the only women carrying this burden. In a recent article for the Guardian, Syma Mohammed discussed why older, Muslim British women in the Asian community struggle to find marriage partners. There is a tradition of men from the Indian subcontinent marrying women from their country of origin. Also, men are allowed to marry outside of the Muslim faith, while women are not. And then, there is this:
"Moreover, in line with national trends, Muslim women academically outperform the men. According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission's How Fair is Britain? report, Bangladeshi and Pakistani women are more likely to be employed as professionals than their male counterparts. This means that professional Muslim women have an even smaller pool of intellectual and economic equals to choose from.
"This is exacerbated by the fact that Asian men are likely to choose partners of lower economic and intellectual status as they traditionally grow up with working fathers and stay-at-home mothers, and generally choose to replicate this model.
"Unfortunately, these imbalances are not widely acknowledged – many label older unmarried women as fussy. The effect on women is crippling. Many become depressed as a huge amount of importance is attached to marriage, and unmarried women are made to feel that they've failed."
It is not so surprising that African American and British Muslim women are both judged harshly for their singleness. While race and religion have their parts to play in the narrative, what is truly at work here is sexism: the sexist way society views a woman's role in romantic entanglements. A woman's worth comes from being chosen, not choosing. Men will be men, so it is believed; as women, our focus should be on adapting to men, not demanding partners who fulfill our needs.
This is a view that transcends race and religion. Angela Jorden, an American woman, married at 38, though many of her friends partnered much earlier, in the years after college. She reflects:
"That seems to be the Midwestern white girl expectation: Meet your husband in college. Get married. Have kids.
"I always speculated – and other people did, too – if I lost a little weight, I would attract a certain mate. Or if I got out in certain circles more. I think the typical married Midwestern couple's thought is 'You just haven't met the right guy yet.'
"The older you get, that changes. After 30, people start assuming you're fine with being on your own, and people start assuming you are picky or not a suitable candidate for someone."
In the United States, many black women are pushing back against the notion that our suitability, our worth, is tied to what is or isn't glittering on our ring fingers. But we shouldn't stand alone in challenging this notion. The unmarried black woman may be the "shark attack" or "missing white kid" of this media cycle, but the foundation for the narrative is, in part, a bias that touches all women, regardless of race or religion.
In the face of this or that marriage crisis, all women need to affirm that we have a right to be selective about our partners. And that our marital status does not define us.