More Americans are living alone after recession

The reasons why given below are all fair enough but the elephant in the room is being neglected:  The influence of feminism.  In that connection, I will simply recycle something I have said several times recently:

An obvious culprit would be feminism and the gradual breakdown of traditional sex roles.  We have evolved to be sexual specialists. At it simplest men did the hunting and women looked after the babies.  And evolution is slow to change.  We are still born with those old cavemen specialisms.  That is who we are and how we feel. 

That all that specialization has become of little importance to survival in the last half century will have had no impact on our genetic propensities whatever.  We will still be most comfortable in traditional roles.  But women in particular have had ferociously preached at them that such roles are now WRONG.

And that can only result in discomfort and dissatisfaction for all concerned. Expectations will continuously be at odds with natural inclinations. Human beings are very flexible so some degree of accommodation to modern reality is possible but all flexibility has its limits.  So in many cases relationships will break down, leaving both parties alone


The number of Americans living with a spouse or partner has fallen notably in the last decade, driven in part by decisions to delay marriage in the wake of a recession that hit new entrants into the workforce especially hard.

Forty-two percent of Americans live without a spouse or partner, up from 39 percent in 2007, according to the Pew Research Center’s analysis of U.S. Census Bureau figures. For those under the age of 35 years old, 61 percent live without a spouse or partner, up 5 percentage points from a decade ago.

The higher number of spouseless households comes as the marriage rate declines precipitously. Just half of American adults are married, down from 72 percent in 1960.

The average American woman gets married just after her 27th birthday, while the average man waits until he is 29.5 years old to marry — significantly higher than the median ages half a century ago.

“The median age of first marriage has gone up significantly over the past several decades,” said Kim Parker, who directs research on social trends at the Pew Research Center. “But it’s not all about delayed marriage. The share of Americans who have never married has been rising steadily in recent decades. So, part of it is a move away from marriage.”

Pew researchers said the rise in those households without a partner or spouse is not a sign that more marriages are breaking up; the divorce rate has been stable, or even declining, since the 1980s.

Instead, analysts said, the decline in both marriage and partnerships is likely a result of the declining ability of men to earn a salary large enough to sustain a family.

“All signs point to the growing fragility of the male wage earner,” said Cheryl Russell, a demographer and editorial director at the New Strategist Press. “The demographic segments most likely to be living without a partner are the ones in which men are struggling the most — young adults, the less educated, Hispanics and blacks.”

Russell pointed to data that shows marriage rates increase for younger Americans in connection with salaries. Fewer than half of men between the ages of 30 and 34 who earn less than $40,000 a year are married. More than half of those who make more than $40,000 a year are married, including two-thirds of those who make between $75,000 and $100,000 a year.

“The point at which the average young man becomes ‘marriageable’ appears to be earnings of $40,000 a year or more,” Russell said.

The Pew data underscores the economic marriage gap: Adults who do not live with partners are more than twice as likely to live in poverty than those who have partners.

“Our surveys show us that one of the things that’s holding unmarried adults back from getting married is that they feel they’re not financially stable enough,” Parker said.

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Will Co-Ed Boy Scouts Still Have Honor?

The Boy Scouts crossed the Rubicon and announced that girls can begin to become full members in 2019.

After breaking down the “barriers” within the male gender over the last few years by accepting boys who claim to be homosexual or transgender, this week the Boy Scouts crossed the Rubicon and announced that girls can begin to become full members in 2019. What’s in a name, anyway?

Starting that year, girls will be placed in separate-gender individual Cub Scout dens consisting of about a half-dozen members, with the local pack having the option of combining dens of each gender or maintaining separate groups. Once girls cross the bridge to become Boy Scouts, they will have a separate but equal track that could lead them, too, to become Eagle Scouts, the pinnacle of the Scouting experience.

It appears the Boy Scouts are trying to walk a very fine line here by allowing girls to join but without placing them in many situations where they will interact with boys. “This unique approach allows the organization to maintain the integrity of the single gender model while also meeting the needs of today’s families,” said the Scouts in a release. They also claimed a survey showed that 90% of parents whose families were not involved in Scouting would like to get their daughters into a program like the Cub Scouts.

This may have been news to the Girl Scouts, whose Brownie and Junior programs cater to girls who are about the age of Cub Scouts. Understandably, they were less than thrilled. “We’ve had competitors come and go and this is yet another competitor,” said Girl Scouts Chief Customer Officer Lisa Margosian. “This is a direct response to boost their declining membership. At this point we’re just about reminding people that we have an expertise in serving girls that the Boy Scouts just don’t have.” They have cookies, too.

Faced with a decline in numbers and under increasing pressure from organizations like NOW to modify their rules, the Boy Scouts caved once again. Perhaps this structure is in answer to worries some Boy Scout parents have and could appeal as a “one-stop shop” of sorts, but this also gives parents of young girls an option to avoid the “all-in for the progressive agenda” Girl Scouts.

Another casualty will be male bonding. Boys behave differently when girls are present, and thus will lose something only found in a single-sex environment.

It’s not an overstatement to call this a radical move, but the vote among their Board of Directors was unanimous and the die is now cast. As BSA’s Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh stated, “The values of Scouting — trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind, brave and reverent, for example — are important for both young men and women.”

That much is true, and as membership rolls decline for both Boy and Girl Scouts it was perhaps inevitable the two groups come together somehow — and the Boy Scouts blinked first. The question can and should be asked, though: How much of the decline in membership is from the national organizations succumbing to the leftist cultural agenda? In catering to pressure groups, the Scouts are now losing the parents who would once sought out the unique and wholesome experience of Scouting.

In fact, what’s happening to the Scouts is a microcosm of what’s happening to boys around the country — feminization. Rabid feminism says that in order for girls to be equal, they have to be just like boys. Which is odd given how much feminists hate men.

As Nicole Russell put it, “This decision is not only indicative of the toxic hold third-wave feminism has on large organizations and the people who run them, but demonstrative of a consolidated effort to eradicate the influence of boys and men on society. Simply put, it’s not enough to emasculate men or categorize them as predators or toxic, now we must equate them with girls in order to remove gender differences, and eventually men, altogether.”

With this change by the Boy Scouts, just imagine their Scout camp. If “boys will be boys,” how long do you think it will be before a girl (or, more specifically, the parents of a girl) will be offended? It may have been harmless fun when the parents or grandparents were in the Boy Scouts many ago, but in this era of triggered snowflakes it may not be long before the Boy Scouts are neutered for good.

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A Cultural Cold War Gets Warmer
   
This past week, in an update to its style guide, the Associated Press decided to declare the transgender debate settled, despite a growing body of scientific research showing it really is a mental issue. The AP will now reject such phrases as “gender transitioning” and go with “gender conforming.” So Bruce Jenner was always Caitlyn and he, over time, conformed instead of transitioned.

This sort of Orwellian wordplay is one of many reasons that the American public increasingly rejects the American media. It made it dreadfully easy for Russia to spread fake news because the media is already playing at the game themselves when they do things like embrace “they” as a singular pronoun, which the Associated Press will now do. This may seem like a minor issue, but it is just another data point in the ongoing march toward another civil war.

John Davidson, writing at The Federalist, took note of new Pew Research Center data that shows the nation’s politics are more divided than ever before. And, on the political left, there is a massive intolerance for anyone on the right. In fact, there are more people on the left in America today who would be angry with a conservative neighbor than there are conservatives who would be angry with a liberal neighbor.

Not just that, but the left increasingly believes the entire American experiment is illegitimate. Ta-Nehisi Coates, a writer for The Atlantic, has started openly pondering a French Revolution in the United States. Though he is not yet brave enough to say what he wants, it is clear from his writings that he hopes or is moving toward openly hoping for some level of violence in this country to purge the stain of the American Revolution. Others on the left now demand we upend the first, second, fifth, and other amendments to the constitution. On the right, President Trump too wants to upend the first amendment at a time we need to protect speech as much as possible.

In California, the Governor just signed legislation that decriminalizes the knowing transmission of HIV. So if you happen to go to California and need a blood donation, because the law applies to blood donations as well, you just might go home with HIV. But it is OK because the left has decided HIV and AIDS need to be de-stigmatized.

Then there are the NFL protests, which President Trump has seemingly won. What started with Colin Kaepernick refusing to stand for the national anthem because he does not care for the United States turned into a more expanded social commentary by players intent on politicizing football. When President Trump responded, suddenly to stand for the flag was racist. It has been funny first to see President Trump get so many NFL players on their knees before him only to now have them stand, privately seething in the knowledge President Trump just beat them at this.

Now, the Boy Scouts will admit Girl Scouts. That, to be sure, is just as well. The Girl Scouts have increasingly become just a teen meeting for Planned Parenthood between cookie sales. But in addition to the left forcing men into women’s bathrooms, they want no safe places for boys to learn how to be men of good character. Everyone must conform to androgynous, amoral illiberalism.

On and on it goes in a cultural suicide. If nothing else, this shows that the fight over confederate statutes was really not about the statues at all, but about rewriting history and engaging in Orwellian tactics to move a debate about the future of the country onto turf more friendly to the left. Then Harvey Weinstein happened.

The media and liberal elite who have excoriated President Trump and conservatives for bad behavior turn out to have been knowingly protecting a sexual predator. “But Harvey is not the president,” they say as they post selfies with Bill Clinton. After years of moral preening from Hollywood in the culture war, it turns out they have been preaching one thing and doing another. They are the hypocrites they told us we were and ever closer we creep to heating up this cultural cold war.

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Californication Reaches New Lows

California has just made blood transfusions dangerous

Never let it be said that the state of California lets logic get in the way of its decisions. Gov. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown signed a law last week that reduces from felony to misdemeanor the act of knowingly exposing a sexual partner to HIV. Also, people who donate blood are no longer obligated to let blood banks know that they are HIV positive. The reason for doing this is because … well, let’s face it — there is no logical reason for doing this.

Nevertheless, State Sen. Scott Wiener, one of the bill’s authors, tried: “Today California took a major step toward treating HIV as a public health issue, instead of treating people living with HIV as criminals. HIV should be treated like all other serious infectious diseases, and that’s what SB 239 does.”

Really? Was California treating HIV positive people like criminals before this law was passed? This statement sounds like an example from the Barack Obama Straw Man 101 manual.

There’s no question that carrying HIV is a significant burden. It’s a disease for which there is currently no cure, only treatments for symptoms. Patients must adhere to a lifelong diet of drugs and therapy to keep the virus in check. But thanks to medical advances, the effects of HIV can be reduced, and the virus is no longer automatically assumed to lead directly to AIDS, which just a few years ago was considered a death sentence.

Yet the price of carrying this illness is a responsibility to keep from spreading it to others. Some states carry heavy penalties for people who knowingly spread HIV to unsuspecting sexual partners. California is now saying that committing such a heinously selfish act is no big deal. It’s hard to comprehend a worse signal to be sent by the nation’s most populous state, though that’s not for the state’s lack of effort to send terrible signals.

With this kind of backward thinking among the nation’s leftist elite, it’s no wonder that STDs are on the rise again after years of meaningful declines. Gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia were at historic lows just a few years ago, but the CDC warns that incidences of all three sexually transmitted diseases are rising again nationwide.

Part of the reason is because of a reduced lack of focus in communicating the ravages of these illnesses. But it cannot be denied that dumbing down the moral and medical cost of promiscuous lifestyles is also to blame. It’s often said that as California goes, so goes the rest of the nation. Let’s hope that’s no longer the case, because that state is going off the rails and the rest of the nation shouldn’t follow.

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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