Council on Contemporary Families

Singles & Dating

CCF Gender Revolution Symposium: In Sex and Romance, Not So Much Gender Revolution

By Paula England, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
New York University
Email: pengland@nyu.edu

Back in the 1960s, feminist activists declared that “the personal is political,” meaning that seemingly innocuous personal interactions, such as a man opening the door for a woman unencumbered by a package, buying his date a restaurant meal while the woman reciprocated with a home-cooked meal, or having her give up her name at marriage, recreated gender stereotypes and inequalities. Despite significant changes in law, economics, and politics, there has been very little change in many of these relational habits and expectations. Indeed, looking at the personal sphere of male/female relationships, it sometimes seems that there has been no gender revolution at all.

To take one example, a survey I did of college students at 20 U.S. colleges and universities showed it is still men who ask women on dates in almost 90 percent of cases. Men are also still expected to propose marriage. And very few men announce their impending marriage by displaying an engagement ring.

In the 1970s and 1980s there was an increase in the number of women keeping their own name upon marriage, but this never extended to more than a small fraction of brides, and the trend receded has receded since. Children are almost always given their father’s last name.

The double standard of aging persists: While male actors are still cast in romantic leads as they age, women usually need to be young to be seen as desirable enough to be cast in a role involving romance. And my research shows that this double standard persists in real life as well. Women’s chances of marriage decrease with age much more than men’s, because the older men are when they marry, the more they seek out women younger than themselves.

Another double standard relates to sexuality-in particular, who gets judged more harshly for engaging in sex outside committed relationships. College students today sometimes “hook up”-which can mean anything from “making out” to intercourse-outside of a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. But my research shows that women are more likely than men to be looked down upon and called names for hooking up.

Single And Unmarried Americans As Family And Community Members

August 30, 2011

By Naomi Gerstel, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
University of Massachusetts

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Unmarried and singles’ week celebrates the lives of many Americans. In 2010, this group included 99.6 million people — close to half (43.6 percent) of U.S. residents 18 and older. Over their life course, many more people will move in and out of this group.

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The single and unmarried are a diverse group: Some have not yet married but will eventually do so. Some are divorced or widowed. And some have chosen to live their entire lives single. Some live alone. Some cohabit with a romantic partner. 16.4 million are aged 65 and older, 11.7 million are parents. Though gays and lesbians can now get married in six states, most of the couples living in the 591,300 same-sex households reported to the census are unmarried.

All too often, single and unmarried Americans are ignored when it comes to discussing family issues, especially if they do not have children. Work-family issues are typically thought to be irrelevant to them. The unmarried are typically portrayed as unencumbered by family obligations, or even as self-centered individuals who do not help out in the community the way married couples do. But the facts reveal quite a different story.

  • Adult unmarried children are more likely to provide practical assistance to their parents than their married siblings. It is unmarried women who are mostly likely to assist their mothers and fathers. While 68 percent of married women give help to their parents, 84 percent of the never married provide such care. And while just 38 percent of married men help out their parents, 67 percent of never married men do.
  • At all educational and income levels, unmarried individuals not only have more friends than their married counterparts but give these friends more care, both practical and emotional. They also visit with their neighbors and help them out more than the married.
  • The unmarried spend more time helping out their siblings than the married, often playing important roles in the lives of their brothers and sisters as well as their nieces and nephews. And unmarried individuals account for three out of every ten grandparents who are the primary care-givers for their grandchildren.
  • Research refutes the myth that unmarried males are especially disconnected from family ties. Married women talk on the phone to their parents and siblings less often than those who never got married, or who left or lost a husband. But the difference in phone talk is especially dramatic for men. While many husbands rely on wives to call their relatives, men without wives make the connection themselves.
  • Married people volunteer more than unmarried, in part because they volunteer in activities their children are involved in and in part because they volunteer more for religious groups. But more than 20 percent of unmarried Americans do volunteer, and in 2005 their estimated volunteer hours came to nearly 900 million hours of service. The top activities were mentoring, teaching, and coaching other people’s children, fundraising for charities, and distributing or serving food.  It’s also worth remembering that about one-third of the firefighters who died serving their community on 9/11 were unmarried.
  • In important ways, the unmarried are more likely than the married to be politically engaged:  Comparing women with the same level of education, never-married are more likely than  wives to sign petitions and participate in political gatherings.

About CCF

The Council on Contemporary Families is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and best-practice findings about American families. Our members include demographers, economists, family therapists, historians, political scientists, psychologists, social workers, sociologists, as well as other family social scientists and practitioners.

Founded in 1996 and now based in the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Miami, the Council’s mission is to enhance the national understanding of how and why contemporary families are changing, what needs and challenges they face, and how these needs can best be met. To fulfill that mission, the Council holds annual conferences, open to the public, and issues periodic briefing papers and fact sheets.

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