I recently happened to catch a feature story on ABC's Nightline about successful black women and their struggle to find a man to marry. I was rather taken aback by the whole thing because it made career minded sisters who happen to not be married look somewhat unfulfilled and desperate. Although I am married, I still did not appreciate the implication or tone of the story. Why single out successful black women? The statistics listed made black women and the future of the black family seem dire at best, as if our race will go extinct because enough of us can not find suitable mates. Then of course comes the flood of stereotypes about there not being enough black men to choose from because the majority are either gay, in prison, a criminal, or beneath us. I was highly insulted as you can tell. The segment wrapped up with the suggestion that black women need to lower their standards and settle for less, or be rescued by a man of another race. Hmmmm??? I have nothing against interracial relationships but since when do we not get a choice in our preferences just as women of other races? I could go on and on about this topic. Please continue reading below. I found an article by a female blogger who also took offense to the story, although for different reasons. Also be forewarned that I do NOT agree with everything this woman has to say, but she makes a few interesting points.
J
*Nightline Hosts Pity Party for Successful Black Women
More media fascination with successful black women, because they’re single
Published on January 3, 2010
I know I have to blog about something when I start getting requests from more than one person. So it was with a Nightline story, aired over the holidays, about black women who were successful in many ways - but, sigh, single. Gorgeous, accomplished black women were recruited to tell their stories, and the usual statistics were trotted out. You know the ones, about how there are not enough acceptable (Nightline's word) black men for all of the black women. Oh, and also, more black women than white women are single.
Nightline's pity party included a special guest - a dispenser of free advice about marriage to these wonderful women. Offering his services was a comedian and supposed "relationship guru" Steve Harvey - who, as Living Single reader Lisa slyly pointed out, has been married three times. (Thanks, Lisa!)
Jeanine, another Living Single reader, sent me a link to a blog post from Wise Diva. (Appreciate it, Jeanine!) About the comparison to the marriage rates of white women, Wise Diva asks, "So wait, are black women in some kind of Amazing Bridal Race with white women that I didn't know about?"
She also asks this, "I want to know, what is the fascination with single black women not marrying? What is it supposed to mean? Am I supposed to feel hopeful, panicky, ambivalent?"
Wise Diva is so right about the fascination. It has been going on for years. I noticed it when I was writing Singled Out, and included a section on the topic. Here's my take on the matter. Take a look, then share your thoughts in the Comments section, if you'd like.
From pp. 139-141 of Singled Out:
The lead-in to the feature story is promising. "Black women," Newsweek claimed, "are making historic strides on campuses and in the workplace." The story ticked off the accomplishments - more black women in college than ever before, more getting promoted in the workplace, names showing up on lists of officers of Fortune 500 companies. A photograph spread across two pages illustrated another success story: There were seven black women in the lab of just one veterinary school. "Today a black woman can be anything from an astronaut to a talk show host, run anything from a corporation to an Ivy League university."
How do single black women feel about their lives at this time of such inspiring successes? Author Ellis Cose wanted to know. He talked to a group of single black women who got together every Friday night. There was a big picture of them, too - four women (three of whom had downcast eyes and sullen expressions) and a cat. "The weekly gathering," Cose noted, "could easily be dubbed ‘the black, beautiful, accomplished but can't find a mate club.'" He also talked to a single mom who "warns her daughters that they may end up on their own," and to a professor and advice columnist who worries that she "will die in a room all by myself."
Cose first reiterated that the professional progress of black women was indeed impressive. "Long confined to menial jobs, black women are advancing faster than black men - and many whites - in education, income, and careers." However, Cose continued, the new black woman is looking "not only for recognition but for ‘models of happiness.'"
Will she find her happiness? "Is this new black woman finally crashing through the double ceiling of race and gender? Or is she leaping into treacherous waters that will leave her stranded, unfulfilled, childless, and alone? Can she thrive if her brother does not, if the black man succumbs, as hundreds of thousands already have, to the hopelessness of prison and the streets? Can she - dare she - thrive without the black man, finding happiness across the racial aisle? Or will she, out of compassion, loneliness or racial loyalty ‘settle' for men who - educationally, economically, professionally - are several steps beneath her?"
Cose ended his story with a projection of two possible futures for the new black women. In the bleak vision, "more and more black women will lead lives of success but also isolation." In what he called the more optimistic version, "black women are weathering a period of transition, after which they will find a way to balance happiness and success."
Ellis Cose is a serious, respected, and award-winning author and editor, who has written book-length treatments on topics such as race in America. But in asking whether the new black woman is "leaping into treacherous waters that will leave her stranded, unfulfilled, childless, and alone," his rhetoric is about as hyperbolic as anything to leap out of People magazine. In fact, his moniker, "the black, beautiful, accomplished but can't find a mate club," differs hardly at all from People's "Sure, they're rich and gorgeous. But that doesn't make it any easier to find a love that lasts."
Consider the choices Cose ascribed to the women of such great accomplishment. What are their alternatives to ending up stranded and unfulfilled? There is the guilt option: Maybe they can thrive, but meanwhile untold numbers of their black brothers are on the streets or in prison. There is also the rescue possibility: Out of compassion, they can lower themselves to marry those poor brothers. Then there is the set-up. We are led to believe that a free spirited alternative is about to be unveiled - "Can she - dare she - thrive without the black man..." - only to be let down. The thought is completed not with the possibility that successful black women can lead rich and full and happy lives without marrying, but instead with the option of "finding happiness across the racial aisle."
Think, too, about Cose's two visions. In one, black women end up successful but isolated. In the other, they end up balancing happiness and success. There is only one story here, and it is a familiar morality tale. Women's success in the workplace cannot bring happiness but needs to be "balanced" by happiness. Success is isolating. Happiness comes only from finding The One, and then creating a family. Without marriage or family, the black woman (indeed, any woman) will, as the advice columnist feared, ‘die in a room all by [herself].'
There were other stories that could have been told, but they were hidden in plain view. There was, for example, the story of the four women who got together every Friday night. Cose describes them as lamenting the relationship they do not have. He does not seem to notice the relationships they do have. He does not seem to appreciate that even if these women do wed, their friendships with each other are more likely to endure than are their marriages. These women are not isolated and they are not alone. He does not know, nor do they, that hardly anyone is less likely to be lonely in old age than women who have always been single.
It is also telling that even though it is the single black men who are on the streets and in the prisons, and failing to keep up educationally or professionally with the single black women, the hand-wringing in Newsweek is about the women. It is they whom we need to think about and wonder about.
[END OF EXCERPT]
[You can read the rest of the chapter here in Singled Out. The book also includes a Notes section where you can find the sources of the various quotes.]
*This article was found at www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-single
