A reader writes:
Well, I suppose cultural forces could be at play, but I KNEW I was marrying wrong (as did everyone who knew me), but I thought he was the one man in the world who would never leave me (20 years later – turns out I was wrong!). Insecurity and a belief that nobody would "love me forever" led me down the aisle (great sex was a factor, too). I don't feel like I've evolved much over the decades, and still fight my lack of sense of worth, but now I have a daughter of my own and I really, really want her to marry well.
Another writes:
Why are we taking these womens' reporting of their own inner states at face value?
A fantastic historian whose name I now forget once said that the problem with thinking about the past is that "we already know their future". I love that formulation. There is a clear cognitive bias – not just in doing history but is doing psychology – a bias that creates reasons from hindsight. It places us in control of events.
So women who are already divorced report that they "had a feeling" that things weren't going to work out from the get-go? I'm sure some of them did have that feeling. But I'm equally sure that some if not most of them are assigning themselves that feeling after the fact. That's not a woman thing. I'm a man and I do exactly the same thing. We always think we knew what was going to happen. That's how people get convinced they are psychic! But it doesn't make it so.
Also, Ms. Marcotte … who is she kidding? Her faux-feminist screed reads like something out of the 1980s, if not the 1960s. Are there societal pressures on women in their 20s? Of course, just like at any age, just like there are societal pressures on men at any age. (I promise, the hopeful/anxious looks on the faces of my aunts when they ask me if I have a girlfriend constitute pressure.)
But being an adult means resisting those pressures, and if feminism means anything, it has to mean that women are just as capable of resisting those pressures as men are. We have set up a society in which there are large pockets, at least, where anyone can live any way they want to live and nobody is going to say boo.
Another:
I'm reminded of the song Cath from Death Cab for Cutie, and especially its music video.
The Dish 