Remember that lyrical ballad by Peter, Paul, and Mary? That was back in
the 1960s. Forty years later, hundreds of thousands of unmarried
American women are asking themselves exactly the same question.
One of the reasons that so many women can't find a husband is that
millions of men have declared a
Marriage
Strike. Men believe that family
courts have become so unfair that in case of divorce, they will lose
custody of their children and their ex will take them for all they're
worth.
But there's a second reason for the marriage gap. Most people have heard
that gloomy statistic: American women outlive men by over five years.
But maybe they haven't considered the effects of that longevity gap on
women.
Throughout his life, the American male is relentlessly stalked by the
Grim Reaper.
In his late teens, car accidents, suicides, and homicides claim three
times more male victims than females. Beginning in their 30s, men must
face the scourge of heart disease. In their 50s and 60s, it's the
looming specter of cancer. And men's overall suicide rate is four times
higher than among women.
It's a public health disaster of epic proportions: For every one of the
top 10 leading causes of death, men have a higher risk of death than
women.
This demographic imbalance wreaks havoc on the lives of American women.
Consider this fact: The Census Bureau
reports
that among Americans in
their 40s, there are 523,000 more women than men in that age group.
If you are one of those half-million women, the sad truth is this --
you may never find your Prince Charming.
And as women age, their predicament worsens. In their fifties, the
number of American women who have no prospect of finding their marital
bliss tops the one million mark. That's a lot of women who must now face
the prospect of spending their Golden Years alone.
Given that politicians often trip over each other to woo the woman's
vote, one would expect to see a stream of government programs dedicated
to helping men to live longer, healthier lives. But oddly, that's not
the case.
In fact, the reverse is true. The litany of women's health programs
reveals a gender agenda run amok:
- The Department of Health and Human Services sponsors five
offices of women's health, but has no office designed to help men.
- The National Institutes of Health spends
three
times more money
on breast cancer research than for prostate cancer.
- NIH-funded research studies included only
31% male subjects in
2001, which violates a 1994 Congressional mandate
to include both sexes equally in medical research.
- Last year the DHHS launched a campaign to educate women about
heart disease,
while men's risk of dying of heart disease is
70%
higher than women's.
How did this topsy-turvy situation arise?
Beginning in the early 1990s, feminist politicians like Pat Schroeder of
Colorado and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland began to spread the rumor that
women had been routinely excluded from medical research. Shrill
headlines began to fill the New York Times and the women's magazines.
Soon everyone was believing the story, since everyone knows that
feminists never tell a lie.
But the claim that women were shortchanged by medical research turns out
to be one of the biggest deceptions ever foisted on an unsuspecting
American public. This urban legend has been debunked by
Cathy Young,
Sally Satel, and
myself.
But the myth lives on, thanks to groups like the
Society for Women's
Health Research. Victimhood is so important to
the feminist creed that it must be invented even where it never existed.
So for now, millions of American women are destined to live out the rest
of their lives in solitude, betrayed by an ideology that once promised
female liberation and a gender utopia.
