Fact and fantasy
The Sydney Morning Herald ran a "special" last week, which claimed to be trying to explain why women found it so hard to get men. Billed the "Sydney's missing men" series, and fluffed out with headlines such as, "MP can't get a man", "They're all married or gay ... or are they?", "The battle of the sexes" and "It's not men's fault", the series was used as an unrefined piece of backlash against women who "expect too much" from their partners.
For the first four days we heard tales of lonely career women who wanted sensitive, rich, brawny, tough men but just couldn't find them at the singles balls, the singles bars or the singles agencies. On the fifth day, it was time for Sydney's men to retaliate: "Get Real!", they declared. Women want too much. Women have become like men and we don't like it. They've lost that softness and sensitivity men like. And so it went on.
It all sounds a lot more like a magazine ad for a dating agency than a newspaper.
But the general drift was clear — women are complaining again and complaining unnecessarily. And of course the subliminal message? It's feminism's fault. If only these women were not be so demanding, they would find love and happiness in the arms of someone "nice". In fact, this message wasn't subliminal at all as seen in the reaction of the tabloids to the series. They openly blamed feminism.
Susan Faludi rated a mention in the series. She exposed the "man shortage" lie in her well-known book Backlash. She points out that USA census figures show that the proportion of never-married women is today lower than it has been at any time in the twentieth century except the immediate post-war period. The median age of American women living alone in 1986 was 66 years.
Within the ranks of professional women, the sector targeted by the Sydney Morning Herald series, the "man shortage" myth has historically been used as an ideological barrage against women's equal rights.
Faludi quotes a 1895 marriage study which asserted that only 28% of college-educated women could get married. A Harvard professor called it "brain-womb conflict". Victorian women who worked were said to be suffering "exhaustion of the feminine nervous system" and losing their femininity to "hermaphroditism".
The most interesting aspect of last week's example, however, was carried in a piece by the series editor hidden away on the fourth day. In it, he admitted that the search for statistics with which to back up these claims wasn't easy. They'd had to try a few different computer searches to come up with something that would fit the bill. In other words, they knew what they wanted to write and then they went out to find the statistics and personalities to bring it to life.
A piece of honest reporting about the state of women and men and their relationships today? Hardly
By Kath Gelber