“In our upbringing, we’re not raised to be princesses,” says Virginia Boateng, a budget analyst who works for the Education Department. “We’re told, ‘Yes, you are pretty, but you better have something for yourself.’ ”
The marriage discussion
Exploring the lives, outlook and goals of black women in America.
Introduce marriage, and you enter one of the most tender discussions black women are having among themselves. Are African American women choosing career over romance? Are single black women lonely? Is there a shortage of eligible, desirable black men? Can black women have it all?
“This idea that there are no successful single black men — we’ve been hearing that since Terry McMillan’s ‘Waiting to Exhale,’ ” says Janell Hobson, an associate professor of women’s studies at Albany State University. “It’s almost as if to say Michelle Obama may have Barack Obama, but you black women can’t have the same thing.”
Hobson, who is 38 years old and single, has no plans to settle. But she has to contend with her worried aunties asking at every family gathering, “Still no one, huh?” She answers politely and says she is not stressed.
Love, the comedian, who also is single, says there is no point focusing on what she doesn’t have. “A lot of people say you’re going to be lonely. No, you will adjust,” Love says, adding that she enjoys her life, which includes partying and going on cruises, without anyone accompanying her.
Nika Beamon, a television news producer in New York who turned 40 last year, likes to say, “I didn’t work this hard to get married.” She imagined that she would have a husband and children by now but is satisfied with how things have turned out. She owns her home, has had long monogamous relationships and loves her gig. She has looked into adoption and plans to start a family. In the Post-Kaiser poll, 63 percent of black women said it is acceptable to have a child without being married, roughly the same percentage as white women.
“I’m not afraid to make the choices that will make my life happy,” Beamon says. “I may have to do it differently, but so what? I’m still going to get it. I’m not going to settle for a life that is less simply because it doesn’t happen exactly the way I want.”
Black women are increasingly open to looking beyond the pool of black men for mates. Sixty-seven percent of unmarried black women in the Post-Kaiser poll say they would be willing to marry someone of another race. But thus far, that willingness is not matched by experience.
According to a 2010 study by the Pew Research Center that looked at the rates of interracial marriage among newlyweds in 2008, just 9 percent of black women married a spouse of a different race — a rate that was less than half that of black men.
The reasons for the gap between black women’s interest in interracial marriage and their rates of interracial marriage are complex, according to experts who have researched the subject. Studies of online dating, for instance, have shown that black women are less likely than other women to receive messages of interest from men of other races. Researchers attribute that to a social hierarchy that still undervalues them and unflattering stereotypes of black women — loud, aggressive — that remain in the popular culture.
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