Interracial Dating – It’s tough to be Asian

Earlier this month there was a study published written by Columbia Business School professor Ray Fisman on theories of dating or choice-making based on data collected from speed-dating experiments in Chicago. Part of the study looked at interracial dating preferences. As you may know I have a major interest in this area. Looking through some articles and the Fisman study there are upsides and downsides.

I guess the good news for some would be that people generally choose to marry within their own race. It is perceived widely in Asian American culture that Asian women increasingly tend to outmarry. I think this study does offer some practical and logical insight. For starters, the study notes that Asian women exhibit a strong same race preference than their male counterparts. There is no evidence of the stereotype of a White male preference. But throw in that attractiveness factor and Asian men fall last.

“For male partners, our main finding is that Asians generally receive lower ratings than men of other races. In fact, when we run the regressions separately for each race, we find that even Asian women find white, black, and Hispanic men to be more attractive than Asian men. “

Ouch. That hurts a bit.

If the controlling factor is preference based on attractiveness…then Asian men are the least desirable. If you’re a good looking Asian dude. . . you’re to be envied.

However, the bias runs both ways…
“female Asian partners are consistently rated as less attractive, though we also find that black females receive significantly lower ratings relative to whites. As above, we find that when these regressions are run separately for each race, even Asian men find white, black, and Hispanic women to be more attractive than Asian women.

Asians received low marks on attractiveness from all races including Asians themselves.
*sigh*
For a long time many Asian men and bloggers have wondered why it appears that more Asian women out-marry. Is it really true? Does this study prove that there is a preference or none at all?

One conclusion about preference that the study demonstrates is simply this, who you spend the most time with you end up choosing. Our choices are really more rational than anything. Lawyers with lawyers. Doctors with doctors. These are the people you meet on a daily basis and spend the most time around. Perhaps the factors are more geographic/social integration rather than specific racial preferences. What choices do you have? This tendency goes for race and religion as well. The bloggers at Poplicks summarizes these findings well.

[LINKS]
The full study can be downloaded here in pdf form.
Other research by OSU’s Zhenchao Qian [pdf download].
Slate.com Article by Ray Fisman, An Economist Goes to the Bar, and solves the mysteries of dating

This reminds me of a story from pioneering pastor David Gibbons of NewSong who’s a Korean-White mix. He attended Bob Jones University south of the Mason-Dixon line at a time where he was one of a handful of Asian faces. He had to indicate what race he would date and so Dave thought his chances were higher if he would check off White. This was a very practical and logical decision not because he had a preference for White women. BJU didn’t look too favorably upon this but how could Gibbons decide? If you’ve seen David Gibbons in person, he don’t look very mixed at all. He looks very Korean.

Sorry Dave if I butchered your story. I love you man.
The school only lifted its ban on interracial dating in 2000.
So is it tough to be Asian? or not?

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marriage and housework

i think this research is a bit off but a recent study highlights that co-habitant partners divide up housework more evenly than married couples do (essentially saying that husbands do less housework than their wives) even if they share an egalitarian (where women and men are equal) p.o.v.

the article doesn’t share much information about their conclusions so i don’t think it’s an entirely fair or accurate assessment even though more husbands can probably do more housework. but it grieves me a bit because this news just makes marriage appear less honorable and even less of an option to a much contemptuous society.
is marriage about equality?
there are men who do more housework than women. they’re out there. right?
i do housework because i’m slightly OCD. seriously. i must have a clean bathroom and bedroom.
ok i just need order. and clean.
do i need to start a new facebook group on husbands that do housework?

The age-old stereotype that women do more housework than men has gotten more credibility with a George Mason University study co-written by sociologist Shannon Davis.

The study of more than 17,000 people in 28 countries found that married men report doing less housework than men who are live-in boyfriends. This study was recently published in the Journal of Family Issues by Davis and co-authors Theodore Greenstein and Jennifer Gerteisen Marks of North Carolina State University.

According to Davis, the key finding of the study is that it suggests the institution of marriage changes the division of labor. Couples with an egalitarian view on gender—seeing men and women as equal—are more likely to divide the household chores equally. However, in married relationships, even if an egalitarian viewpoint is present, men still report doing less housework than their wives.

“Marriage as an institution seems to have a traditionalizing effect on couples—even couples who see men and women as equal,” says Davis. While the researchers did not follow cohabitating couples over time to see if their division of housework changed after marriage, their study provides a “snapshot” in time of couples all over the world.

“Our research suggests that couples across many countries are influenced by similar factors when deciding how to divide the housework,” she says. “It’s the way the society has defined what being married means, the institution itself, that affects behavior.”

do women really do more work than men? [link: timesonline]

here’s some slightly positive news from a WSJ article in 2005?

A new study proves for the first time that men actually do a bigger share of household chores than their wives admit. Shedding new light on the decades-old battle between men and women over housework, the study of 265 married couples with children, published this month in the Journal of Marriage and Family, shows that wives estimate, when asked, that their husbands do 33% of the housework. But when researchers tracked men’s actual housework time, they found husbands were shouldering 39% of the chore load.

c’mon guys. housework and sex are related don’t you know?
Newsweek article on “The Married Male Mind”

So housecleaning and happiness are related?
In writing the book, I kept seeing the parallel between housework and sex in the interviews. Men said the happier their wives were in the division of housework, the happier the men were with their sex lives. We even looked at the numbers and found that there’s more sex in the relationship if the wife is happy with the division of housework. It doesn’t have to be exactly equal, the wife just has to think it’s fair. When a woman comes in she notices if it’s a mess, it’s often socialized in [her] that [she is] more responsible for the look of the home So if he can recognize that by doing a fair share, then he is often rewarded with sex. She’s not as angry, or burdened and she’s not as tired.

guys lose | girls seriously confused

guys lose | girls seriously confused ::.
lauren and i were watching the ncaa div1 lacrosse championship game between syracuse and navy this weekend and it was fantabulous…go orange for claiming their ninth title! syracuse was the school i dreamed of playing for. people wonder why i love blue and orange? lauren having such a tender heart went aginst me and rooted for the underdogs. boo…hiss…

but while switching between channels, an interesting if not mildly disturbing commercial rolled. it was the new cali-girl barbie commercial where she disses ken and goes for some new guy. you can decide who barbie will date…

recently, the new barbie image had a more sex in the city type flava and her boyfriend was expected naturally to be metrosexual. barbie and ken broke up last february after 43 years. the couple’s “business manager,” russell arons (vice president of marketing at mattel) hinted back then that the separation may be partially due to ken’s reluctance to getting married. another possible factor is barbie’s career.

that’s a potent statement. art imitates life here. i guess it’s a reflection of the times and attitudes toward relationships. but the question really is what does this really teach young girls? does this perpetuate even more brokeness in their future relationships?

messed up barbie ideas while researching ::

1. BOBBIT BARBIE (with knife, Ken had better watch out)

2. BARBIE BROWN SIMPSON (slashed neck and bloody body, carton of Ben & Jerry’s

Cookie Dough included)

3. DIVORCED BARBIE (comes with all of Ken’s accessories)

4. TEENAGE SINGLE PARENT BARBIE (“welfare check” from Mattel mailed each month)

5. CRACK ADDICT BARBIE (pipe included, sugar may be used to simulate crack cocaine)

6. BOULEVARD BARBIE (with cheap makeup, short skirt, and high heels)

7. LESBIAN BARBIE (Barbie with a butch)

8. LIPSTICK LESBIAN BARBIE (actually no different in appearance from regular Barbie)

9. ANOREXIA BARBIE (no different in appearance from regular Barbie)

10. BRUNETTE BARBIE (the only Barbie with a brain)

11. QUANTUM PHYSICIST BARBIE (yeah, right)

12. BOW-WOW BARBIE (the ugliest Barbie you’ve ever seen)

13. PUNK BARBIE (has rings in all sorts of strange places)

14. FEMINIST BARBIE (has unshaved legs and armpits)

15. BATTERED WIFE BARBIE (comes with a restraining order to serve to Ken)

a teenage boy’s dream ::.

a teenage boy’s dream ::.
this past weekend i had the privilege of being the fashion accessory to my wife while accompanying her coach her girls at the northeast qualifier volleyball tourney in baltimore, maryland. i thought to myself, this would be a teenage boy’s dream weekend being surrounded by thousands of young tall athletic girls in short spandex. so…where was i in high school when these things were happening? anyways, it was exciting to preview the up and coming collegiate volleyball players. one of the dads there who happened to be around my modest height of around 5’10” turned to me and said, “…these women pass by and look down at me as if i was a pygmy.” i responded… “try being married into a family where everyone averages 6ft!” tall girls rock my world.

being there got me thinking, what do we make of athletics and the display of physically finely tuned bodies? this question has been a perplexing one that existed also in biblical times where the players were actually naked. jewish christians looked down on gentile customs and avoided such places and events. to take this thought a little further, how about nudity in art? breastfeeding in public? or just plain beautiful well developed people? how about that of scripture telling christians to greet one another with a holy kiss? in asian communities we can’t even get ourselves to hug one another for fear of whatnot, forget about kissing. these are just some of the things that i have come across these days. i’ll leave the art topic for another day.

there have been many misunderstandings about modesty and virtue, the body and sin in christian communities over the ages. just because someone is naked, does not automatically make that person evil or wrong. is the body evil? no. even Christ was practically naked while hanging on the cross. adam and eve were uncovered until their eyes were opened and they saw their nakedness. how should we respond to the naked body? there have been christians that believe that the body is evil. something did change in the garden after they took the fruit. their attention changed. but the body is not evil nor are women.

questions we do need to ask ourselves is, are we tempted? lusting? here in the modern west we have oversexualized and overexposed the body so that such questions are clearly important. but where we have grown up does shape our view of these things. if we were in other parts of the world, say in an african tribe where everyone is naked there would be a different conceptions about the bare body and sexuality. missionaries face this conflict often and are for the most part unprepared. they don’t teach you what to do in seminary on how to work with a tribe where stuff hangs out. you just go. so should we condemn the tribe or ourselves? — context. we need to flush our minds, mind our hearts and go to these places. step into the arena of life. initial contact may at first be very eyeopening much like the fall at eden but the body is a beautiful handiwork of God.

obviously this discussion is much more complicated and ought to be explored more deeper. i just wanted to share about my weekend in the world of women’s volleyball where girls compete with other girls in the male presence of dads or coaches. i wasn’t attracted to lauren because of her spandies. however spandex or underarmour is simply more effective and comfortable when playing volleyball or other sports, guys or girls. thank God for underarmour. i love the stuff and been wearing it myself since playing high school lacrosse. after awhile, you kinda get used to seeing these things on girls. also, we were surprised at the great proliferation of christian clubs this weekend. anyways…i think i’ve grown outta my adolescent fantasies and talking about them.

this beautiful madness

since thanksgiving advil has been my best friend. headaches have migrated across the spheres of my brain like flocks of canadian geese traveling along the atlantic flyway this time of year. i could swear it’s a tumor. i’m going mad.

…
i was paging through audrey hepburn: an elegant spirit and was just dazzled by this son’s memoirs of his mother. what a legacy — to be called an elegant spirit. no actress today even comes close on screen and off. she was incredibly poised and profoundly sad feeling helpless to change the cruelties of the world. makes me wonder what will people say about us long after we’re gone, or even today?

time tested beauty tips,
{hepburn read this poem to her children on the xmas eve before she died — originally written by sam levenson}
for attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
for lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
for a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
for beautiful hair, let a child run his fingers through it once a day.
for poise, walk with the knowledge you’ll never walk alone…
people, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed and redeemed and redeemed.
never throw out anybody.
remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm.
as you grow older you will discover that you have two hands.
one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.
the beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. the beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.
the beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. it is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows, and the beauty of a woman with passing years only grows!
…

even as a man i love those words and long to be beautiful in my own right. true and simple beauty is rarely treasured today. people love plastic and push-up bras. next to me my friend was viewing “i do” by jessica simpson. it made me think about all these girls with million dollar bodies that sing or talk to everyday ordinary people about love and life. if they still have a problem feeling beautiful…*sigh*

i want to live beautfully in this madness i find myself in. to allow his surpasssing beauty to burn away the dross that is me
as i have breath, able hands and feet i have no excuse not to offer a dry soul a drink to quench their thirst in this life. no excuse not to smile and reflect the hope i know.
i’m tired of looking in the mirror and not making changes.