Booman Tribune

It's Never Too Late for Bullshit

by Chris
Sat May 27th, 2006 at 03:47:30 PM EST

Twenty years ago, the following appeared in a Newsweek article titled Too Late for Prince Charming.

According to the report, white, college-educated women born in the mid-'50s who are still single at 30 have only a 20 percent chance of marrying. By the age of 35 the odds drop to 5 percent. Forty-year-olds are more likely to be killed by a terrorist: they have a minuscule 2.6 percent probability of tying the knot.

Funny story about that. You see, what they should have written is that "American men and women, regardless of age, race, education level, or income are more likely to read complete and utter bullshit in major newsweeklies than they are to get married. It should be noted that this only applies to men and women who choose to read major newsweeklies."

Well ok, I don't actually have any evidence to back that up, but if making shit up is good enough for Newsweek, then it's good enough for me too. Go have a look at what Zuzu has to write about the story and Newsweek's two decade late (and very lame) retraction, as she's far less prone to making shit up than I am.

Via some guy you've never heard of, who also provides an extensive reading list for those of you interested in the media's less than savory qualities.



Display:
It's odd but I remember the quote being, "...more likely to be killed by a lightening strike..." and that's the way I've repeated it for the past couple of decades. Think about it: Just how commonly used was the word "terrorist" in 1986? Not very, I don't think. Am I the only one who has a faulty memory about this?

By the way, I finally found and married my soulmate at the age of 52. Does this reduce or increase the likelihood of my being killed by a terrorist?

by sjct on Sat May 27th, 2006 at 04:10:41 PM EST
You may be right - when I read the quote the use of terrorist stuck me as an anachronism, too.  Not that there weren't terrorists then, of course.  We just thought of them as "Something European," like driving on the wrong side of the road, or drinking coffee and smoking at little metal tables in outdoor cafes by pigeon-filled squares while discussing Proust. ;-)

Not that I've ever been there :-(

Ecological collapse is already happening. Your resentment of the word doesn't change the fact that it is occurring.

by Knoxville Progressive (green_planet_2000 (at) yahoo (dot) com) on Sat May 27th, 2006 at 05:30:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The quote was definitely about getting killed by a terrorist, but the article did launch a huge frenzy in the media, and frequently morphed into the hit by lightening thing.

Be Unbossed!
by Izzy (izzy AT unbossed DOT com) on Sat May 27th, 2006 at 06:45:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The link provided is to the actual 1986 article and they definitely used the word "terrorist." That can has been getting kicked around for a long time now.
by Chris on Sat May 27th, 2006 at 07:52:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Oh, it never stops.

Just wait until the "So...how many kids" question. And when you don't pop them out in 2.5 seconds, "When will you have kids" comes along, with a "you don't have long" if you're in your 30s.

If people would pay attention to issues as much as they do other people's sex lives...oh Lord, but you knew that already.

Can't hear ya, Peach!

by AP on Sat May 27th, 2006 at 05:50:11 PM EST
It was trotted out by one of the faculty members in my grad program. He was (in)famous for saying that women in our program were "violating their reproductive destinies" by being in graduate school.  Whatever that actually meant, we knew he was unhappy to see women taking admission slots that had always been filled by men in the past.

I thought it interesting that he felt free to cite this, whereas in almost any other respect, he would insist on good scientific evidence to back up sweeping claims of this sort.

by Kidspeak on Sat May 27th, 2006 at 06:13:20 PM EST
I can't believe they have the nerve to offer a retraction 20 years later.  Here's what Susan Faludi writes about the incident in Backlash, published in 1991.

The Newsweek story declared that single women "are more likely to be killed by a terrorist" than marry.  Maybe Newsweek was only trying to be metaphorical, but the terrorist line got repeated with somber literalness in many women's magazines, talk shows, and advice books.

(...)A former Newsweek bureau intern who was involved in the story's preparation later explains how the terrorist analogy wound up in the magazine:  "What happened is, one of the bureau reporters was going around saying it as a joke -- like, 'Yeah, a woman's more likely to get bumped off by a terrorist' -- and next thing we knew, one of the writers in New York took it seriously and it ended up in print."

Newsweek's "marriage crunch" story, like its story on a "mother's choice." was a parable masquerading as a numbers report.  It presented the "man shortage" as a moral comeuppance for independent-minded women who expected too much.



Be Unbossed!
by Izzy (izzy AT unbossed DOT com) on Sat May 27th, 2006 at 06:55:19 PM EST
had gay marriage that 99% of women in that age group would be married tomorrow?  Maybe some women would rather be killed by a terrorist than marry anybody at all.  I always thought that story was pretty goofy overall.

PMS Purchase More Shoes
by Militarytracy on Sun May 28th, 2006 at 01:21:00 PM EST


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