“font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;”>“I don’t want you to pull up to my house in an Escalade on rims when you’re living in a low-income apartment,” said Jamillah Boyd, a program coordinator for a local university.
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>She was talking to her friend Nykea Watts, an adviser at the same institution. Although a conversation on socioeconomic differences between black men and women is not a typical topic for drinks after work, it flowed in a way that data cannot.
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>“There is a gender gap because the ratios are off,” Boyd said. “There are not as many men at the university level, degreed, advanced-degreed.”
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>The 2010 Census estimates that 16.4 percent of African-Americans adults in the St. Louis area hold a bachelor’s or graduate degree. The gender breakdown reveals that 17.7 percent of black women have at least an undergraduate degree, with 14.8 percent of black men able to say the same.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Collegeresults.org, an online database for higher education statistics, drills down on the Census data. The most recent six-year graduation rate for area universities reveals that only Saint Louis University had a higher percentage of black males graduating than black females, with 55.2 percent of black men completing their undergraduate degree compared to 54.5 percent of black women. Black women outpace black men in graduation rates at all other area universities.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>Available data show that the widest graduation gap is at the University of Missouri –St. Louis, with 31.4 percent of black women graduating compared with 22.2 percent of black men. While women, regardless of race, fare better than their male counterparts, the black gender gap impacts the social scene and emergent black families.
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>“St. Louis seems to have a very small black professional crowd,” said Nadia Brown, assistant professor of political science and African-American studies at Saint Louis University. “You go everywhere, and you see the same people.”
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>Upon earning her doctorate in political science at Rutgers University, Brown moved to St. Louis in 2010 to accept a joint appointment at SLU. Brown is in a long-distance relationship with a man who is not as educated as she is and gets paid less than she does. She said dating in St. Louis has not gone well for her and her friends.
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>“I think part of it is middle-class socialization,” Brown said, explaining that there are “norms that middle-class black people have that working-class black people don’t have.”
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>She illustrated her point by recounting some dates.
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>“You’re not going to talk to me a certain way. You’re not going to try to come to my house and sit up or go to your house on the first date,” she said. “It needs to be an outing.”
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>Shante Duncan, an entrepreneur, artist and family woman, often hosts sister circles where relationships emerge as hot topics.
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>“We’ve been having a lot of conversations about the emotional immaturity displayed by a lot of men who seem to enter into situations that require a lot more commitment than what they are willing or ready to give,” Duncan said. “font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>More jobs, better jobs “font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>Black men also lag behind black women in gainful employment. The Census estimates that 58 percent of jobs held by African Americans in the St. Louis metropolitan area are held by black women. Furthermore, 31 percent of black women hold management positions while only 19 percent of black men can make that claim.
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>For women like Aisha Hamilton, the socioeconomic status of prospective suitors has decreased in importance as material comfort and educational attainment improved her way of life. Hamilton holds an MBA from Webster University, is a divorcee and a mother of one working in corporate America.
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>“Had you asked me 10 years ago if economic status was important in a man, I would have, ‘Yes’ because I may have felt like I needed someone to care for me,” she said. “Not just that, but I needed to be able to depend on someone in case I fell. Now, at almost 33, I don’t see myself falling.”
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>While divorce brought about some financial problems for Hamilton, she achieved a level of financial independence that has intimidated some men she has dated. She reflected on one experience.
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>“He didn’t make a lot of money. He was educated and had a degree, but was in a profession that does not make a lot of money,” she said. “Once he saw what I had – because he wasn’t bringing cash to the table – he felt like he had to bring something else and he broke his back trying to do that.”
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>Hamilton
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>echoed a point that Nykea Watts had made: “I’ve never come across a man who dates a woman who makes more than him and is proud of it.”