Why Dark Skin Black Girls Aren’t Getting Married

I feel like I’m having a separate conversation than others in the thread. I never said colorism wasn’t real or a factor in her dating life. I just said that determining that it is solely responsible for how her dating life is going is an over reach on her part.

She fails to site that overall marriage rates are declining, she acknowledged she is highly educated but doesn’t acknowledge that highly educated women have a harder time in the dating market; she doesn’t factor in that her earning power is also a negative for her. From her own admission in her article she has 3 factors that make dating hard.

When you factor in the multiple factors against her and the deck is stacked against her. I don’t deny that.

 

So she wrote an article to talk about colorism, how she’s experienced it and why dark skinned women are less likely to be married and you decided to comment about everything but colorism that could possibly cause a problem? Why?

 

To the bolded, this may unpopular or harsh, but has proven to be true IME:

Yes, there may be unattractive women booed up, but what are those women willing to put up with/ sacrifice/ settle on to obtain and sustain that relationship? Do they have some exceptionally nurturing/ sparkling personality? Perhaps, they're willing to be breadwinners or settled for a physical 3 instead of a 5 like themselves etc. That's not say their relationships aren't fulfilling or happy, but if you're not considered classically desirable as a woman, the expectation is that your standards should be lowered cuz surely you realize you deserve less because of your looks. And people come at you accordingly ( often on some BS). And some women play into it by being overly accommodating and available to offset their complexion or weight, etc. In the end, you only play yourself . You're expected try harder to prove you're worthy to even be noticed, let alone committed to.

Truth is if you're higher up on the beauty hierarchy or possess some attribute considered valuable (for both women and men), your personality can be trash and you will STILL get members of the opposite sex hoping for the chance to shoot their shot. The reason most people are single is because they don't want the people that want them but people they're attracted to don't have mutual feelings. No one HAS to be single- but if you take into account your current prospects and what you attract-are you willing to settle for whatever you're getting? If no, something must change. Lose weight to broaden your net, date interracially, move and uproot yourself into a more favorable climate, hire a dating coach. And even then, you STILL may end up single or settling in some capacity and that's perfectly OKAY if in the end you're happy.

I think the best remedy is to make yourself as attractive as possible, not to attract a man, but to instill the confidence that comes from being your absolute best self. Be it losing weight, better styling, taking up interesting hobbies that you enjoy, etc. Confidence is ALWAYS sexy and contentment/ happiness is contagious and good for your spirit. Be the best you and content in the skin you're in. Try your best every day to love yourself a little more than the day before, even if it's not being validated by anyone else.

 

I’m right in the middle and I had a few guys in college tell me I’m the darkest they’ve dated. First I was confused and was like “oh I’m dark?” naw they really had/have a problem with darker women.
If she had light skin she’d look like the women who are constantly praised in media. She has a decent weave and is thick. Her nose is narrow and her features match nicely. She’d be a “certified baddie” and would be approached in person and via dm constantly.

 

Okay! I guess I just think women who bring up their experiences are looked up and down and critiqued instead of listened to. I acknowledge your acknowledgment. I do hear what you are saying. I respect your viewpoint.

 

True:

"The reason most people are single is because they don't want the peoplethat want them but peoplethey're attracted to don't have mutual feelings. "

The next question is what can you do to attract more of what you want or do you adjust.

 

Occupational hazard. If you are going to make a statement that some thing is you have to look at all of the mitigating factors before stating your facts. We have to look at all the issues to see how they impact a conclusion. Just force of habit.

She states the reason why she is having issues dating is skin color. However she states other factors that decrease her prospects among non-color stuck men.

 

But i think that's the author's point. To many men- being dark AUTOMATICALLY makes you "ugly" or detracts from one's beauty. You could be a darkskin 8 and have to put in significant more work to ATTRACT someone than say lightskin 5. That's just the nature of the beast and it can be frustrating, and it's not insurmountable, but we can't acknowledge this without people projecting.

 

College educated women are actually more likely to be married than women with less education. Some of the other factors are actually discussed in the article. Even taking the other things into account dark skin made women less likely to be married.

Not that we really need a study to tell us that water is wet.

 

There are plenty of unattractive white women who are in good marriages. Often to black men. This is why I see plain Jane white women who probably couldn’t marry a white *insert prestigious career here* married to a black one. We all seem to notice this when it comes to white women and black men, but somehow people miss it when it comes to dark skinned women having harder time finding husbands.

 

Ok. Glad the new trend has shows there has been a reversal in the marriage probability for women with higher education. I’m glad it’s getting better.

As far as the colorism issue im going to let it be. Don’t see it your way and we don’t have to agree. I wish her luck.

 

. Tell the truth shame the devil. The friend I referred to earlier was dating a size 14+ white "ex-model" with a kid who couldn't pass a test for a massage therapy certification with him helping her cheat ... he's a doctor . Took her in, tried to help her get on her feet. To him, she was 9.5 and I'm looking at her pic, scratching my head ....she was a slightly less attractive Ricki Lake. I said to myself, "ain't know way you'd be this invested if this was a BW"

 

Does there have to be something wrong with you if you're single? What if it's just you haven't found someone yet?

 

The fact that this convo has turned to what ugly women have to do to get a man vs pretty women, kinda proves her point, No? Maybe she didn’t know that she has to jump through the same hoops as Ogres just because her skin is dark. The fact that some are saying she needs special tips and tricks and sorcery beyond what women of other skin tones need is a problem. I’ve probably never smiled or batted my eyelashes at a man that I don’t know. I’m not flirty, yet I get approached all the time. I don’t have to look pleasant.

She didn’t say it’s impossible for dark women to find a man, or that she herself will never find one. She just said it’s hard(er). Dark skin is an obstacle when it comes to dating. Why so much push back against that sentiment? There’s a thread here once a week about black men dating out, disrespecting black women, etc. why is her story getting the side eye?

 

I think my thoughts are similar to yours. I don't think there's a person of any race in the US that can't deny that colorism exists. As much as I wish it didn't it does and I don't see that going away for a while.

For me it's just that I don't see it as much as a hindrance in the marrying world as some others may. I could just think this way because my family openly discusses these issues and the darker women in my family have had zero issues getting into a loving marriage. Melanin is actually cherished by the women in my family because it usually leads to less wrinkles.

I also know way too many women of every shade who are married.

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268109001577

https://www.researchgate.net/public...e_of_skin_shade_on_marriage_for_Black_females

The inter-racial marriage gap that opened in the past 50 years is generally attributed to a decline in the availability of young black marriageable men. We contend that the associated shortage of desirable men in the marriage market provides those black men who are sought after with the opportunity to attain a high status spouse, which has placed a premium on black women with lighter skin. We provide evidence, based on data drawn from the Multi City Study of Urban Inequality, consistent with this hypothesis. Our theoretical analysis of the marriage market reveals that marriage promotion policies to increase the desire to marry on the part of young black women will serve to exacerbate the importance attached to skin shade.



Colorism does impact dark skinned black women who only date black men (ADOS/Hispanic/Latino ) or rather is much more painful to experience that kind of rejection from them.

While I am over these conversations, some dark skinned women need to have these outlets and I support them, even if some of these articles come off as emotional cutting.

Some Black men are indeed open and loud about their rejection of darkskinned BW. As such BW should be equally loud calling them and anyone who supports their "right to their preferences" out, especially those who seem uncomfortable with darkerskinned women stating what they think about said preferences.

 

This underlined piece was the main reason for her conclusions in the article. That data is very flawed and way out of context IMO. I went back to look at the research and that stat applies to women under 30. He also left out that medium tone black women are only married at 30% during that same timeframe. In other words, Dark women 23%, medium women 30%, light women 55%.

His data should have concluded that the majority of all women (regardless of skin tone and race) will absolutely get married but at that darker-skinned women on average marry later age than light-skinned black women. Which marrying later is actually a very good thing IMO. Medium-skin women and dark-skinned women were not much different in the percents, but the mediums tend to get overlooked.

Also the data is from 30 years ago, I sure hope things have gotten better since then but who knows.
And the sample sizes from this data were off. 200 light skin women, about 700 each of medium and dark skin women, which to me is not accurate enough.

Hopefully this link posts right. Page 35 is where the data came from.
Study link

I don't think it's posting right, but if you have access to the full article it's pretty interesting. In some instances the medium skinned women were married at lower rates than our darker skinned counterparts.

 

Sis, I scrolled the OP, said "I can't do this today," and clicked out

 

This thread took off! I’ll go back and read it, but first I want to say this.

I see how my previous post might sound like I’m denying colorism exists. I’m not. I’m dark-skinned, as I mentioned, and my DH and my teenage DD are as well. I know far too well that colorism exists. It’s been a pathological institution among blacks for centuries. I’ve been on the receiving end of subtler versions of it myself.

But, I’m allergic to self-pity, especially when someone effectively says “woe is US,” which I felt the author was saying. So, my knee-jerk reaction was to say “it must be you” because so many of US have found ways to work around colorism to find loving relationships. Date strategically. Just throw all the non-starts into the same trash heap, unsorted, because who has time to sort trash, and keep it moving before the smell gets on you.

 

Ok. Re personal responsibility...

Now this author is gorgeous—I don’t know if she always was, but she is in the pictures posted. “I once was young but now am old, and I’ve never seen...” a beautiful woman go unappreciated, unapproached by men at all unless there is something else going on. They very well could be gay, married, intimidated, broke, pre-rejecting themselves before she can, OR, she really could be giving off some vibe that puts them off. But If it’s not her, as y’all say, and it’s them, and it’s none of her business what their handicap or pathology is. It’s pointless to sit and wring her hands over men who don’t want her when the odds are there are plenty who do.

 

I dont like being called chocolate at all.

 

This article was on my mind last night, and the more I thought about it I do think that I was being dismissive of this young woman’s plight.

I may not agree with everything she said, but her pain is real and it’s the same pain so many black women and girls experience. If colorism is to be confronted then stories like hers need to be heard.

 

I think it’s odd how we can all agree that colorism is a problem when we see Black men insulting dark skinned black women and see light skinned and biracial women used as the representation of Black women in the media but when a dark skinned Black woman discusses the effects of colorism on her life we say she’s imagining things.

 

My 5 yo is chocolate-skinned. She was complaining about needing lotion cause she "ain't white."
She said "mama, I'm black...I'm beautiful....You cant see my skin under this white...I need mah lotion."
Yeah...

 

she wants unavailable men. If you ASKING to meet. That's a clue.
Period.

 

Sharlene is a different person from the author. Sharlene is the author's friend, who she met at a Kendrick Lamar concert

 

I got that, I took it as the author agreeing with that perspective when she said she heard what she was saying, but her choices were few.

 

Black mixed with black all day. I am so happy she told her experience and wasn't down or complimented by it.

 

Did I miss a breaking news report? From the statistics and anecdotes, chances are way higher that the relationship you’re in is trash. I think LHCF is a bit of a congregation of unicorns— in that many members have the support of close family/friends or members to lean on for advice, guidance, and support... and are living statistically and quantifiable better lives than the average Jack or Jill.
I am a dark-skinned woman and have never had problems dating or getting commitment from a man. A man I want? A man worth wanting? A relationship I want worth wanting? Those are TOTALLY different things.
When I was much younger, I felt a lot more unattractive than I honestly am, because the dudes I wanted didn’t seem to want me. And I didn’t notice anybody else.

I won’t go so far as to invalidate this lady’s story— or the stories of women who empathize with her, because while I’ve experienced colorism and knuckleheads it hasn’t been to a degree that has detracted from my joy or progress in any significant way. But a lot of the other posters with alternative reasons—beyond colorism— for her involuntary singleness really resonated with me, because I see it irl.

The grass looks greener on the other side til you have to mow the lawn.
We’ve got Gabrielle Union and Teyana Taylor, some dark and beautiful women agreeing to eat groceries, threesomes, and all sorts of other shenanigans in their marriages. Meanwhile, plenty of White celebrities are working on 2nd, 3rd+ marriages. We also have women wanting to be equally yoked, yet complaining about the time it takes to find quality, only to compare themselves to women who are in 50/50 (or worse) relationship models, polyamory, family dysfunction, etc etc. And we’ve discussed at length on this site how self-hating the majority of Black men who marry out are, so are they even prizes worth lamenting over or are Black women truly dodging bullets by not taking up with them?
Cause I see quite often a self-hating Black man who doesn’t have the means to afford/attract a White woman to his liking— yet if he comes up, he leaves a broken family behind for White/Other— and why doesn’t anyone ever mention the remotest possibility that to some degree the Black woman he dragged through the mud co-signed somewhat on his abuse of her?

People can only treat you how you allow them to, up to a certain point. We can talk about colorism, but it’s not a denial of its reality to focus more on solutions or ways we can be proactive about whatever our individual baggage is. (think of the YouTube channel Chrissy)
Getting a man isn’t the problem. Attracting a man isn’t the problem. Being in a relationship isn’t the problem. It’s being yoked to someone worthwhile. And that’s truly a problem for us all.
My two cents anyway.