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Singles going steady
To avoid marrying a jerk, singles educators say you should stay out of bed on the first date and cross-examine your partner. Critics say their advice is hokum.
By Sarah Elizabeth Richards [2006-03-07]

  • Middle Class Addicts, Drunks and Wife Beaters

    While I appreciate Richards's concern for the limitations of a "one-size-fits-all" approach to dating, I was distrubed by the uncritical inclusion of the sentence: "critics charge that these programs, which were created using research with middle-class couples, aren't easily translatable to lower-income populations, who may be dealing with substance abuse or domestic violence problems."

    Would that be because middle-class populations don't have substance abuse or domestic violence problems? Clearly this isn't the case.

    Domestic violence shelters are full of women who left nice, solid middle class husbands who beat the shit out of them after they've put down their briefcases.

    Those residential addiction clinics in Minnesota (why are they always in Minnesota?) aren't full because welfare recipients are shelling out thousands of dollars to dry out and sober up.

    One size doesn't fit all because we're all individuals, not because we need class-based approaches to human relationships based on false assumptions (or more precisely normative projections) of class difference. To quote the maligned Depeche Mode: 'people are people.'

    -- Buffalonian
    [Read Buffalonian's other letters]
    Tuesday, March 7, 2006 03:34 AM
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