February 8, 2005
Ask DCist: Do Women Out Number Men?
I've heard people mention that the ratio of women to men in this city [is] abnormally high on the female end. Is this true? If it is, as a young guy I really have no excuse...
Hate to break it to you, Mr. Young Guy, but you really have no excuse. Not only is the District teeming with women, but, as you suspected, the ratio of women to men is indeed significantly higher here then the national average. According to the 2000 U.S. Census report, D.C. is flush with young, single gals.
The report states that overall, there are slightly more women in the U.S. then men, 50.9% vs. 49.1% respectively. In the District, the breakdown is more severe :
Male: 269,366 (Total Pop) 47.1%(DC) 49.1% (National)Female: 302,693 (Total Pop) 52.9% (DC) 50.9% (National)
The median age in this town is 34.6, which is about a year younger then the national average. Here's the best part though. The percentage of the population that's married in D.C is only 29.9%, compared with a national average of 54.4%.
With this data in mind, a recent Men's Health article listed D.C as the Best City for Babes, and DCist tends to agree.
Why are so many D.C. gals still single? Too picky? Too career oriented? Maybe. It could also be that we ladies are dealing with some pretty slim pickings. The same Men's Health article ranked D.C. as number two on its list of baldest cities, and quite embarrassingly, it also placed second on the list of limpest cities. "Based on erectile-dysfunction diagnoses by region and the number of Cialis, Levitra, and Viagra prescriptions dispensed per capita", D.C. is only behind Chicago, Il.
So, Mr. Young Guy, not only is the capital buzzing with beauties, but your competition isn't that stiff either.
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I doubt that DC is the "limpest" city in the nation. It is teeming with gay men who quite often tend to get prescriptions to ED drugs as easily as Pez, and for purely recreational reasons.
uh what other purpose do ED drugs serve beyond recreation? and who made you the boss of all things gay? and if you think DC is "teeming" with gay men, then you'd best guard your behind in places like philly, NYC, miami, p-town, etc: you're in for a surprise about what a thriving gay scene looks like. DC needs more gay men dammit!
2% is teeming, eh? Well, I looked up the stats for NYC and sure enough, they mirror the national statistics.
But that's a much larger city. Looking for a small town that's more DC's size (to see if the 2% number was a huge variation) I wandered over to the stats for our sister city, Baltimore. And what a sister city. Baltimore has a much larger 46.6/53.4 ratio... a full half a percentage point more than DC!
The fact is that a 2% variation in gender in a small town like DC is not a huge deal. Put in perspective, a similar town without the 2% variation would have about 11,000 more men running around. Sounds like a lot, right? Well, in a town our size, that's about the same number of people who are older than 82. So every time you see some really old person wandering around the street or behind the wheel of a car, remember that that person could be an eligible man...if you lived in NYC.
true about balitmore, but they may have less singles in the area. Census says 32% of their population is married.
also: dc needs more men period! gay or otherwise.
Hate to break it to all the mostly affluent or professional class people reading this blog hoping to find confirm their hopes/fears about DC's dating scene, but Washington's abnormally high count of single women probably has very little to do with all the hot female interns to pick up at happy hours in NW and more to do with the horrendously high number of black males in prison.
This leaves the women they would be most likely to marry - black, working class - to account for much of the disproportionate singles in our area.
Washington as a town may be getting whiter, but's it's still majority black. The overall surpluss of single women around here is almost surely a result of black working class women in NE and SE who have few chances to find a long-term partner, and not hordes of 20-year-old female interns flocking to work for NGOs while the boys stay home in Kansas to till the fields (as stories like this seem to always suggest).
So, unless there are a lot of rich, white Republican Hill rats looking for that special lady in an Ivy City housing project, I'd say professional singles in DC face the same dating odds as in most cities.
not to mention the fact that most of the single white women in DC are uptight yuppies whose souls have all but died.
yeah, i need to get the hell out of here.
hey take it easy on the ladies there, buddy! uptight yuppies come in both sexes.
So, unless there are a lot of rich, white Republican Hill rats looking for that special lady in an Ivy City housing project, I'd say professional singles in DC face the same dating odds as in most cities.
Heartbreaker. You meant to say, white professional singles Correct? I hope you are not implying that DC’s professional singles are only white. Also, I am sure you just forgot to mention the growing number of single black professional females, who do not live in an "Ivy City housing project," but who also contribute the disproportionate woman to male ratio in DC.
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