[Crake]

Women have an easier time finding somewhere to stay because they are considered more valuable to society. Men are disposable, which is why far fewer resources are devoted to helping them.

Women also can just get a boyfriend if they lose their job or health and need money; I've seen my female friends do this loads of times, but have yet to see it go the other way. Gender roles definitely favor women pretty heavily when it comes to financial matters.

[llllllllllll]

I think the reality is that women are more able to scrape by via prostitution.

Gender roles definitely favor women pretty heavily when it comes to financial matters.

Every study I've seen shows that women are paid less in than men in equivalent positions. I'm having a hard time reconciling anything in your post with reality.

[Crake]

>prostitution

I think most couples would be pretty offended if you called the girlfriend a prostitute for letting their boyfriend financially support them.

>Every study I've seen shows that women are paid less in than men in equivalent positions.

Women are paid the same as men in studies that control for other variables. I recommend you stop reading "studies" that don't control for things like hours worked and choice of career field.

http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20...

In fact, single childless women now make more than men in most US metropolitan areas: "Young women in New York City, Los Angeles and San Diego making 17%, 12% and 15% more than their male peers, respectively." (http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274...)

[Mz]

I have upvoted you. It is true that a woman can just "get a boyfriend" -- aka politely whore herself out -- and I have seen it done as a means to get off the street. And it is true that there are generally fewer resources for homeless men. But gender rolls do not "favor women pretty heavily when it comes to financial matters". Nor are women "more valuable" to society.

Men get freedom that women tend to lack. With freedom, there is freedom to fail. Men tend to aggregate towards the extremes -- they both take up more of the CEO roles and are more commonly seen on the street. Women get more "average" lives in part because they have less freedom. Women often are protected from homelessness per se not because anyone values them but because they have custody of and responsibility for dependent children and no one wants to see children on the street. So the parent who has custody gets taken in by family along with the child or services intended to benefit the child also benefit the custodial parent. This is not about valuing women more. It is just not.

[apsec112]

Ummmm no. Maybe, maybe, on a statistical level, this happens more for women than for men. But I certainly know women who have been homeless, and there are even more women who can't get a boyfriend at all, especially if they're sick or unemployed. Women's magazines are full of dating advice for a reason.

[graeme]

Note: To be clear, I do not agree with the OP's characterization of "women being more valuable to society" and thus treated better. In general, men have the advantage. But homelessness does tend to affect men more.

Most homeless are men. A couple sources I found places the number in the mid 60% range.

http://homeless.samhsa.gov/ResourceFiles/hrc_factsheet.pdf http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/who.html

You say some women can't get a boyfriend at all. I expect it's true for most of them that they can't get a boyfriend they want.

But many of them might be able to get a very disagreeable boyfriend, if their choice was living with him, or living on the street.

It's not a very good choice. In fact, it's generally an awful choice. But it's still a choice.

Obviously, there are homeless women, but they tend to be less vulnerable to homelessness. Orwell wrote about this in down and out in Paris and London. Mind you, this was in the 1920s, but it's evocative:

>Tramps are cut off from women, in the first place, because there are very few women at their level of society. One might imagine that among destitute people the sexes would be as equally balanced as elsewhere. But it is not so; in fact, one can almost say that below a certain level society is entirely male. The following figures, published by the L.C.C. from a night census taken on February 13th, 1931, will show the relative numbers of destitute men and destitute women:

Spending the night in the streets, 60 men, 18 women. In shelters and homes not licensed as common lodging-houses, 1,057 men, 137 women. In the crypt of St Martin's-in-the-Fields Church, 88 men, 12 women. In L.C.C. casual wards and hostels, 674 men, 15 women.

[ This must be an underestimate. Still, the proportions probably hold good.]

It will be seen from these figures that at the charity level men outnumber women by something like ten to one. The cause is presumably that unemployment affects women less than men; also that any presentable woman can, in the last resort, attach herself to some man.

[Crake]

Men are 77% of the homeless population [1]. This doesn't mean that no women are homeless, just that women are much less likely to end up homeless (presumably as a result of the much greater amount of resources dedicated to disadvantaged women compared to disadvantaged men).

I think it goes without saying that a sick or unemployed man is far less likely to find or keep a girlfriend than a sick or unemployed woman.

1. http://www.nhchc.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/June2001Heal...

[pekk]

Well, if you feel envious of women who can sleep with people for money, you may still be able to find men who will accept your services as a prostitute. Since you seem to think it's so cushy.