Is this really what we've come to?

[kellinator]

I'm sure by now you've all already heard about the Forbes article exhorting men not to marry career women. I don't know if I'm even going to bother saying anything about it because other people have already said it all better (this article at Salon does it nicely, as do many LJ postings), other than perhaps to point out that the author's criteria for "career women" -- working more than 35 hours a week and making more than $30,000 a year -- hardly describes the type of workaholic executive he seems to be referring to, and furthermore very few families can survive on one income these days, making a "career woman" pretty much a necessity for most families. Most of the men I know would be offended at the article's presumption that men cannot take care of themselves and must have wives who function as mothers (not to mention queasy at the thought of sex with Mommy-Wife). In addition, many of the virtuous housewives Michael Noer extolls probably stay in rotten marriages because they cannot afford to leave. But I digress.

After some thought, I've decided that the thing that troubles me the most is not the article, which is asinine, condescending, and under the impression that marriage and other institutions are solely for the benefit of men, or even the fact that Forbes published it, apparently in an attempt to get female readers to cancel their subscriptions.

No, it's the message boards.

Yes, I know. Arguing on the intarwub is the Special Olympics and all that. But even a casual perusal of the reader comments at Forbes shows scores of men gloating and screaming at any women who attempt to post.

Examples:

Fortunately the end of this road is coming and soon. Since the centerpiece of feminazism is the right to kill their own children they are quickly exterminating themselves. The population of ivy league feminists isn't replacing itself and will be just a bad memory in the history text book of foolishness in a generation or two. What is absolutely hillarious is how blind the average "higher educated" feminist is to this reality.

The guy has a point. If you want your career, fine. Just don't expect me to put up with your crap because you want to have your cake and eat it too. The stupidity of feminism is that feminist women want to be treated as men by men while being women. File your complaint with Nature and ask to be sent back as men.... Nature made you the child bearers not us.

Message to aging spinsters: this agony aunt article was written by a man FOR men. What you are doing is called eavesdropping. If men like me brush off the insulting man-hunt articles in Cosmo (and we do), then I suggest you get a grip and follow our example. Feminism is all about choices, right? Well, you career gals have made your choice, and now we men get to decide whether we like that or not. At the very least, you'll still have your "exciting" careers to fall back on, no? In the meantime, have fun cuddling up to your Blackberry.

American women are good for sportfucking and little else. If you want to be happy, marry a subserviant Asian or Eastern European woman.

And I'm just aghast... it's not that I'm shocked that there are men like this, but that there are so many of them, and they're just dripping with anger and looking for people to take their aggressions out on, and never considering that they're a part of the equation too, no, they're just persecuted... and I want to give up.

What's the point in even trying to interact with people when they're not going to listen to a goddamned word I say, just because I'm a woman, or liberal, or Not Them? Of course, they'd say I'm the closed-minded one because there's no way they can convince me that George W. Bush is a good man and I need to get in the kitchen and make them some pie. And these people are everywhere. I feel safe and insulated in my little world with my friends... but am I? Rather than giving myself ulcers, shouldn't I just retreat into that world and be grateful for it?

(I'm going to interrupt myself to say: I know some of you like Bush. And I'm stating here for the record that while I might be fine with you as a person, I absolutely consider supporting George W. Bush and his policies to be an immoral act. If you can't deal with me thinking that, fuck off.)

I just feel so frustrated, and useless, and fucking helpless when I see shit like this and know there's not a goddamned thing I can do to change it.

But since Michael Noer wants to send us back to the dark ages, let's do him one better and go back even further -- to a little play called Lysistrata. Ladies, I challenge you to join me. Let's make sure that Michael Noer never gets a piece of ass he didn't have to pay for for the rest of his sniveling life.

Comments

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

I just read that other article, and, to be fair, you seem to have misinterpreted it. It's a review of someone else's article in an economics journal, and the "wife or whore" dichotomy is the premise of that other article. It's not Noer's -- in fact, Noer is critical of it: In particular, the assumption that there is no "third way" between wife and whore is problematic, if not outright offensive.

I wonder if his ridiculous "career girl" article is actually a work of satire?

[leopard-print.livejournal.com]

No, I'm afraid I didn't misinterpret it. I wish I had.

Yes, at times he does appear scornful of Korn and Edlund's findings, but that does not outweight such classic lines as:

"But back to whores: Edlund and Korn admit that spouses and streetwalkers aren't exactly alike. Wives, in truth, are superior to whores in the economist's sense of being a good whose consumption increases as income rises--like fine wine. This may explain why prostitution is less common in wealthier countries. But the implication remains that wives and whores are--if not exactly like Coke and Pepsi--something akin to champagne and beer. The same sort of thing."

and

"As with Becker, a key differentiator in Edlund and Korn's model is reproductive sex. Wives can offer it, whores can not."


I wish I could think his work was satire, because it certainly rings with a level of ridiculousness I would expect from Comedy Central. Sadly though, I think he's totally serious.

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

I read the same lines as sarcastic, though, as saying that Edlund and Korn imply that wives and whores are like Coke and Pepsi, etc.

I looked up the list of Noer's previous articles on the Forbes site, and they include an article on Santa Claus being unfair to labor. I'm thinking more and more that he intended this "career girl" piece to be a satire piece, a sarcastic comment on the studies he quotes.