Career Men and Women Don’t Marry Until You Can Afford Staff

Gee, now where did my comment go? Hmmmm. :>)

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I hope you do repost. I am so bummed. I am so curious as to what you wrote. Egad, I hope you recomment.

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Of course, never answered your inquiry. Yes, it posted immediately, as did this one and now this one. Wouldn’t you have received a copy in your inbox as well?

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:(

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Geesh Chris, are you throwing some sort of blogging tantrum here? I understand that my epic response was simply gobbled up and I should conclude no malintent from that. It happens. No biggie. That said, I’d be happy to provide you the bullet points – the meat and potatoes, if you will, of my elegant and witty prose – the finessed retort – the pulitzer panache. But you must talk pretty and say please.

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Michael Noir, in his article, Don’t Marry Career Women, attempted to illustrate the potential myriad of problems facing men when they elect to marry a woman with a career – a woman who is educated, ambitious, informed and engaged (among other things). The rationale for Noir’s suggestion that man remain permanently unattached and fearful of a life with a “career woman???? The answer is not only steeped in cowardice, but somewhat comical in that it could have been ripped from the pages of the story of Adam and Eve itself with all that deception, dissatisfaction, disharmony, disobedience and devastation. Blame Eve – it’s the logical choice.

To his credit, however, while the first read of this article seemed rife with hatred and malcontent for my fellow career sisters, the substance of the message is nothing more than a contrived attempt to generate “maverickesque??? publicity for himself through the use of self-serving data and pointless references. In other words, Noir is a shameless popularity hound who had a perfect opportunity to tear into this issue with more passion, zeal, and intelligence but instead allowed the substance of the article to suffer mercilessly behind crap referencing and shameful journalistic jockeying.

I did find the following assertions by Noir to be on point: marriage at some point does become an exercise in labor specialization. Traditional marriages bore witness to relationships where the wife managed the home and children while the husband earned the income. This balance or “labor specialization??? has indeed shifted over these last twenty years quite significantly to the extent that men who profess to be “modern masculines??? – men who are more accustomed to working side by side with women professionally – were nonetheless raised by Moms who stayed home with them while they were children. This dichotomy of worlds (how they were raised versus what they experience with women today) is what I believe causes men the most problem with women. Men still want the woman who has the ambition, brains, and prowess of a Board Room Exec. Yet they also want that familiar, homey, domestically-oriented woman who will have the children, manage the home, tend to their every need, and need I say, ENJOY IT. Sadly, this era is largely over. The cost of living has increased forcing households into a dual income status; women who pursue higher education and advanced degrees are seeking out careers over family and even marriage; this added financial freedom allows a woman to be choosier with whom she selects as a mate – it also allows her the opportunity to extract herself from a relationship that is harmful, unfulfilling, and/or unloving as opposed to back in the day when women suffered silently through and were totally dependent upon a marriage that were all these things because they had no choice and could not protect themselves or their children financially if they decided to leave. When Noir directs our attention to the disadvantage of marrying a career woman, is he really expressing the key reasons why this is so or merely reflecting the subconscious, primal fears of man today? I believe the latter.

When women of today achieve the same professional status as men AND there is still an expectation that they are to also tend to all the domestic affairs of the marriage as well (kids, cooking, cleaning, etc.) you can guarantee that this notion of labor specialization is turned on its end. My guess is that the division of labor in most marriages is still largely disparate even when the wife has a career because there is still the expectation that she remain the primary caregiver to the children and manager of the household. The husband, on the other hand, will enjoy the title of primary bread winner and quite possibly will contribute far less in terms of his role in the relationship. Likewise, this imbalance of power, responsibility and contribution breeds nothing but contempt in a marriage when the couple has not already clearly defined these roles for themselves; when the couple cannot make significant adjustments to accommodate each other or the needs of their children because of the career demands; and most significantly, when the marriage was not based on fundamentally good, nurturing philosophies to begin with.

I believe Noir actually struck gold when he included with these over generalizations about “career women??? the fact that many marriages are complex and complicated and who’s to say why they fail at all. I believe it is simply disingenuous to say that career goals are the basis for stalling even the most promising relationship. And while I breathed a sigh of relief after seeing that Noir finally indicated that wives employment will correlate positively to divorce rates, (only when or typically when) the marriage is of low marital quality, I felt it was buried beneath miles and miles of poorly drafted and poorly worded rubbish to have any hope of reader recognition. For this reason, I became smugly satisfied that Noir’s foray into this realm of controversy was for publicity reasons and not because there was a modicum of truth to his limited and unsubstantiated assertions that career women are simply the anti-Christ.

I have gone on far too long. As for the rest of the nonsense in that article re: career women being rabid cheaters, unhappy breeders, or money hungry gold diggers, I say the following. Men have worked in the professional setting far longer than women and lay claim to these labels or monikers already. Yet, Noir fails to see the reciprocity here. If we were to believe Noir’s research, those evil doer career girls are the source of all societal problems because men, men!, why they are such grounded, nurturing, selfless individuals who are wholly blameless for the ills of society. I guess it will have to remain our dirty little secret.

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