This is apparently why postfeminist women should get married. via *evelina* @ flickr
Are you married? Did you wed him because you were deeply in love? You fool! Any woman with a modicum of intelligence would only have entered into a marriage for one reason: cold hard cash. You must be so old-fashioned. All the cool, postfeminist women are marrying for money, and proud of it.
That, at least, is the premise of the headdesk-inducing new book, Smart Girls Marry Money by Elizabeth Ford and Daniela Drake. The description on the jacket cover says the book will “show how women are being shafted by their own romantic ideals,” and asks “When did gold-digging become a four letter word?” And they promise to back up their assertions with “stats” and “data” (the fact that stats are data notwithstanding). Not only is this ridiculous and offensive, it is based on four odious pretenses:
Feeling nauseous yet?
Here are a few choice excerpts:
[To "older" women, i.e. those over forty] “Hell, we don’t care if you suck the fat out of your ass and use it to plump up your tits. Whatever makes you feel beautiful, go for it. So even if your original sell-by date is long overdue, you may still avoid working until you drop dead. While our shout-out is primarily for the young supple beauties squandering their hotness–if you’re older and you still aren’t married to a man with money, there’s still time.
Our modern spin on gold-digging should be viewed as the new morality: a helpful way for men to rediscover their innate manliness…While it may be news to smart girls, most bimbos already had a clue, probably because they had no other cards to play.
We love men. But we’re not like them. Men turn us on. They fight for our honor; they take out the garbage, lift heavy objects and occasionally give us orgasms.
Ford and Drake extol the careers of “women who have skyrocketing careers in a wide range of professions.” Who do you think they chose to demonstrate that? Hillary Clinton? Rachel Maddow? Venus Williams? Maybe even Sarah Palin? Try Jenna Jameson.
One of the most offensive things about this book is that it purports that there is “a growing, collective suspicion that the postfeminist world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” Uh, postfeminist world? Sigh. Great, I guess feminism has ended and we can all pack up our bags and go home. No need to rally for equal rights anymore, girls! (Yes, you are girls! You don’t need to be mature women!) Gloria Steinem’s success pales next to that of Jenna Jameson. Don’t look for an equal partnership based on anything emotional.
Just make sure you find a man who can line your bank account and don’t worry your pretty head about your own earning power. It’ll evaporate anyway, as will your “supple young thing” looks. Be smart, be postfeminist, don’t worry about pay disparities, marry money — and mock those women who actually keep striving to earn parity in the professional and personal spheres. Those poor, unfortunate souls* who know not that marriage really means “Till checkbooks do us part.” And if they worry that we’re perpetuating the myth that women only want money from men and like to bleed them dry, just ignore their ramblings. They must be jealous.
*Yes, this is a random Little Mermaid allusion, as is the title.
“a growing, collective suspicion that the postfeminist world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Uh, like, real?
I love Mr. Crabby dearly and right now I’m pretty much supporting us because his work is drying up, (ah, the life of a freelancer!) We’re both just grateful that I have a good, solid job and we don’t have to panic, (yet,) we’ll probably get married sooner rather than later so he can get on my health insurance plan.
Thank FSM that I’m with a man who doesn’t think his “manliness” hinges on buying me shit and who sees this as a partnership, not a business arrangement. (That made sense in my head.)
Postfeminist world? Is that like the Postracial world we’re living in?
GOODNESS, it’s a great time to be alive!
“your sell-by date”?????
Yeah, I’m not a graduate of the Velvet Jones School of Technology, thanks.
Silly me, giving it away for free all these years!
I often, often, often have people make “golddigger” comments when they find out my husband is a doctor. It seriously pisses me off. I’m NOT that kind of a girl, and I loved him just as much when he was a waiter and camp counselor hoping to get into med school as I do now that he’s a resident and will once he’s out practicing on his own. Besides, he knows I married him for his pretty pretty face, not his money.
@funnyface: I always got golddigger comments when I was dating a man 17 years older than me. Even though, thanks to his child support payments and adjustable-rate mortgage, I had more cash than he did at the end of each month. Pissed me off no end, but I couldn’t very well go around saying “Yeah, actually, he doesn’t have that much money.”
@funnyface: I don’t understand how people say that to other people’s faces. Has gold-digger ever been applied to a man? I can’t think of one example — can anyone else?
@BeckySharper: This is why you should try to stay the womanly equivalent of skim milk. Apparently you will last longer on the shelf.
I’ve known pretty much since the day I met Mr. Meurent that I’d be the primary breadwinner if we got together (I’m a corporate lawyer, he’s a do-gooder and always has been). And this atypical power balance in the financial side of our relationship has never, ever, been an issue with us, even if it bucks the status quo of what people would expect of him/us/our relationship, which is one of the reasons why I love him so much. It’s sort of the exact opposite of what these women are extolling–I was looking for a poor guy whose goal in life was to help other people, to make up for the soul-sucking moral black hole of my profession. The fact that he looks good do-gooding is pure bonus, in my view. Or maybe he has me fooled, and our marriage is itself “postfeminist”, in that he kept himself looking so good in hopes of finding a sugar momma. Pretty much a win/win for me still, though.
correction: “I’m not that kind of a WOMAN.” I’m tryin’ y’all.
“The girl who has…everything..”*
How did you even find out about this? It’s so absurd it seems fake, like it was almost written by Harpies as a joke. Jenna Jameson? Wow.
*The Little Mermaid reference back atcha
@FF- My ex’s mom often called me gold-digger, usually in front of other people. It always mystified me, since that family didn’t have any gold to dig!
I have been worrying about something lately. I am recently divorced, 3 kids, and I feel embarrassed saying this out loud, but I have money. I work, of course, but what I mean is, I have inheritances and trusts and all that stuff. None of my friends know, I dont live a big life, I live in a small town in midwest etc etc. But since my divorce I have wondered how I would explain all that to someone I was serious with or if I ever married again (not my goal but just what iff-ing). I would always want finances separate, because of my first marriage, and I wonder how that would affect a true partnership, and I would always want someone I am with to pull his own weight and do his own thing.. but…money is weird.
I hope this is on-topic! It just reminded me.
Husband has a good job, so when we started dating his mother put me through the wringer, trying to catch me at a moment when I’d confess I really only loved this man because of his paycheck.
How utterly boring it must be to not work, or not want to work, or go to school or anything. I can’t imagine the drudgery or the consuming emptiness that kind of life would entail. This book seems to be about work avoidance–what do they propose in its place? Drinking margaritas all day? That sounds like it might be nice for exactly two days, on summer vacation.
“Gold-digger” is a 10-letter word (11, if you include the hypen). I counted.
I do like to avoid working (hellllooooo, internet!), but I will never understand why you would be interested in making your life with another person when neither of you believes that you’re equal partners. What sort of life is that?
@soulsonic force: Money is definitely weird, or at least, people’s relationships with it, and with each other because of it, are weird. But you don’t owe anyone anything, not even an explanation. Your money is your money, and in a world where not nearly enough women have or make money, you should just enjoy it and fuck the haters.
@victorine: Perhaps your marriage is postfeminist in a non-postfeminist world! I wish you could bop the authors over the head and give them a clue about marriages where the man is not the principal breadwinner!
@soulsonic: Amen, money is weird.
Another assumption of these writers is that you and your wealthy husband will always have the same attitudes towards money. Differing views on financial issues is one of the top reasons couples split up. It’s one thing to think you’re set for life when you marry “for money” but it doesn’t mean much if you’re not actually on the same page.
kithkin: I know! I mean, I doubt these self-avowed gold diggers are really planning to use their lives of leisure to volunteer or do anything else of value. I hate working. Have like, no ambition to keep up the 9-5, and sort of plan to stop doing it if/when I have a kid, because I have the luxury to make that choice. Even so, my 3 months not working this fall taught me I’d go insane with nothing at all to do. If I’m ever not-working, I want to be writing and volunteering and taking classes and such.
funnyface: SAME. I mean, I have the luxury of being a student so sometimes I think I want a 9-5, a thought that leaves my mind as quickly as it flew in. For the first time since high school I didn’t have a job last summer and I spent the entire summer going slowly completely mad. I was such a weirdo, too; because I hadn’t seen anyone all day, by the time Husband got home from work I was all up in his face when really he needed to unwind. It was bad for me and for my marriage when I was neither in classes nor working. I’ll never make that mistake again.
I don’t particularly like working. I’d be pleased as punch to quit my job and devote my life to rescuing dogs. But I do like earning my own money (even if I blow it all right away), and would never want to be reliant on one person to “keep” me.
This isn’t post-feminist; it’s ANTI-feminist, and it’s dangerous advice.
I have made far more money than the Mister for the majority of our relationship, including supporting him while he went to school after finishing up my BA. It really used to bug the hell out of my in-laws, but I think they’ve finally adapted to the idea that it’s just going to be that way. I’m the one with the obscenely huge skillset, and the Mister is a chef who discovered that he really, really, really hates cooking for strangers who have no taste.
@beckysharper: Thanks for that, it helped. You’re right, I don’t have to explain it, or feel guilty for it. I sure can’t change the fact. Who knows when we will really need it.
I love my job and my field and tell my coworkers that I would never quit even even if I won the lottery. They look at me weird, but they don’t know “my secret”, and know that I truly mean it.
Oh man at first I thought this was going to be about me.
I am very much opposed to marriage. I’m all, “Why legalize gay marriage! ABOLISH ALL MARRIAGE!” (like in the delightful movie Itty Bitty Titty Committee). And I try not to talk about it around pro-marriage folk, because they get defensive and judgey. Or, they think I’m judgey. Which I am, but not about this necessarily.
Anyway, my ManFriend knows I am politically against marriage. I’m also mildly politically against heterosexuality, and yet I date a man, so we all cave in some ways. But anyway, he is also against marriage, and we have a delightful relationship unfraught with much of your average male/female relatinship because he knows of my stance on Men (I hates them!) and marriage (evil!), so we’re all good.
But then last week I had to go to a family friend’s wedding shower. And I was dreading it. Loudly, with many long words and funny voices. Then I returned from it, and man friend was all, “So… How… was it?” and I was like, “It wasn’t that bad. Actually I think we should TOTALLY GET MARRIED. She got so many cool gifts. SHE GOT AN ELECTRIC GRIDDLE. I WANT AN ELECTRIC GRIDDLE. LET’S GET HITCHED!!!” (And I use the annoying capital letters and multiple explanation points on purpose, because that was how I was a-talking.)
Luckily, he pointed out that it would be far less expensive to merely go purchase my own electric griddle than it would to get married.
But now I’m worried about myself. Cimorene: She Who Abandons Her Social and Political Principles At the Prospect of Exciting Housewares.
But seriously, ya’ll. So many chocolate chip pancakes could be made on that thing.
@Cimorene: one of us… one of us… Love your comment. I recently described myself as a “married person who doesn’t believe in legal marriage.” I mean, I compromise my feminist principles pretty often to get by, but at least with this one I got some nice stuff. My married life is exactly like my unmarried life, but with a kitchen aid stand mixer and a le creuset dutch oven.
I know a girl who wants to marry a rich old man. Which I think is insane for many reasons, also there’s risks about marrying a man for money you don’t think about, he is likely to be older and since he actually owns the money he will find it very easy to control your whole life, and what sort of man marries a woman whose only after his money, anyway? Personally, I want to earn all my money myself, aren’t I weird?
this really does make me want to vomit.
@Tracy: Don’t vomit, my dear. Just prove them wrong by living your own life without relying on a man to provide!