As a little present to you all, I give you the latest bomb thrown in the national conversation about women and work. Kathe forwarded it to me a couple of days ago and I should have posted on it then. I had to watch Naomi Wolf and Caitlin Flanagan go at it on the Today show this morning. Damn it. One of the perks of the blog is getting in the first word.
OK, here's your Friday present.
Michael Noer writes in Forbes.com:
Guys: A word of advice. Marry pretty women or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Blondes or brunettes. Just, whatever you do, don't marry a woman with a career.Why? Because if many social scientists are to be believed, you run a higher risk of having a rocky marriage. While everyone knows that marriage can be stressful, recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it. A recent study in Social Forces, a research journal, found that women--even those with a "feminist" outlook--are happier when their husband is the primary breadwinner....
If a host of studies are to be believed, marrying these women is asking for trouble. If they quit their jobs and stay home with the kids, they will be unhappy (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2003). They will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Social Forces, 2006). You will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2001). You will be more likely to fall ill (American Journal of Sociology). Even your house will be dirtier (Institute for Social Research).
The guy seems to be saying that women should be kept uneducated, because educated women cheat. The best way to keep your wife from cheating is to prevent her from meeting other men outside the home. He is certainly not suggesting that men pick up any of the housecleaning slack. Read the whole thing and rant away in the comment section. Merry Christmas.
The grain of truth in the article -- dual career families are very difficult to maintain. He cites studies such one by Gary Becker who found that life gets harder when both people work.
In classic economics, a marriage is, at least in part, an exercise in labor specialization. Traditionally men have tended to do "market" or paid work outside the home and women have tended to do "non-market" or household work, including raising children. All of the work must get done by somebody, and this pairing, regardless of who is in the home and who is outside the home, accomplishes that goal. Nobel laureate Gary S. Becker argued that when the labor specialization in a marriage decreases--if, for example, both spouses have careers--the overall value of the marriage is lower for both partners because less of the total needed work is getting done, making life harder for both partners and divorce more likely.
If both people work 80 hours a week, they aren't going to know each other very well. Outsourcing the housework and childcare doesn't mean that there is no work to do in that department, and it is usually the woman who picks up those chores. Until government and businesses make some important changes in their structure, dual career families will continue to be under stress.
One theme running through this article and through this comment thread is the fear that men have become superfluous. If 20% of women now outearn their husbands and the husbands still fail to do their share of the housework, some women are going to dump the dead weight. That's got to put some fear into guys and they might start looking for women that need them.
Another theme is the longing for the past. Sometimes the past isn't so far away. After spending an evening with my folks and watching my dad who has no responsibilities other than the lawn and his writing, even my super enlightened husband might may make a comment about the good old days. "Where's my slippers and a pipe?", he asks. "Have you looked up your ass, dear?" Oh my, our marriage is doomed.
UPDATE: Think Progress has the FOX News reaction.