bearing witness part 2
so it isn't exactly last night as i said it would be when i continued this post. sorry. but about marita bonner, i've decided this is the quote that i really love:
At least you know what you want life to give you. A career as fixed and calmly brilliant as the North Star. The one real thing money buys. Time. Time to do things. A house that can be as delectably out of order and as easily put in order as the dollhouse of "playing-house" days. And of course, a husband you can look up to without looking down on yourself.
the quote comes from "On Being Young--A Woman--And Colored," originally published in 1925. and what is immediately striking is how relevant it still is.
relevance: anybody read that article in forbes advising men not to marry career women? the definition of career woman, according to the article: college educated, makes over $30,000 a yearworks 35 hours or more outside of the home. why, according to this article, shouldn't men marry career women? simple: career women are, evidently, more likely to not want children, to be unhappy if the have children, be unhappy if she makes more money than the man, make the man unhappy if she makes more money, more likely to cheat, more likely to not cook and clean, more likely to finally divorce the man.
that someone would harbor such vitriol, and the publish it in forbes of all places, means that women are still looking for men that they can look up to without looking down on themselves. in truth, when i first heard of the article i just knew it could not be serious. now, i am quite afraid that it is serious.
what is perhaps most unfortunate is that this article seems to imply that happiness, for a man, is a person, a woman, who will have his babies and clean his house and ask him for money. is that what happiness is? shall we all set the bar so low?
i hope not. but if a man cannot, by definition, be happy with a successful woman, its the man who is not happy with himself in life. and perhaps the ego boost of being in control of a woman fools him into believing he is happy.
of course, what do i know? and according to the forbes definition of a career woman, i suppose i am a career woman. so i dunno, if this is what men are thinking then i guess i better really love my books.
o, but i actually do believe men are smarter than that.
At least you know what you want life to give you. A career as fixed and calmly brilliant as the North Star. The one real thing money buys. Time. Time to do things. A house that can be as delectably out of order and as easily put in order as the dollhouse of "playing-house" days. And of course, a husband you can look up to without looking down on yourself.
the quote comes from "On Being Young--A Woman--And Colored," originally published in 1925. and what is immediately striking is how relevant it still is.
relevance: anybody read that article in forbes advising men not to marry career women? the definition of career woman, according to the article: college educated, makes over $30,000 a yearworks 35 hours or more outside of the home. why, according to this article, shouldn't men marry career women? simple: career women are, evidently, more likely to not want children, to be unhappy if the have children, be unhappy if she makes more money than the man, make the man unhappy if she makes more money, more likely to cheat, more likely to not cook and clean, more likely to finally divorce the man.
that someone would harbor such vitriol, and the publish it in forbes of all places, means that women are still looking for men that they can look up to without looking down on themselves. in truth, when i first heard of the article i just knew it could not be serious. now, i am quite afraid that it is serious.
what is perhaps most unfortunate is that this article seems to imply that happiness, for a man, is a person, a woman, who will have his babies and clean his house and ask him for money. is that what happiness is? shall we all set the bar so low?
i hope not. but if a man cannot, by definition, be happy with a successful woman, its the man who is not happy with himself in life. and perhaps the ego boost of being in control of a woman fools him into believing he is happy.
of course, what do i know? and according to the forbes definition of a career woman, i suppose i am a career woman. so i dunno, if this is what men are thinking then i guess i better really love my books.
o, but i actually do believe men are smarter than that.
Labels: literature, so opinionated
Unfortunatelly with an article like this, it tends to rely on generalizations of people and how they tend to behave, than on individuals themselves. Personally I was under the impression that you more than likely know that the person is (or is not) career oriented when you first go out with them. Would you be surprised if the person continued to be career oriented? People don't attain that level of success and then just plan on dropping everything and becoming something else out of the blue.
That would be like me getting married, and then my partner asking me to stop frying computer parts. Its just not going to happen anytime soon. By the time marriage comes into play, you should have already tried to work out the big differences.
The financial situation is funny too, because even if one spouse makes more than the other, when you get married nothing is 'yours' anymore anyhow. It seems to resemble a community pot that the two can bicker about for eternity. Sounds like fun! ^.^
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