A career woman’s response
(This post written by “career female”)
Have you read the Forbes magazine article written by Michael Noers? The one entitled, “Don’t Marry A Career Woman?” I found it enlightening. Mr. Noers has created a firestorm of sensationalism, that is ripping thru the female blogging community. I have not witnessed such a fever pitch since Hillary stood by her man.
As a female, I find it embarrassing, that so many educated women would become enraged by this article, which if we “career women” were honest; is a fair assessment of our lives.
I actually laughed out loud at the comment regarding the cleanliness of one’s house if they marry a career woman. Alas, I was sitting in my home office, pondering the need to vacuum under the desk, as I read the article.
As a student of the social sciences, I have always been fascinated by how we have socialize our children. As a child of the 70’s, my mother, was the “Carol Brady” wanna be. She was the stay at home, cookie baking, clean your room, clean your face, three course every night home cooked meal mom. She also, was the xanax popping, cigarrette smoking, aspirin taking mom, who at age 38 had enough of raising children and went to work. As you can imagine, the marital and familiar bliss that had existed ceased at this point.
Needless to say, my socialization, is not that different from majority of gen x’rs. We have had somewhat of a “psychotic” role model of what “women” are expected to be. Our mothers, aunts, and sisters have told us that being a “mom” is not enough, and that using our “brains” will get us the fulfillment in life that they missed out on. So, as a dutiful generation of women, we have embarked on the “do it all” campaign. What has it gotten us? A great education; the ability to experience career anxiety and responsiblity similar to our male counterparts; decreased health status; expanded social status; and the continued role of housewife and mother. If we add this up has it really created what we should be seeking, happiness and fulfillment? Or has it simply made these two euphorias that much more desirable yet unattainable?
I ponder what message our need to “do it all” is sending to our young female counterparts? I also wonder what in the world is my son going to “expect” from his wife?
I do know, that as a working “career” woman, my life has been chaotic, fun, painful, and “planned”. I also know, that my marriage has suffered at times because of unmet expectations from my husband not “picking up the slack” and from me “not meeting the role model wife” for my husband. At times we have both honestly stated we need a “wife” to meet our daily needs.
I wonder if the “career women” who were angered by this article were not really having a guilt reaction, because what they were reading hit closer to home then they liked?
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POSTED IN: management
6 opinions for A career woman’s response
gingertrout
Aug 26, 2006 at 8:08 am
There are two different things going on here. Your post reviews the issues at hand, but that’s not my problem: it was the way the article was written.
The article did not provide an evenhanded review the pitfalls of a two-salary marriage, it suggested that the reader should not marry any woman with a college education earning over $30K because the male in the relationship would suffer. This too, from an author who previously wrote assessing pros and cons of wives vs prostitutes. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have a discussion about this, but let’s do it in a mature way.
I think there’s a substantial difference between a fair discussion of burdens of working mothers and fathers on family life and knee-jerk sexism published by a reputable magazine.
Anon coward
Aug 26, 2006 at 12:04 pm
Holy sh*t! Maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention - but I’ve had slacker manager in my newsreader for months and I always thought you were male. I think there is a couple of reasons for this - didn’t the picture in the header used to be a man?
Maybe it’s my internal stereotypes - there’s two that I can think of (1) men are manageers and (2) men are slackers.
Roger Kondrat
Aug 27, 2006 at 2:47 am
Well I have to say Slacker Manager this author is a great writer and obviously very intelligent. If she is interested I would be happy to help her start a blog e.g. give her tips, set up the service, etc.
All for free.
I liked it that much. It was an excellent read and insightful. I didn’t read the original ‘offending’ article and to be honest I didn’t need to, this post stood on its own.
I like that she discusses that inter-play between disenchanted women of yesteryears and todays ‘modern’ woman. As well she goes on to suggest that women now work and still maintain their traditional roles too. A friend of mine once said that a study was conducted that showed on average since feminism took hold women were now doing nearly twice as much work as before because they maintained nearly completely their roles as ‘HouseWife’ and now work 40 hours a week too.
Its a hard life being a woman, and I am damn glad I am not one. Besides that there can only be one boss and she (my partner) assures me it won’t be me any time soon :)
Bren can you get the Authors names put at the bottom of these posts I think they deserve the recognition don’t you?
Cheers,
Roger
Bren
Aug 27, 2006 at 8:23 pm
Anon Coward: Yeah, I’m a man, but the author of the post is a woman. I let other folks post on the blog for a day, so that probably added to the confusion.
You still weren’t paying attention, though. :-)
Bren
Aug 27, 2006 at 8:24 pm
@Roger: I’m putting the author names at the top of their posts right now. Great suggestion!
Alex Fayle
Sep 4, 2006 at 11:34 pm
I read the article in question and think that it was written for the shock value of it - Forbes and the writer now have so many hits and links and exposure that their recognition factor has gone through the roof.
A rational discussion about the pros and cons of a two-income family would have been greeted by the world at large, but a chauvinistic tirade against women daring to usurp men in the dominant role in the family? Wow! What great copy!
Of course I think the writer of the original article is a moron and obviously fears that he would be emasculated by a strong woman (so only wants weak ones in his life). To him, I’d say get over yourself buddy.
To the article itself, my response is “how about a open and honest discussion within the couple to determine division of labour and expectations for the family.”