Don't Marry a Career Woman: The Debate Heats Up

Wondering about that muffled howl you’ve been hearing the last couple weeks? It’s the sound and fury of feminists reacting to Michael Noer’s latest exegesis, Don’t Marry a Career Woman.

Noer’s column, which ran at Forbes.com, surveyed marriages in which the wives doggedly pursue a high-powered career, all the while neglecting family and home. The research shows these women are more likely to be unhappy if she earns more than the guy, or if she quits her job and stays home. Either way, she’s going to be a grump.

Her husband is more prone to be discontented if she is the primary breadwinner. The house is going to be dirtier. In the end, she is more apt to cheat on him and the marriage will fall apart. [www.forbes.com/2006/08/23/Marriage-Careers-Divorce_cx_mn_land.html]

Of course, these findings don’t apply to every ambitious woman who has risen to the top of her field – but the connection is true in many cases.

In practically every woman’s magazine, you’ll find advice columns to help the reader find Mr. Right and then entice her football-addled boyfriend to commit for the long-haul.

But when a male columnist dispenses relationship advice for men, that appears to be strictly verboten — at least according to the Shrieking Sisters of Silliness who cut loose on Mr. Noer.

On Good Morning America, one Rutgers U. prof claimed to be absolutely shocked: “I’m surprised that the man thinks it. I’m astonished that he wrote it. And I’m astonished that anyone published it, particularly Forbes.” (No word whether MIT professor Nancy Hopkins swooned at the news.)

Forbes hastily arranged for reporter Elizabeth Corcoran to pen a response sporting the acid title, “Don’t Marry a Lazy Man.” Describing Noer’s factual article as “frightening,” she dispensed this condescending advice about men: “If he can pick up new ideas faster than your puppy, you’ve got a winner.”

Needless to say, Ms. Corcoran’s screed only reinforced the worst stereotypes of the “I-know-what-I-want-and-I-know-how-to-get-it” career woman portrayed in Noer’s column.

Thereupon the readers jumped into the fray, all recounting their grudges about members of the opposite sex. A pretty picture it was not, but the debate is long-overdue: http://forums.forbes.com/forbes/board?board.id=respond_marry_career_woman and http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1688730/posts .

Part of the ladies’ discomfiture with Mr. Noer’s article springs from the fact that for the last 30 years, discussions about women in the workforce have been guided by the unspoken rule, “Men’s Opinions Don’t Count.”

But then women’s one-sided conversations lapsed into over-wrought declamations about men who didn’t pitch in around the house, forgetting that that men often put in longer hours on the job, commute longer distances, and do physical labor that leaves them exhausted.

Doesn’t mowing the grass, killing creepy-crawlers that traipse through the kitchen, clearing leaves out of the gutter, and coaching Little League count for anything?

And let’s not forget the old axiom that rights and responsibilities go hand-in-hand. If women are demanding more rights, then what additional duties – like compulsory registration for the draft — are they going to shoulder?

Ironically, the same day that Michael Noer published his op-ed, columnist Nancy Levant came out with a fem-ripper called The Cultural Devastation of Women. [www.newswithviews.com/Levant/nancy55.htm]

Levant deplored the fact that thanks to the libbers, American women “now hire maid services, landscapers, pool cleaners, painters, interior decorators. . . .while losing every intuitive aspect of our female natures.” In the process, women “use men like ATMs” and “bankrupt multiple men with mandatory child support payments.”

One can only imagine the hullabaloo if Mrs. Levant had uttered such heresy at Forbes.

So what’s a career woman to do? For a moment, let’s can the feminist ideology and take stock of that rare commodity, common sense.

Have you ever seen a woman (or man, for that matter) exclaim at death’s door, “I only wish that I could have spent more time in the office”? Neither have I.

It’s no secret that the most rewarding parts of a person’s life revolve around relationships with spouses, children, and other family. So why are career women driven to dismember those connections that give the most meaning to their lives?

It’s true that women find satisfaction and fulfillment from paid work. And some have no choice but to get a full-time job.

But the reality is, wives’ happiness is not tied to living out of a suitcase or having an equal paycheck with their husbands. Indeed, the opposite is true. When husbands are the primary wage earners, wives have more freedom to pursue their own interests.

So Mr. Noer, lick off those wounds, straighten up that tie, and sharpen your pencil. Get ready for Round Two.

A "Why Career Women are Unmarriageable" case study was done by John Ross on Maureen Dowd (a career woman who cannot get married):

The Elephant in Maureen's Living Room and Do Great Minds Think Alike?, or
JR and Fred Try to Pour Water Uphill
By John Ross

I'm spending Thanksgiving week here in Aspen. I've been coming here since I was a little kid, and there isn't anyplace I've ever been that's better for my attitude. When I'm not outside, I'm here in my studio writing, with a view of Red Mountain out the picture window. Women of varying ages stroll by a story below, their looks generally varying between good and gorgeous. Many, though by no means all, are what you'd call "high maintenance," but then, that's not my problem. Which brings me to this column, which I've been dabbling with off and on for a couple weeks, adding material and editing it for content.

And then, checking Fred Reed's website, I see he's already posted his take on the same subject: Resident New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd's latest whine, her new book Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide. You can read his views on this embarrassing tome at http://fredoneverything.net/Maureen2.shtml.

For those of you who aren't familiar with her, Maureen Dowd writes regular columns for the Times about men's endless deficiencies, while at the same time bemoaning the fact that no man will marry her. In the parts of Are Men Necessary? most commonly quoted by reviewers, she claims that men are intimidated by successful women in positions of power, and much prefer dating (and marrying) female subordinates such as their secretaries, rather than pairing with female executives and other professionals.* She thinks the fact that she's a columnist at the New York Times is the reason she's never been married. She turns 54 in January. She bemoans that career women like her have trouble attracting men, she talks about her own family's history of working as domestics and comes to the self-pitying conclusion that "being a maid would have enhanced my chances with men."

Maureen, Fred Reed has taken you to task for being a disagreeable shrew and failing to see that that is the reason no man will marry you, not your professional success. He may have a valid point, but I don't know you, and since every redhead I've ever met (including bottled ones like you) was at least worth knowing, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Maureen, there's an elephant in your living room, and it looks like I'm going to have to point it out to you. But before I do, a little bit about me and my credentials.

I'm Amherst Class of '79, while my sisters graduated from Smith College in 1968. Since you got your B.A. in 1973, that puts you in the middle. I think my memories of and knowledge about my sisters in college plus my own college experience makes me aware of what things were like for you during the time you became an adult.

Maureen, in those days, the feminists of the era were (correctly) telling young college women that they could accomplish professionally just about anything a man could. What these feminists failed to mention was that doing so would almost certainly require these women to squander a valuable and expiring asset: Their youth and fertility.

Here's the deal, Maureen. With one exception, men can accomplish anything that we think is important all by ourselves. Explore, build empires, create new industries, invent, discover, make money--all these things come naturally to us. We don't need your help.

But the one thing we can't do by ourselves, and it's the thing most men want more than anything else, is to have a family and play a prominent role in raising our children. For that, we need a woman. And not just any woman--we need a woman whose youth and fertility will give us the greatest chance of having healthy children, raised by a mother young enough to not be an old woman by the time the kids reach high school. We men don't want our children raised by a woman that's old enough to be their grandmother.

When it comes to the thing that makes women most desirable for marriage to men, WOMEN HAVE AN EXPIRATION DATE. MEN DON'T. That's the elephant in your living room, Maureen. You may not like to hear this, but it's true. Men constantly produce fresh sperm all their lives. Women produce a finite amount of eggs at puberty, and these eggs age until they are no longer usable. Sorry, but that's the way it is.

Actress Pamela Anderson has been on the cover of Playboy magazine something like 9 or 10 times, including in the last year--far more than any other woman. She is tremendously sexy and sexual, things most men find compelling.

Yet if you asked a sampling of marriage-minded men who they would rather have fall in love with them, 38-year-old, 5'7" actress Pam Anderson or 19-year-old, 6'2" champion Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova, what answer do you think you'd get? If you think this isn't a fair comparison because Pam comes across as too slutty while Maria hasn't been in Playboy and doesn't have a film on the Internet of her having sex, how about a choice between 38-year-old Pam and 24-year-old Paris Hilton? FOR MARRIAGE, WOMEN HAVE AN EXPIRATION DATE. MEN DON'T.

Male lawyers don't choose to marry their secretaries over female lawyers because those secretaries are subordinates or because the men are "intimidated by strong women," they choose the secretaries because the secretaries are younger and more fertile than the female lawyers.

Maureen, you used to date actor Michael Douglas. I don't know how much money the New York Times pays you, but I doubt it's anything like what Catherine Zeta-Jones earns as an actress. Catherine is Michael's peer, not his subordinate. I think she makes even more money than he does, now. So why did he dump you and marry her, if men are intimidated by successful women? Because when she bore Michael the first of their two children, she was 30 years old, while you were 47. Michael was 55. FOR MARRIAGE, WOMEN HAVE AN EXPIRATION DATE. MEN DON'T. In 1997, 82-year-old actor Anthony Quinn married his secretary, Robin Belvin. Did he marry her because, as you claim, men are intimidated by strong women and she was his subordinate? No, he married her because she was young and fertile enough to bear him two children. If Robin had been 53 years old, as you are now, he wouldn't have married her, no matter how subordinate she was. FOR MARRIAGE, WOMEN HAVE AN EXPIRATION DATE. MEN DON'T.

For all of society's expectation that men and women pair up and marry at all ages, men are coming to the inescapable realization that there are only two rational reasons for a man to marry: Because either he wants to have children and the woman in question is likely to produce intelligent, healthy offspring, or if he doesn't want (more) kids, the woman in question has considerable wealth and is happy to share it.

This isn't universally true; yes, men still marry women who aren't wealthy and are too old for kids, but it's getting more and more rare. If a man wants companionship, there's no need to invite the government into his relationship with his companion.

Maureen, the time for you to attract the kind of husband you'd like to have was over thirty years ago, when you could have given a man the family he wanted. Your career success (or lack thereof) would have been to him a non-issue. If you'd made it clear you wanted to have a family while you were still young, there would have been many suitable men 8-10 years older than you vying for your approval. You let your most valuable asset (from a potential husband's standpoint) expire. Accept the fact that you're past your expiration date, and quit complaining about it.

You seem to take pride in your career. If you regret missing out on having a family, don't whine about it, use it to benefit others. Write a column (or a book) urging parents to inform their teenage daughters of the consequences of pursuing careers while disregarding their own expiration dates.

John Ross 11/23/05

*Her source for this presumption was a survey of a hundred or so incoming freshmen at some college, most of whom said they'd prefer dating someone who was not in a position superior to them. Methinks 18-year-old boys do not speak for grown men, and grown men is the group the 53-year-old Dowd complains about.

11/30 update: Boy, I've really hit a raw nerve with this column! I posted a slightly shortened version as a review of Dowd's book on Amazon.com and after reading it, Salon columnist Rebecca Traister decided to write a column entitled "Scary screeds about Maureen Dowd, written by threatened men." Think about that--she wrote an article based on an Amazon review! This is how terrified some women are about the truth getting out. I'm "threatened" because I point out that most men don't propose to women that are too old to have children. In the first 48 hours, her article about my comments has elicited 25 pages of letters, most from outraged women getting their knickers in a twist that someone has dared say that the emperor has no clothes. Most accuse me of being a Neanderthal that wants to keep all women barefoot and pregnant in the trailer park and who thinks women are good for nothing besides being brood mares. Others said I was bitter from being a failure with women. Several made mention of "mail order brides" and blow-up dolls. Rebecca Traister, the author of the Salon article, ended with "Raise your hand if you think Ross saw a photograph of the smokin' Dowd and got all pissy because it was unlikely she'd ever sleep with him!" I am not making this up.

Ladies, you just don't get it. You are capable of many great things other than childbearing, and for that men will admire you and congratulate you and be in long-term, monogamous relationships with you. But if you're not a candidate to bear his children (and not rich), what rational reason does a man have to MARRY you? Inviting the government into his union brings all sorts of potential liabilities and NO benefits to a man, unless the woman is wealthy.

"What about love?" some women ask. A man doesn't need the government to authorize his love for his mate. A woman DOES need the government to be involved if she intends to cash out on the man who loves her. More and more men are figuring this out, and saying "No, thanks" to marriage.

Sorry, ladies.

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