According to this new book, Smart Girls Marry Money, anyway. And my career woes would be over.
Assuming the summary is accurate, the book is not asking why lady bartenders or lady web developers are “still slaving after forty” — maybe the assumption is that our prospects for marrying millionaires were always rather dim. Instead, the authors are baffled about why “lady lawyers, doctors, and MBAs” are still nose to the grindstone after that magic age, after which your life is functionally over and no man will ever desire you again.
Which, maybe I missed something, but I kind of thought that lawyers and doctors of both sexes pretty much worked until retirement. Doctoring and lawyering aren’t just jobs, they are vocations, and they require a heckuva lot of school before you can even get started. So if there was some assumption that the lady kind of doctor and lawyer were supposed to have a goal of retiring at forty, I really was not aware of that.
I don’t know about MBAs. I have never known what MBAs are for.
The book is apparently a cheeky, in-your-face how-to about successful gold digging. Not to knock gold digging, if that is your chosen profession, but I suspect it’s harder than it looks. For one thing, you have to be really beautiful, have a perfect body, and be an outgoing people person who finds it easy to make friends.
For another thing, you have to locate a millionaire. They are not actually all that common, in my experience. Then you have to arrange to meet him. Then you have to convince him that you’re not hoping to marry him for his money (which, having a copy of this book around seems like a dead giveaway, so burn after reading). Then you have to actually marry him.
Only he will probably make you sign a bunch of prenuptial agreements that will prevent you from divorcing him lucratively a few years later, so you are either in the position of actually having to stay married to this guy for years and years, or you have to knock him off in some clever way that looks like an accident. Which you have to do pretty soon, because otherwise he’ll eventually dump you for a younger, hotter gold digger.
Oh, well. Too late for me. I have already squandered my years of peak hotness marrying for love, and now I will have to “work until I drop dead.”
I think MBAs are for getting better salaries, mostly.
How come no one jumps up and down yelling about this sort of thing (a gold-digging how-to) being a threat to the traditional institution of marriage? These ideas seem so much more corrosive than anything I can possibly come up with around same-sex unions. Wait, sorry, trying to apply logic where it isn’t wanted/warranted again, damn it. I am never going to be able to bend my brain around how any fact or criterion of couple A’s marriage affects couple B’s (barring interpersonal interaction between the two couples of course) – and this isn’t the venue anyway.
Well, that depends on what you think the traditional institution of marriage is. Gold digging might be mercenary, calculating, joyless, and of questionable ethical foundation, but at least it perpetuates traditional sex roles.
*click*
Thank you, because that is the tiny shift in perspective that I needed to be able to Get It. I tend to dismiss traditional sex roles as the same type of cultural noise as racism: haven’t we gotten OVER this shit yet? In both cases, though, I know the answer is no. Sigh.
(I haven’t been able to believe in the innate superiority of the Almighty Penis ever since the first time I saw a boy get kicked in the nads and decided that external genitalia was a pretty severe design flaw.)
I think it’s that very vulnerability that leads, in part, to penis worship. A penis is mojo you can steal from someone, for example. (Are you familiar with the concept of penis-theft panics?)
I tend to see clinging to traditional sex roles as often being about insecurity. Guys thinking “who am I if not the provider?” Women thinking “who will take care of me without the guy?”
It fits right in with a certain kind of thinking, also seen in traditional Confucianism and the medieval great chain of being — the important thing is that you understand your role in society and fulfill it.
I have already squandered my years of peak hotness marrying for love…
Heeeee!!
Archeologists also work until they drop dead, or at least Jon’s boss is trying really hard too. He’s like 70+ and still going up mountains, through lava and cactus fields with the younger guys. Actually, I rather go doing what I love than a slow lingering death in a bed. Just not right now.
Yes, but do lady archeologists work until they drop dead?
Apparently that makes a difference, or something.
Why use husbands to cash in on wills when there are plenty of family members standing idle and using up the cash that will be yours anyways thanks to the family wills? Not only is it efficient, it’s gold-digging that men can do as well ;-)
Seriously though, the attitude does suck. I’ve seen similar things happen, but it’s mainly for guys with social status (like drummers) rather then cold hard cash.
MBAs are generally used to get into management positions. Represents education and knowledge of business. Or so the party line goes.
Oh…. management.
That explains it.