Forbes.Com Careers & Marriage Article.

[Annette]

Has anyone read this article? I'm really surprised it hasn't been posted here yet.

Unfortunately this isn't the original article, it is a point / counterpoint from it but gives the overall gist. Forbes deleted the article due to the huge controversy.

http://www.forbes.com/home/2006/08/23/Marriage-Careers-Divorce_cx_mn_land.html

Basically to sum it up, it says career women tend to divorce more, they are more likely to cheat and less likely to have children.

I don't agree with this one bit. I enjoy my career and I think I would be very unhappy if I didn't have a career and had to stay home.

[Asha]

Basically to sum it up, it says career women tend to divorce more, they are more likely to cheat and less likely to have children.

what kind of stats did they use to back up those claims?

there, in fact, might be more divorces, cheating, and less children among career women, but it doesn't mean that careers cause divorce and cheating. perhaps, career women feel more independent and financially free, so it might be easier for them to pursue a divorce, and they don't feel the need to stay in a bad marriage. of course, this is all just speculation.

[trestlegirl]

I stopped reading after the second time he referred to working women as "career girls." There may be valid points somewhere in his article, but there was no need to be so patronizing. What a jack*ss.

(The counterpoint article, on the other hand, was nicely done.)

[GeekGirl]

Wow. I must be an awful wife, because not only am I college educated and about to start my MBA, but I also work a heck of alot more than 35 hours outside the home - and make more than $30,000 per year (actually, I make nearly three times what my husband does). I've never cheated, but boy do the odds seem stacked that I will. What the hell was my DH thinking?

Maybe we should just invest in a good divorce lawyer now. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Myra]

There was a good response to this article in Slate--I especially liked this quote:
I won't quarrel with the seventh slide, which tells men, "You'll be unhappy if she makes more than you," or the eighth, "She will be unhappy if she makes more than you." If you find yourself in the predicament of being unhappy about the income disparity within your marriage, take my advice: You're going to be unhappy about something, and if you're unhappy about this please shut up and go buy yourself a Fiji vacation.

Article here (http://www.slate.com/id/2148274/).

[jnettie]

what kind of stats did they use to back up those claims?

there, in fact, might be more divorces, cheating, and less children among career women, but it doesn't mean that careers cause divorce and cheating. perhaps, career women feel more independent and financially free, so it might be easier for them to pursue a divorce, and they don't feel the need to stay in a bad marriage. of course, this is all just speculation.

Bingo!

And this is compaired to what? Back when divorce meant that a woman lost her children to her husband? When husbands could rape their wives and nothing could be done? When you were married off when you were 14 and being a wife wall all you could do because you didn't finish HS and could go to college if you wanted to? Puh-leeze!

[looch]

Hmm, not sure what to make of the pair of articles. Everyone in my circle is/are working professionals. Because of the amount of time spent at work, we tend to fall in love with and marry other professionals. My feeling is that if you have the same work ethic, whatever that may be, you are more likely to stay together.

[wendalah]

Eh. So people are finally catching on to the fact that women A) don't need a man to support them, B) like and need intellectual stimulation as much as men, C) like and need personal achievement as much as men, D) like and need sex and excitement as much as men, and E) aren't necessarily 100% fulfilled by having a child.

Yawn. OK, we figured it out, folks. Let's move on, shall we?

If I get divorced, cheat on my husband, or never have children, I will not feel like a failure. These aren't the worst things on earth that can happen, in my book. So this article neither upsets me nor frightens me.

[wendalah]

BTW,

"Your house will be dirty" if you get married to a woman who makes more than $30,000.

Snort. It'll be pretty damn clean since she can and will hire a maid. I don't know a single dual-income household that doesn't hire some sort of cleaning help. Who wants to clean when you can hire someone to do it at a reasonable price?

[Asha]

I don't know a single dual-income household that doesn't hire some sort of cleaning help. Who wants to clean when you can hire someone to do it at a reasonable price?

lol! must be a california thing, bc i don't know anyone who hires a maid - dual or single household. though, i've already told my dh once i finish grad school and get a "real" job, the first thing i am spending money on is a maid.

[sue-bert]

From the "Don't Marry Carreer Women" article:

The other reason a career can hurt a marriage will be obvious to anyone who has seen their mate run off with a co-worker: When your spouse works outside the home, chances increase they'll meet someone they like more than you.

In other words, in order to guarantee spousal fidelity, lock your wife in the garage. (After she finishes cleaning your house, of course).

[dionysia]

Apparently the author is known for such things. He wrote an article about marriage previously. I will try to dig up the URL.

Di

[lawyergirl25]

In other words, in order to guarantee spousal fidelity, lock your wife in the garage. (After she finishes cleaning your house, of course).
Won't that interfere with her other wifely duties? I mean, she also has to do the grocery shopping and collect the dry cleaning. This is a pickle!

[MLA]

Won't that interfere with her other wifely duties? I mean, she also has to do the grocery shopping and collect the dry cleaning. This is a pickle!

That's why GPS tracking systems were created. Duh!

[lawyergirl25]

That's why GPS tracking systems were created. Duh!
Now why didn't I think of that?? DH will be so relieved to be able to leave the house during the day!

[jnettie]

Lol! Or husbands can have the microchips used for pets implanted in their wives!

The New York Times had an article about Forbes.com today. It was interesting, in light of this article:

At Forbes.com, Lots of Glitter but Maybe Not So Many Visitors (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/technology/28forbes.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin)

The interesting bits:
If Forbes.com was looking to create some Internet buzz last week, it succeeded.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge this Image
Illustration by The New York Times

The Web site published an article called “Don’t Marry Career Women,” which suggested that if a man did, he was more likely to be cheated on, get divorced and have a dirty house.

<snip>
orbes.com, the online sibling of Forbes magazine and part of Forbes Inc., is more accustomed to delivering the news than being the news. And despite last week’s dust-up, it is adept at it. Even as Forbes magazine has declined in advertising in the last few years, Forbes.com has thrived.

Its own ads proclaim that “more people get their business news from Forbes.com than any other source in the world,” saying that its sites drew about 15 million unique visitors in a single month earlier this year. It was a well-heeled crowd, according to Forbes.com, which says that the average household income of its users is $149,601.

<snip>

But a closer look at the numbers raises questions about Forbes.com’s industry-leading success. For its claim of a worldwide audience of nearly 15.3 million, it has been citing February data from comScore Media Metrix, one of the two leading providers of third-party Web traffic data.

<snip>

Some competitors argue that Forbes.com’s popularity derives in part from racy, provocative or wealth-obsessed lifestyle features that have little to do with traditional business news — examples from this year include “The Hottest Billionaire Heiresses,” “Top Topless Beaches” and “America’s Drunkest Cities.” Those kinds of articles, unlikely to appear in Forbes magazine, may be a small fraction of those that Forbes.com posts each day, but they are often featured on mass-market Web portals.

<snip>

Even if advertisers do not balk at Forbes.com’s provocative postings, some readers and business leaders might. Michelle Peluso, chief executive of Travelocity.com, told Salon last week that she thought that Forbes.com’s “career women” posting was “incredibly disappointing” and that she planned to speak with people at the magazine about it.

Asked about the article, Mr. Spanfeller said it was an aberration that had “clearly failed” to give the subject the sensitive treatment it deserved.

Despite the furor, the career women posting and reaction seemed unlikely to dent Forbes.com’s standing in the Web rankings anytime soon. Yesterday, the revamped piece — renamed “Careers and Marriage” — stood at the top of the site’s list of its most popular postings.

Complete article at link above.

[PG-rated]

Unfortunately this isn't the original article, it is a point / counterpoint from it but gives the overall gist. Forbes deleted the article due to the huge controversy.

http://www.forbes.com/home/2006/08/23/Marriage-Careers-Divorce_cx_mn_land.html

FYI, that is the original article, but it's now posted with a rebuttal alongside. And the Slate response is also very well-done - it basically says that the article isn't worth getting upset over, anyway, because all it does is show that women who are less likely to have the means to survive a divorce are less likely to get divorced. Well, duh.

[tenofcups]

And the Slate response is also very well-done - it basically says that the article isn't worth getting upset over, anyway, because all it does is show that women who are less likely to have the means to survive a divorce are less likely to get divorced.

I wasn't upset over the content of the article in that way. Most of it is nonsense and what it does say, well, yeah like you said, duh -- women who can support themselves of course are going to be less likely to stay in a situation that's not good; women who are working fulltime will likely do less work at home, etc. etc.

The part that I do think was worth getting upset over is the apparently ongoing societal shift that allowed a major mainstream business publication to think it was ok to print such nonsense. On the flip side, they apparently learned quickly that it wasn't ok.

[greenbunny]

I don't know a single dual-income household that doesn't hire some sort of cleaning help.

:eek: Seriously? That astounds me. I don't know anyone who has cleaning help except the previous owners of our house, and they were living high on the hog.

As far as the article, I've seen it said in another forum that women earning enough to support themselves means that men no longer can skate by just as the single earner. In other words, women no longer have to put up with crap, and men who were previously able to keep a woman only through her financial dependence now need to shape up.

[wendalah]

I seriously don't know anyone who is in a dual-income household who doesn't hire cleaning help once or twice a month. It's not that expensive--less than most people's cable TV bill, I'd guess.

[wendalah]

BTW, for anyone here who works full-time and does NOT hire cleaning help--I highly recommend it. I really consider it one of the best investments out there. You get a great return for your money and it just eliminates so much stress.

[tenofcups]

I seriously don't know anyone who is in a dual-income household who doesn't hire cleaning help once or twice a month. It's not that expensive--less than most people's cable TV bill, I'd guess.

I'm actually surprised at the number of dual-income couples with children that I know who don't have someone come in to clean. It's most surprising to me, perhaps, since we all (family and old friends from the neighborhood) grew up with cleaning women so it's not like it's a foreign concept to them to have someone come in and clean. But I do think I know a lot of women who have the "superwoman" mentality -- I can work fulltime, take care of the kids, and take care of the house. Some of them seem to have an equal or semi-equal distribition of house work with their partners, but more of them don't and still seem to take on the bulk of the housework even though they work full-time. I find it all very odd.

Dh and I both work, but we both freelance and have erratic schedules. We don't have someone come in to clean and I doubt we will, simply because we also both make freelance salaries. But we have a very even distribution of work in the house and I wouldn't accept anything less.

[thedoorchick]

We don't have a housekeeper, but are considering it. I'm balking because of the cost. Yes, it is significantly more than TV. Our dish costs around $60 a month and a housekeeper every other week would be about $200.

[amorey]

Hm, my DirecTV and TiVo is $56 a month and having a house cleaner in twice a month is $120, and that’s for a tiny house. I’ve just started having one in because our house is for sale, and it is nice!

[wendalah]

Our housekeeper is $100 every other week for our 1800 sq. ft. home. But we use a private contractor and she does everything--windows, cleans out the fridge, takes out trash, does laundry if we ask her to. I have used a service for as low as $60 per session and have been satisfied with the results.

I also find the house stays cleaner much longer when I pay someone to deep-clean it.

I am jealous you all are getting such great cable packages, because the crappy cable package in our area is almost 50 a month. To get ANY extra channels it's closer to 70. Currently we have an ehhhh package (no showtimes or HBOs or anything like that) that combines cable with hi-speed internet. About 100 or so a month.

[wendalah]

BTW, I didn't grow up with a cleaning lady. My mother was a SAHM and she did all the cleaning. I would do the same if I were a SAHM.

[greenbunny]

I honestly can't say I feel tempted to get a cleaning lady based on what I've seen in this house. The previous owners had one, as I said, and when we moved in the faucets were crusted with calcium and gunk (I still can't get them totally clean) and the toilets are all dull from the finish being eaten away (too harsh of chemicals?). Everything was generally dingy and filthy-looking. The woman who cleaned for them stopped by to solicit us and I couldn't say no fast enough. What a way to advertise your business, by going back to where you did a lousy job!

I lied, I do remember someone who used to have a cleaning lady. It was my choir teacher in HS. I remember she often complained about the lady breaking knick-knacks. So the only positive experiences I've heard about have been here on CC. I wonder if these great housekeepers commute cross-country? :p

[jnettie]

Never grew up with a cleaning lady, and our house (except for my room :o ) was always very clean. And, well, we couldn't afford one now if we wanted one.

[FoxyBlue]

Unlike the over-generalizing sensationalist journalist, I will not paint ALL men with the same brush, but am I wrong to point out that "Career Men" (which I shall hereforth call 'career boys' in casual reference) have been known to (in the past and to this day):

*not clean their houses
*NOT give birth to, breastfeed, or be primary care providers for children
*meet love interests through work
*cheat on their spouses

?

I don't recall seeing any articles suggesting that women were getting the short end of this particular stick, or that this is considered unacceptable behavior in career boys.

:)

[jnettie]

Hear hear, FoxyBlue!

And why do men "sacrifice" family time for their career, while women "neglect their duties" at home? Load of CRAP!

OT, yet related - I was at a minor league Baseball game yesterday, and noticed something in the team store that set me off. There were shirts for ADULT WOMEN that said "Cyclones Girl". I thought, gee, would an adult male wear a shirt that said "Cyclones Boy" or anything with the word BOY refering to themselves? DH and SIL's BF said no. Then, I noticed, too that the children's shirts had little girl shirts that said "girl" on them, but the boy's shirts said "little slugger" and things like that.

Anyway, back on topic....

[justHB]

That Forbes article caused quite the uproar in my office of mostly women. We thought we'd get our husbands to write to the reporter and tell him how great their lives were and how they were enriched by having such well-rounded, spectacular women but that just seemed a waste of time. This particular reporter has also written articles in the past year telling women how to become golddiggers and equating SAHWs with prostitutes. Also, it was pointed out in another article (can't remember where I saw it) that some of the studies he cites didn't necessarily concern women, but rather, ANY working partner. So the stats about working outside the home and cheating could apply to men as well.

ETA: We don't have a cleaning person, but I'm looking in to getting one. Our cable/internet/phone bill is currently in the $200 range (I hate Comcast!), so a cleaning person would be significantly cheaper.

[Delta]

Uh, I am a SAHM and I do have a cleaning person. At least I did at our last house.

[jnettie]

This particular reporter has also written articles in the past year telling women how to become golddiggers and equating SAHWs with prostitutes.

Well, this guy just hates women from the sound of it. Working women aren't good wives, but SAHW are akin to prostitutes. :rolleyes: Idiot.