Forbes published a recent article on the drawbacks of marrying career women. I don't agree with everything the author wrote, but I do know that Forbes is going to draw a significant amount of hate-mail.
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One of the nine reasons not to marry a career woman is that the husband won't be as healthy:
"Wives working longer hours not do not have adequate time to monitor their husband's health and healthy behavior, to manage their husband's emotional well-being or buffer his workplace stress."
Poor babies.
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Re: Forbes Magazine -- Don't marry career women
The only sensible line in the article was this one at the end of the article:
"As with any social scientific study, it's important not to confuse correlation with causation." The rest is a bunch of specious speculation making precisely the mistake cautioned about at the end..
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One point does make some sense. When one person isn't working, they can get a lot of the everyday crap done, like cooking, house repair, car maintenance, etc. This can give both parties more free time to enjoy. When you are both working your free time ends up being consumed with duties. But this isn't a male female thing.
It sure has been nice the past few years to have those things done for me when I am at work.
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. . . recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it.
I wonder if you replaced the word "women" with "men" if this wouldn't also be true.
One point does make some sense. When one person isn't working, they can get a lot of the everyday crap done, like cooking, house repair, car maintenance, etc. This can give both parties more free time to enjoy. When you are both working your free time ends up being consumed with duties. But this isn't a male female thing.
In this sense it's the same as being single. Whe I was working for money and being single I still had to do all that crap but I never waisted any time doing it. You pay people to do it so you can have free time. Two professionals or just 2 working stiffs, really ought to be able to have it easier not harder.
And cookin an cleaning and ongoing Life Maintenence doesnt take up so much time that it puts pressure on a marriage. All that old time Alice Kramden nonsense about how hard cooking and cleaning and making beds is, is well, nonsense. And don't tell me about the old days. They're gone 50-100 yrs now.
Besides a little Co-cooking, co-cleaning, and co-shopping can be good for a marriage or any relationship unless you want to make it a deleterious chore. Maybe that speaks to the types of people involved and their real motives.
I've known a career woman with two graduate degrees for 28 years, been married to her for 20, and lived with her for over 16. A few thoughts come to mind:
- Who's in charge of determining what's "statistically significant" and why doesn't Forbes cough up the correlations? Maybe they think the men only care about sports statistics.
- Forbes must be having a slow political month. But at least they appreciate that there's no such thing as bad publicity.
- Why is the article accompanied by a slide show with pictures? Is it for the men who can't read?
- Yes, I "read" the slide show. Nice new avatar, Mikey!
- Where were all these promiscuous adulterous women when I was at graduate school?!? If this was a legitimate & serious study the researchers would at least have provided names & phone numbers.
- Speaking of promiscuous & adulterous co-workers, apparently I made a big mistake in joining the submarine service.
- If both spouses cheat on each other, is that one extramarital affair or two?
- Is it possible that a two-career couple has fewer kids because there's less sex (with each other)?
- Is it possible that career couples divorce more frequently because neither is financially hostage to the other?
- I showed my spouse the paragraph about workplace infidelity where "The work environment provides a host of potential partners". She's still chuckling.
- I'm quite happy to be married to someone who's been out-earning me by a ratio of at least 100:1. Does that mean I have very low self-esteem, or does mine pale in comparison to her ego?
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