Maureen Dowd Betrayed

I think you are mischaracterizing part of the Feminist movement. A substantial portion of the movement was devoted to raising women's consciousness that they did not HAVE to be stay-at-home mom's to be happy. That they could choose a career instead of or in addition to motherhood to find fulfillment. Most people, men included, may not find staying at home all day changing diapers the most satisfying profession in the world. It's not choose a career or find a man. It was find a man and choose a career. I would hope more men would want someone ambitious enough and dedicated enough to choose a career, but instead men continue to choose women who lack those attributes in favor of those who will serve as their personal dishrag. I think that is more the problem.

I love it every time one of these stories appears, as it's an opportunity for me to be obnoxious: I've got a Masters degree in math, am training to be an actuary... and married a smart guy who is staying home to take care of the home and kids.

So yeah, there are guys who are willing to marry ambitious women - and do the stay-at-home thing, too! But you know, I don't know too many women who are willing to take on the breadwinner role like I have. It seems to me that lots of women, especially these ambitious ones, want men who are more materially successful than they are, too. And it seems to me that they totally diss those who are homemakers, whether they're men or women. I remember going to work-related cookouts for my father, and all the women cutting my mother because she was a housewife. Learning that there's fulfillment outside the home doesn't mean there's no fulfillment inside the home, either.

wsk: Oh please, even if you're right about feminism (which is not my understanding) how can you possibly criticize anyone for not wanting the right thing?! People can want whatever they want to want, right? How can it be a problem? If men want a certain type of woman, aren't they free to do that? Is that "wrong"? Plus, apparently, many women who were told they didn't need men to be happy are discovering differently as they get older.

meep: Right, women expect all sorts of things from men too, and there's nothing wrong with that.

The asymmetrical marital relationship is as old as humanity. Moreover, the most common pattern -- for him to sally forth after the buffalo, while she tends the kids and the home fires -- is common for a reason: it works better than other arrangements.

While there are exceptions, a marriage between persons equal in intelligence and ambition faces many difficulties. Someone must stay home with the kids; paid day care is the source of far too many pathologies. Someone must make domestic affairs his first priority; most of us can't afford paid housekeepers and cooks, and the notion of splitting the household chores is provably as fatuous as that of splitting the breadwinner's job, or the lawnmowing.

Exceptionally bright and aggressive women should look for men less gifted in those areas, who'll be happy in the domestic role. They're out there, though not in great quantity, so ladies get your cards and letters in early.

1. Michael, you seem to be hearing what you want to hear. When in the column does Ms. Dowd ever make any allusion to the notion that women in service jobs are stupid? As for the notion that women in service jobs are less educated (she never said that, either) is it that far a stretch of the imagination to infer that the more educated women would be in the more professional, less service-oriented jobs?

2. You say she is unhappy and bitter and, oh, lonely. I say she is a journalist questioning a trend that has made itself quite apparent. Do you presume she is unhappy, bitter, and lonely because she has made commentary that points out the shocking fact that, perhaps, just maybe, men can be a little shallow? I doubt she is lonely. (You did conveniently leave out in your list of her attributes the fact that she is beautiful.)

3. Talk about smokescreen: "they don't want women who do everything in their power to be just like men." Just because we want what is ours doesn't mean we're doing it because we want to be just like men. You defend men who want subservient women by saying it's so they can raise the kids. Where is your desire to raise the kids? Why aren't you trying to be subservient to women in order that you might get to raise her children? Would it be a stretch to assume that your career is higher on your list of priorities than is the raising of your children?

FWP: I think it's biological, and I don't think there's any use complaining about it.

michelle:
1. She wrote: "A second study, which was by researchers at four British universities and reported last week, suggested that smart men with demanding jobs would rather have old-fashioned wives, like their mums, than equals. The study found that a high I.Q. hampers a woman's chance to get married, while it is a plus for men. The prospect for marriage increased by 35 percent for guys for each 16-point increase in I.Q.; for women, there is a 40 percent drop for each 16-point rise."

I think her position on the matter is pretty clear, but bigotry isn't always explicit you know.

2. If you've been reading MoDo's columns since Thanksgiving you'll see that it's pretty clear she's bitter and lonely. She is beautiful and smart and rich, so why is she lonely? Hmmm.

3. If I had kids, they would be my top priority. But it's useless to condemn men for wanting whatever it is they want, because people will marry who they want, both men and women. It's sad for a screetchy women to complain that she can't get married because men want the wrong things, and it's equally pathetic for an unemployed, unkempt man to complain that women want the wrong things. People want what they want, and you have to either find someone who likes you the way you are, or change. There's no use complaining.

WSK: "It's not choose a career or find a man. It was find a man and choose a career."

Sure women can have it all. It's just that like everyone else, they can't have it all at the same time. And yet feminism, as it is today, is giving the message that a woman ought to have the career and the family and all at the same time. Tending small children, a full-time career, and a life: choose any two of the three, because there are only so many hours in a day.

As a very educated woman in a marriage with traditional roles by choice: I see it as a matter of comparative advantage, like an econ textbook example. Favorite Husband is good at working for money and mowing the lawn and fixing cars. I'm better at working for money than he is. But I'm so much better at homemaking than he is, that it is worth my while to give up making money in order to make a home. I trade my homemaking for his income; we both benefit from the trade. Your area of comparative advantage may vary.

Here's another news flash for Ms. Dowd: high school women are 100% more likely to date a guy on the football team than a guy in the computer club. Sexual egalitarianism now!!

WH: Excellent example of economics. And you're right, the point isn't that women can't have it all, it's just that they can't have it all at once.

Eric: Brilliant point.

Eric: Umm.. yeah. It's funny you refer to high school girls as women. They're still teenagers you know - not a terribly sensible bunch, nor a bunch whose eye you should be disappointed in not catching, and their concerns are hardly the same as those of actual women. But whatever. What you said, in a way, goes along with the point: Women, even the very successful ones, are not threatened by men with powerful careers, and men, it appears, would much rather keep a housewife than be one.

How old, really, is the breadwinner / homemaker marriage split? As far as I can tell (in the UK) the split has been prevalent since the fifties. Before the war, working class families couldn't afford a women who didn't work. Middle class families with professional men were comparatively richer than they are today and could afford to keep housewives (and some servants etc.).
In agricultural families, today and in the past, husbands and wives literally muck in. I question whether original buffalo hunts were exclusively male. (I don't know, but no matter, since the onset of agruculture marriages have been more equal.)
But I'm not sure the majority of families have been "traditional" for very long at all. Books and plays, written about the middle class, have squewed our view of the past.

michelle: Your mistake is that you think that many men prefer women without powerful careers because they feel "threatened". Actually, the point is that men with good careers are looking for women who complement their life, and they don't need someone else to make money. After a certain point, there's just not a pressing need for more income, especially in our progressive income tax system. What they need to fill out their lives is a person who will take care of their kids and home, finances, and social life. It's about finding someone complementary, not someone identical, and it has little to do with being threatened.

I read your post and the MoDo column yesterday afternoon and then I went to see Splanglish last night. I saw a substantially different movie than the one that MoDo apparently watched.

I think, though, that I see what MoDo's problem is - the movie is quintessentially about "traditional values." Flora the maid stands as a profound rejection of modern values. Flora is offended when drunks send her drinks when she takes her daughter to dinner; she sacrifices for her daughter; she isn't looking for self-esteem or "having it all"; she expects her daughter to obey and to accept her and her values.

Deborah, the "anglo" mother, is a "jangly, yakking, overachieving, overexercised, unfaithful, shallow she-monster." She is also the quintessential bi-coastal liberal who insists on a facade of egalitarianism -"Call me Deborah" - while insisting on tacit recognition of her moral superiority to Flora, who she feels needs to be pitied and infantalized because of her "deprived" background.

The movie is profoundly conservative. It doesn't end with the ultimate validation of modern movies - sex. Flora affirms that when one has children one must exercise the virtues of self-denial and self-restraint.

MoDo obviously watched the movie, identified with Deborah and couldn't understand why someone as with MoDo's resume and attitudes - someone morally superior and wonderful - was presented as the villain.

PSB: Gosh, that review makes me want to see the movie... and I'm not an Adam Sandler fan (with a few exceptions).

Wittysexkitten (wtf?) writes:

" I would hope more men would want someone ambitious enough and dedicated enough to choose a career, but instead men continue to choose women who lack those attributes in favor of those who will serve as their personal dishrag. "

So, a woman whose priorities include raising her children *herself* and "homemaking" (quotes because it would be very lengthy to include all that entails; including, in many cases, the ability to give more to the community, schools, etc. via volunteerism) is de facto NOT ambitious and dedicated? Not *enough*? What righteous, judgemental claptrap. And why is such a person a "dishrag"? Please explain *that* insult!

I have been on the career side and on the homemaker/child-rearer side, and they are *both* demanding and hard work, albeit in different ways.

Also, I have problems with the comments about men not want to "raise their kids" because they are focused on the breadwinning aspect. Sports, music/dance/swim lessons, scouts, braces, etc., etc. All that "raising kids" costs MONEY. Not to mention dads out there attending/coaching sporting events, volunteering as scout masters, helping with school projects/homework, practicing basketball in the driveway, and attending parent/teacher conferences. I see LOTS of dads very involved in their children's activities, even if they are the primary breadwinner.

If it's working for people, why are you dissing them for their choices? Feeling a little left out?

I just want a woman stupid enough to love me, support me in the lifestyle I imagine for myself, and be totally quiet. What's wrong with that? A job? Me? Get real.

Ms. Dowd's subtitle for her article should have been: "Lonely, Bitter, Childless, NYT Spinster Seeks Brad-Pitt-type: Because I'm Worth It."

My oh my how the chickens have come home to roost. Somebody is working for, as well as becoming, "The Old Gray Lady." Funny how you trash men for 40 years, spew hate, pass unfair laws (especially family law), kill your own children in your own womb (gasp! half of whom had ovaries themselves), dress in sandals for a White House gig, wear butch hairstyles, initiate 70-80% of the divorces because Oprah told you to, and THEN have the chutzpah to blame MEN for your sorry-arse pitiful life... Oh, Maureen....I have three lovely words for you - Bed. Made. Lie.

I don't think feminism told women that they didn't "need" a man to be dependant. It told them that it shouldn't have to be your ONLY choice.

Like another poster said, I think you're only picking and choosing what you want to argue as far as what Ms. Dowd was trying to point out.

Duh, men don't want women to "compete" with them, but why should women feel like having a career means that they are "competing" with them or makes them, in your words, "to be just like men"?

And why do men such as yourself feel this way to begin with? Insecurity?

That's the point.

Maybe she is right when she says men like the ones she described in her article like women who are more career-oriented and ambitious as less feminine and more threatening because those women are their "equals" of sorts, and men want a sidekick, not a partner.

My beef is that you complain about the fact that she's pointing out this fact. If it's no news to you ,then why are you getting uptight about it?

You're missing the point.

The problem is: Why should a woman play down herself, her abilities, her career and her ambitions because it makes her more "feminine" and compatable in the eyes of working/ambitious alpha-males?

That's the question.

And to answer your rhetorical question about why do you think there's no Masculinist movement:

It's simple, Mike.

Men don't have to choose between having a career and having a family and they can have both and more.

No ones telling them that they're less desirable mates if they become this kind of man or that.

Even you bring up the point that most women wouldn't want a homemaker dad because they still want "traditional" working men, that still doesn't change the fact that most men in general think that being a homemaker dad S@CKS and consider it a subordinated role more suitable for women to fill, right?

Why do you think that's the case?

Not necessarily because society, particularly the female half,deems men useless if they do it, but the fact men deem it as something much less satisfying and rewarding compared to working and getting PAID for it. It's much more fullfilling for men and it's reaffirms their social standing and superiority in society this way.

Men can be "masculine" without having to give up any of their ambitions and that doesn't hurt their desirability of attracting a mate while women have to conform to the ways of being more "feminine" in order to attract a man or at least not intimidate them; like not being too ambitious, intelligent, independent or career oriented.

I think Dowd's point is why do women have to conform to ways that men find acceptable and appealing to them as potential spouses/mates because it helps support and affirms men of their standing as males in society, when maybe THEY should be the ones who need not to be so shallow and gender specific about everything because it's more beneficial to them?