Thursday, August 13, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Smart Girls Read the Whole Book
Since when did it become okay to judge a book solely by its cover?
Even famed journalist Michael Kinsley once admitted to breaking this cardinal rule. “You must put aside any fuddy-duddy notion of not judging a book by its cover—or title,” Kinsley wrote when on the panel for the National Book Awards.
His statement was sort of hilarious to us—that is until now that we have written a book with a provocative cover. Our satire has been subject to vicious blogging based on the title alone: Smart Girls Marry Money: How Women Have Been Duped into the Romantic Dream and How They’re Paying For It.
We chose this upsetting title because the underlying subject matter is upsetting: workplace inequalities, easily-disposed-of wives and children, the demand that women be sexy from the time they lose their milk teeth until well after menopause and the astonishing poverty that many hard-working women face in their retirement years.
In order to invite people to talk about these complex issues, we focused our gaze through a satirical lens. Satire satisfies two deep human desires: to laugh with understanding and to invoke corrective change. So we offered an outrageous solution: Marry a Man with Money. At first, we were just trying to get a chuckle.
Here’s our point: marrying for love has only been in vogue for the last 150 years, prior to that marriage was mostly based on economic and political expediencies. These days, we insist on basing marriage solely on romantic love. But science now shows us that “feeling in love” is brought on by a chemical cascade in the brain that acts very much like addiction—and the whole thrill is over within about two years.
For many people, when they find themselves out of love, they want out of the marriage. After all, if falling “in love” is a good enough reason to marry, then falling “out of love” is a good enough reason to divorce. Paradoxically, marrying for love has destabilized the marital union and has driven the divorce rate to right up around 50%.
Should we perhaps be considering other factors when choosing a life partner? And look, we’re just asking. Weren’t we also raised to believe there are no bad questions? Or has that also fallen by the wayside?
Knowing that recent research shows that couples with resources have more stable marriages, perhaps we should take into account our partner’s commitment to supporting the family. Yet, the modern woman is afraid of being labeled a gold digger, who she’s been trained to believe is someone beneath contempt. The self-sufficient modern women, savvy in so many areas of her life, will purposely ignore the fact that marriage is the most important economic partnership she’ll ever make.
None of this would even be worth discussing if workplace inequities were not still rampant, if the burden of child care did not largely fall upon mothers, and if the average woman didn’t make a third what the average man makes over the course of her working life.
We were all brought up to want to fall in love and have a lifelong romance. We’ve nursed the dream since childhood. But now that we are grown women, we have the intellectual heft to inquire if this romantic dream is worth pursuing with such fervor, excluding so many other considerations.
Marry Money? Really?
Sure, it might seem crazy at first, or the idea might just make you mad, or simply make you laugh. But upon closer inspection you may find points worth thinking about.
After all, you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover.
Even famed journalist Michael Kinsley once admitted to breaking this cardinal rule. “You must put aside any fuddy-duddy notion of not judging a book by its cover—or title,” Kinsley wrote when on the panel for the National Book Awards.
His statement was sort of hilarious to us—that is until now that we have written a book with a provocative cover. Our satire has been subject to vicious blogging based on the title alone: Smart Girls Marry Money: How Women Have Been Duped into the Romantic Dream and How They’re Paying For It.
We chose this upsetting title because the underlying subject matter is upsetting: workplace inequalities, easily-disposed-of wives and children, the demand that women be sexy from the time they lose their milk teeth until well after menopause and the astonishing poverty that many hard-working women face in their retirement years.
In order to invite people to talk about these complex issues, we focused our gaze through a satirical lens. Satire satisfies two deep human desires: to laugh with understanding and to invoke corrective change. So we offered an outrageous solution: Marry a Man with Money. At first, we were just trying to get a chuckle.
Here’s our point: marrying for love has only been in vogue for the last 150 years, prior to that marriage was mostly based on economic and political expediencies. These days, we insist on basing marriage solely on romantic love. But science now shows us that “feeling in love” is brought on by a chemical cascade in the brain that acts very much like addiction—and the whole thrill is over within about two years.
For many people, when they find themselves out of love, they want out of the marriage. After all, if falling “in love” is a good enough reason to marry, then falling “out of love” is a good enough reason to divorce. Paradoxically, marrying for love has destabilized the marital union and has driven the divorce rate to right up around 50%.
Should we perhaps be considering other factors when choosing a life partner? And look, we’re just asking. Weren’t we also raised to believe there are no bad questions? Or has that also fallen by the wayside?
Knowing that recent research shows that couples with resources have more stable marriages, perhaps we should take into account our partner’s commitment to supporting the family. Yet, the modern woman is afraid of being labeled a gold digger, who she’s been trained to believe is someone beneath contempt. The self-sufficient modern women, savvy in so many areas of her life, will purposely ignore the fact that marriage is the most important economic partnership she’ll ever make.
None of this would even be worth discussing if workplace inequities were not still rampant, if the burden of child care did not largely fall upon mothers, and if the average woman didn’t make a third what the average man makes over the course of her working life.
We were all brought up to want to fall in love and have a lifelong romance. We’ve nursed the dream since childhood. But now that we are grown women, we have the intellectual heft to inquire if this romantic dream is worth pursuing with such fervor, excluding so many other considerations.
Marry Money? Really?
Sure, it might seem crazy at first, or the idea might just make you mad, or simply make you laugh. But upon closer inspection you may find points worth thinking about.
After all, you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Smart Girls Marry Money on CNN.com, top ten most emailed story!
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/personal/07/06/tf.marrying.for.money/index.html
For two days, this was in the top ten most emailed stories on CNN.com (getting up to number five). An article written entirely based on impressions from the Newsweek Article.
For two days, this was in the top ten most emailed stories on CNN.com (getting up to number five). An article written entirely based on impressions from the Newsweek Article.
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