A word of advice: Don’t marry misogynists (or trust their sloppy news copy) - Part 1
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Posted by Jennifer L Pozner August 23rd, 2006 |
Tune in to Uprising Radio tomorrow morning, Aug. 24, 11am Eastern time and 8am Pacific, or log on throughout the day, for an interview between radio host (and WIMN’s Voices blogger Sonali Kolhatkar) and me (if your reading this blog, you probably know that I founded and direct Women In Media & News, the women’s media analysis, education and advocacy group that hosts this group blog) and Roslyn Barnett (senior scientist and director of the Community, Families and Work Program at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University) — we’ll be talking about the latest backlash bugaboo against working women, this time from the business press.
Seems Forbes magazine has the blogosphere and women journalists’ email lists buzzing today about a factually specious, ideologically retrograde tirade about how “career girls” (50’s, much?) are nothing but misery-and-mayhem bearing albatrosses for heterosexual men.
WIMN’s Voices blogger Keely Savoie has already written an initial critique about the Forbes piece, and my guess is that she (and perhaps others) will do more of the same in coming days — but I couldn’t resist throwing my .77-cents-per-man’s-dollar into the ring.
Titled “Don’t Marry Career Women,” a Forbes editor Michael Noer marshalls a slew of factually questionable, sometimes conservative-authored, other times widely-debunked statistics and dubious social science studies to make his case that men should get over the idea of partnering up with “women with similar goals and aspirations,” because a marriage which involves any man and a “well-educated, ambitious, informed and engaged” is doomed to unhappieness and, most likely, divorce.
It’s not that Noer has a problem with women working at all — wage slave jobs that are personally unfulfilling and financially unstable are just fine with Forbes, one of the country’s leading business magazines:
“To be clear, we’re not talking about a high-school dropout minding a cash register. For our purposes, a ‘career girl’ has a university-level (or higher) education, works more than 35 hours a week outside the home and makes more than $30,000 a year.”
Take note, guys: you’ll be as happy as pigs in mud (at least according to this pig in print) if you land finacially dependant chicks who are more likely to put up with lazy, inconsiderate husbands who treat their wives more like maids than partners.
If this were an editorial, it would be problematic — but this is not presented as commentary, it’s packaged as a news story, complete with an error-and-stock-photo filled slideshow in which the URL contains the words “destined misery” and the subtitles that proclaim “Your house will be dirtier” and “You’ll be unhappy if she makes more than you.”
The flaws in Forbes’ manipulative hit-piece are multiple, and require serious unpacking. Watch this space for more on this — including an action alert, a more in-depth post in this blog, and possibly a full length, well-researched media critique piece — coming soon.
In the meantime, let Forbes know what you think of the shoddy journalism practiced in this piece by emailing readers@forbes.com (for tips on writing effective letters to the editor, see WIMN’s Action Center).
… and check out the following sites for more reading:
- How to Marry a Forbes Man (Lynn Harris on Salon’s Broadsheet)
- Shocker: Forbes Recommends Trophy Wives (Gawker)
- Gawker CliffsNotes: “Don’t Marry Career Women”
- Don’t Marry Career Men: Forbes Hankers for the ’50s (Boing Boing)
- Suggested subtitles for this article [Note: “This” refers to the Forbes piece] (Discombobulation Station)
- Why You Should Marry a Doormat; Or, Forbes explains why smart men everywhere should avoid those nasty career women (Feministe)
- Boycott Forbes (Echidne of the Snakes - who is a WIMN’s Voices blogger)
- More on Forbes’ working-women-make-shitty-wives article and Forbes: Don’t Marry Career Women (Feministing’s Jessica Valenti, also a WIMN’s Voices blogger)
- When are you going to settle down and get yourself a nice trophy wife? (Shakespeare’s Sister)
[EDITOR’S UPDATE: Additional noteworthy critiques — including detailed debunkings of Forbes’ manipulative misuse of faulty social science research — published after this blog entry was posted include “Career Women Bad Wives? Let’s Ask the Guys” by Caryl Rivers and Ros Barnett on Women’s Enews, and “Asking for Trouble: The truth about career women and marriage” by Judith Stadtman Tucker of Mother’s Movement Online.]
Remember to tune in to Thursday’s Uprising Radio — I promise snarkiness galore and, more importantly, critical background exposing the flaws in the studies, statistics and leaps of logic that prove the Forbes piece to be little more than hostile, pathetic attempt from a male leader of the business press to punish women who he views as infringing on his economic turf.
August 23rd, 2006 21:50
It’s not hard to picture a bunch of guys sitting around the table in some editor’s office, snickering and howling about all the hot letters this story was sure to bring their way. I’d bet money, too, that some of them had mothers who worked to help put these guys through college. And somewhere in the shadows of this Forbes boys club there’s at least one wife (or ex-wife) who helped pay for their children’s braces or private school tuition. But what I really want to know is how Michael Noer and the editors who approved this story will explain their involvement to their daughters, especially those who just graduated from college and are trying to find their first job.
August 24th, 2006 02:56
[…] If you want more, check out media activist Jennifer Pozner’s response or Gawker’s cranky little remix of the article’s slideshow. […]
August 24th, 2006 05:42
One of the things I think we need to do in our response to this is not only debunk the so-called studies that he based this piece on but also what on earth possessed Forbes to run the piece at all. That a much respected magazine would run something this totally inappropriate bears some examination. I think there is still a very substantial segment of the male population that is all in favor of women’s equality, provided of course it is how they define it and we need to respond to that.
August 24th, 2006 06:41
Several thoughts here. One great way to debunk it is to interview the authors of the studies he cites…most likely their findings did not indicate what he says they do, and Noer will look foolish for misinterpreting it. But mainly, this tired set of arguments from the 1950s and earlier (chronicled in detail by the late great Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique) is so ancient and previously debunked I wonder if anyone will even take it seriously?! Also, Forbes’ slogan is “capitalist tool.” Its entire goal is to reinforce the macho capitalist status quo…what do we expect of Forbes, really? (Which also raises the question, what’s a supposed progressive like Bono doing investing in it?)
I wish Noer and Dov Charney would just go start a Fight Club in a basement somewhere and get their childish macho retro impulses out of their systems through testosterone-driven boxing matches!
Argh.
August 24th, 2006 11:18
[…] In response to the Forbes “Financially dependent wives will keep your house clean and complain less when you cheat on them” piece that was the subject of such debate yesterday (see my last post for a link round-up of women’s rapid responses to the piece and the story’s URL), Slate’s Jack Shafer wrote a priggish “Press Box” post wondering why we gals were getting our panties in a twist: “I’ve yet to read a blog item or a protesting e-mail from a reader that convinces me that the article—as opposed to the deliberately provocative headline—really insults women, career or otherwise. ” […]
August 24th, 2006 13:22
Miranda, I so love the image you paint of Michael Noer and Dov Charney in a fight-club match. If only…
August 24th, 2006 14:13
Melissa Houtte said: I’d bet money, too, that some of them had mothers who worked to help put these guys through college.
Ah, but you are expecting gratitude and thoughtfulness from a group of people ideologically committed to the idea that we are all lone wolves in this world. Those too foolish not to have been born in privilege get what they deserve. A great deal of modern conservatism seems to be based on an intense fear of obligation and accountability. Having a wife who is financially dependent on you would make her obligated and accountable to you, but never the other way around.
August 25th, 2006 16:40
[…] This evening, ABC’s World News ran a segment about the “fury of career women scorned,” in which ABC’s Nancy Weiner interviewed numerous professional women about their rapid and furious responses to Michael Noer’s ludicrous attack on independent, professional women in Forbes magazine this week. […]
December 12th, 2006 15:23
[…] WIMN’s Voices readers with detailed memories may recall that we linked over to some of Feministe’s spot-on posts over the summer about that ridiculously regressive and inaccurate Forbes “men who marry career women are doomed to dismal lives, dirty homes and early deaths” article. […]
April 20th, 2007 14:06
[…] For decades, despite constant debunking, media have consistently promulgated the regressive notion that women not only can’t have it all, but are idiots if we even try. We’ve heard it from news and entertainment media alike — from factually inaccurate reportorial diatribes about “career girls” making bad wives, bad [PDF] or selfish mothers , or lonely, workaholic spinsters, to the melodramatic incarnations of these same messages in the seemingly endless parade of Ally McBeal-esque characters who whine at the screen, as did Flockhart’s micro-minied, perpetually neurotic lawyer, “I am a strong, working woman whose life feels empty without a man.” […]
October 23rd, 2007 00:14
Because of your work, I work with former soviet scientists to design and share online training schedules for athletes throughout the world. People are people regardless of where they are located; with dreams and the inner quest for knowledge. 20 years ago this would have been impossible. Even though the geopolitics would have still gone the way they had, the net has allowed us to be more than non combatants..we have become friends.