I don't know why more people don't stick with the classic "sack-kick." You get to see the guy assume a question-mark shape, fall over sideways, then choke on his own vomit. Unless the guy has an erection, I don't think a cockpunch is going to be as effective.
I wondered if y'all would see that.
I think it depends on the angle. An uppercut in which the balls are caught and pressed like grapes between the fist and the pelvis would probably be pretty painful, but now that I think about it that's just approximating the excellence of a kick with a punch, so why not just go for the kick, especially as the punch will really only work if you're quite short?
And you know, wouldn't you think they'd address the countervailing point that "Money is nice, and professional women bring it home"?
What, my paycheck has girl cooties?
And, to be fair, this may merely be the flipped argument of She-Who-Cannot-Be-Named.
You get to see the guy assume a question-mark shape
You mean like this?
4 makes a good point. I would be ecstatic to have a wife so successful that I didn't have to work.
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.
Arrrrrgh! Well, nice to know that I'm not close to the line on acceptability -- I missed by a mile.
I always picture Becks as being kind of short, but athletic. In fact, I have such a distinct picture of her that now I'm starting to suspect that I'm actually substituting the image of some other person I once knew.
Depending on how close you were to the sack to be kicked, wouldn't a knee be the most efficient weapon?
Really, I can't think of when I've wanted to email someone obscenities more strongly.
They will be unhappy if they make more money than you do. You will be unhappy if they make more money than you do.
That's completely fucking crazy.
Against this idiot's thesis, there's the mind-numbing tedium of trying to have conversations with a woman who has no interests or knowledge outside the home. Plus, yeah, if I were married to a non-career-woman, I'd have to either get a real job or get in the cheese line full-time.
What a (capitalist) tool. He has a habit of writing these kind of articles. Last Valentine's Day Forbes published Noer's "Economics of Prostitution", which asked "Wife or whore?"
I'll bet he cracks himself up.
Megan had a post up yesterday, responding to a post of Scheherazade's about being rejected by a friend of hers for being an 'alpha dog' -- he couldn't be in a relationship with her because he felt that he'd be playing second fiddle.
I commented on it, quibbling about a side issue, but didn't know what to say about the main issue. What I wanted to say, mostly, was "Don't worry about it -- I'm overbearing and aggressive and I'm happily married. Someone will like you for it." But I hate that kind of a response, because it sounds like saying "Stop complaining, the problem's all in your head. You're imagining it." And I don't think that's true, either.
And then shit like this article just does not help.
The argument is sloppy, offers itself as offensively as possible, and does so with an undeserved strength, but, you know, it's not crazy. I used to be on the other side of this, too, but I've seen a couple of these marriages up close recently, and they seem to work. Anecdotal evidence, including anecdotal evidence from here, seems to indicate that marriage is hard enough, already. If it works for some people, it works for some people. Most people aren't going to be convinced in any direction by a slide show unless they're already leaning heavily in that direction.
I've seen a couple of these marriages up close recently, and they seem to work.
Okay, saying "Professional man, stay-at-home-wife" marriages can work is not an argument for "Marriage to working women should be avoided." It might be an argument that "Marriage to working women is not the only way to go" but that's different.
Did I misread 21? I took "a couple of these marriages" to be marriages in which the wife had a more highly remunerative job than the husband had.
The article would be more convincing if it had looked at the question from all points of view, coming to the conclusion that no one of any gender or class background whatsoever should ever date or marry anyone whatsoever.
I don't see why this obvious truth is so hard for people to accept. It's like watching a string of stunned lottery losers boohooing about how they inexplicably lost all their money. Not quite satisfied with your relationship? Miserable with your relationship? That's what relationships are for.
I think you did, given that SCMT is defending the article as 'not crazy' albeit offensive. But maybe I did.
Ooh, I love "your house will be dirtier." Dudes, if it's your house, you fucking clean it.
And I don't mean "help," either.
Problem solved.
I don't see why this obvious truth is so hard for people to accept. It's like watching a string of stunned lottery losers boohooing about how they inexplicably lost all their money. Not quite satisfied with your relationship? Miserable with your relationship? That's what relationships are for.
Emerson, did you even try mcmanus's advice about dating?
Hey, maybe I'm crazy, but it seems to me that guys who are such tools that they're worried over whose paycheck dick is bigger may, in fact, set themselves up for being unhappy and, if those are the sorts of guys to be found then career "girls" (YARRRRRGH) may, to no intelligent person's surprise, in fact opt not to marry said tools or stay married to said tools. Crazy, I tell ya!
Yeah, maybe the article needed a subtitle: "(If you're an asshole. Non-assholes? This one isn't for you.)"
As I remember, McManus has reached a status is much like mine via a different route.
I love you young people, all so chipper and optimistic, going out with smiles on your faces trying to beat the system. You are much more attractive than old, beaten-down people who actually are in touch with reality.
By which, of course, I mean young people of legal age, 30-year-old jailbait and the like. Too much optimism and trust can be scary, and can also kead to legal problems.
30 seems to be implying that somebody other than an asshole would go to Forbes magazine for dating advice.
30 seems to be implying that somebody other than an asshole would go to Forbes magazine for dating advice.
Precisely. Or maybe better: the person reading Forbes is Chet, and this is good advice for some subset of Chets.
"these women"? For heaven's sake, I made more than $30,000 a year when I worked taking medical history interviews on the telephone (glad it's over, never want to go back) While I know that there are many, many awful jobs out there where people make less than $30,000 a year, $30,000 a year is not that much at all for a college graduate. So is this fellow suggesting that college educated women (but not non-college-educated women) should only work part time? Or perhaps he means that women should not get college degrees, so that we can work full-time and bring in about $19,000 instead of $30,000, thus not meeting the definition of "career woman"?
And doesn't this mean that only men in fairly well-paying jobs would be able to have children? While I know that many people are compelled to bring up children with far, far too little money, surely no one who could make the choice would want to support himself, a wife, and one or two children on less than $45,000 a year? (Remember that I'm talking about the provinces, not New York)
Now if someone were to commit (with some kind of looney Moral Majority wingnut binding promise) to marry me and never divorce me and I could sit around, childless and idle, reading and eating bonbons for the rest of my life...well, I guess I could handle that. It would still make me awful nervous about financial security, though, and I don't really see what good it would do my (theoretical) husband, even if our house were kept clean.
I'm a professional woman with a BA and just this year started making $30K. And I've been working full time since I graduated, 12 years ago. So, last year I still woulda been a great catch. This year, not so much.
I'm with 30 et al. The advice makes perfect sense if you assume the needs and desires of a Forbes reader. If you enjoy dominating other people and collecting status symbols, of course you want a traditional, subservient wife, rather than someone with a brain and life of her own.
Median family income by state by family size: here. I think two income earners at $30K each puts the family at or above the upper bound for most states. But Forbes doesn't really pitch itself to that socioeconomic group (or doesn't explicitly do so) anyway, so this might not be relevant.
I'm not intending to defend the article, which is shabby and offensive. I might just be feeling truculent, but, really, I think the underlying (and unspoken) argument is really about specialization within a marriage, is not (or should not be) gender dependent, and might be accurate for a significant number of people.
Really, Wrenae? We must be about the same age. I...um...went from my horrible job with the medical history interviews to one that's a lot happier and more interesting but significantly lower-paying. It seems like there's an awful lot of financial services/back office rather dreadful white collar jobs that pay in the $30,000 to $40,000 range, though. At least around here.
So anyway, I guess I'm back in the "poor enough to marry" category.
I might just be feeling truculent, but, really, I think the underlying (and unspoken) argument is really about specialization within a marriage, is not (or should not be) gender dependent, and might be accurate for a significant number of people.
You know, that is, as you suggest, the Hirshman argument. (Although I'd argue that Hirshman was, in fact, much much much less nasty about it). What makes the article maddening isn't the suggestion of specialization, it's the "Of course, you, the reader, are a man, and of course your specialization is the professional role and your wife's is that of the helpmate. Any other division of labor is unthinkable -- it will make you both unhappy."
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.
Holy fuck. Is that what I'm missing? Now I feel like doing a little dance. The not-getting-married dance.
Tim's just staking a contrary position since he's shut out of Generation Awesome.
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.
Sheesh. In my experience, people who work do this for each other whether they have "adequate time" or not. And my suspicion is often do it better for being equals with relevant frames of reference, and not being all-dependent on bucking the other up.
Hey, wait--I just realized that this is really one of those tricky logic puzzles that they give you to test your reading skills. See, it starts out "If a host of studies are to be believed" and then it says something ridiculous. So what we're obviously supposed to catch is that it starts with if...clearly the studies are not to be believed and the whole thing is just to check whether we're paying attention.
Tim's just staking a contrary position since he's shut out of Generation Awesome.
Shut out by, not of.
"shut" s/b "shot"
"Generation Awesome" s/b "a cannon"
manage [his] emotional well-being or buffer his workplace stress."
Sheesh - and who is supposed to do the same for her? No wonder she's having it off with Sven, the masseur at the spa.
Some rag I was reading at the doctor's office yesterday had an article about high-earning white collar women marrying "down" to blue collar men because the high-earning white collar men they knew were such arrogant pricks. Who read Forbes.
LB: Here's something you could use in lieu of cockpunching.
(Only 51% of ultra-achieving women (those earning more than $100,000 a year) have had children by age 40.) Anyone think of looking into correlation vs. causation? Maybe these women aren't having kids BECAUSE GUYS ALREADY refuse to marry "career women".
Actually, isn't the real c vs. c problem that women who have children by age 40 are generally not also making $100k by that age, thanks to individual plus institutional sexism, not to mention the raw difficulty of climbing the ladder that quickly while taking (at least some) time out for a couple of maternity leaves?
Oh, and I will admit that I was a bit happy when my salary (very briefly) exceeded my wife's. But she's a bureaucrat who entered the workforce 3 years later than I did - I kind of felt like I should be earning more not as a man, but as a corporate tool.
I remedied the situation by getting fired and working from home for next-to-nothing. So my feminist credentials are intact, I think.
47 was meant for Becks, not LB, who could just force the writer to wear her cruel shoes.
I'd noticed our suggested modes of violence all carefully avoided further stressing LB's feet. It's not like there's only one guy like that, although if it's just the writer, she might be willing to suffer. Oh wait, his intention doesn't matter...
The post is Becks'. I just want to berate the guy, an activity that can be done without hurting the toes.
Only 51% of ultra-achieving women (those earning more than $100,000 a year) have had children by age 40.
Raising children has a direct cost and an opportunity cost. Both are pretty high, and few people sit down and cost the kids out. Living in a smaller place, moving to follow the job, working long and odd hours -- you can't really do these things if you're raising kids, and your net worth suffers (for fathers too, but less so). DINKs have got the economics right.
As long as we're talking about penes:
This is what happens when one travels with one's parents...
She-Who-Cannot-Be-Named
This really has to catch on.
Only 51% of ultra-achieving women (those earning more than $100,000 a year) have had children by age 40.
Raising children has a direct cost and an opportunity cost. Both are pretty high, and few people sit down and cost the kids out. Living in a smaller place, moving to follow the job, working long and odd hours -- you can't really do these things if you're raising kids, and your net worth suffers (for fathers too, but less so). DINKs have got the economics right.
Page 133 of this paper has some interesting divorce statistics from Norway. It turns out in all cases it it is better to marry someone with a high level of education, even if you are a man with a low level of education. If I am reading the chart right the high/high (wife/husband) education level has about 1/4 the divorce rate of the low/low education level.
Additional education, especially additional education by the wife, leads to an increase of the divorce rate.
This suggests to me that a marriage of highly educated people where both sides know going in that the man is going to make less won't have a particularly high divorce rate. An change in circumstances where the husband unexpectedly makes less might be more destabilizing.
53: Or one can do as my sister did and hire nannies, au pairs and housekeepers, giving her the opportunity to have three children and make a healthy six figures.
There are, of course, people of both sexes who don't want children - making a blanket statement about percentages of high-earning women who don't have them without taking that into account makes for faulty reasoning. Women who can take care of themselves economically have freedom from "having" to marry in order to survive economically and thence having children they really didn't want.
When I was adopting my son, I ran into many women who told me they couldn't understand why I wanted a child, as I was "so lucky" that I didn't "have" to have children. They ranged from the stay-at-home mom notary who stamped my paperwork to a film director whose average pay neared seven figures. [The latter was childless by choice and tired of societal pressure from friends and family to breed.]
Hey, the article's gone. I wonder if they're embarassed, or if it's just a problem with the site.
It's been reinstated, with a counterpoint article written by a female Forbes writer.
Don't Marry Period.
http://dontgetmarried.proboards75.com/index.cgi?board=essay&action=display&thread=1146253418
Note that the article linked by Sam only says that men shouldn't marry. I say that no one should.
And not dogs either, if there are Santorumists listening.
Yeah, failing to manage your husband's emotional well-being because you're too busy with your job is a sure recipe for having your inlaws consider you a selfish bitch.
Forbes is pretty lame. If you want to read a business magazine, go with Fortune.
Malcolm Forbes Jr. is so awful. He lacks the comedic value of his father. He went to my highschool and before he started running for president he was on the board of trustees. Gave teh same damn graduation speech every year. I don't remember what he said except that he was absolutely enamored of the Green Revolution.
The dinosaur comics guy totally reads unfogged.
