Forbes to Men: "Don't Marry a Career Woman"

On August 22, an article simply titled, "Don't Marry a Career Woman", was published. Yes, this literally was the title of the article. No, this was not some Christian right-wing rag with readership based primarly in East Texas and Western Michigan. This was Forbes. Yep, Forbes.

Michael Noer, the author of the article, spouts unoriginal complaints typical of anti-feminists and disgruntled males everywhere: that women who achieve a level of career success beyond that of their man will soon become unhappy with said man; that "hosts" of "statistics" show that marriage to a "career woman" (which Noer defines as any woman with a university degree who makes $30,000 a year or more) will yield misery and gloom for the unsuspecting male (not to mention a messy house); and that marital bliss necessitates a union with, well, a trophy wife (click here to see if YOU have what it takes to be a trophy wife!). In Noer's words, "marrying these women is asking for trouble".



Below are more gems from this article, and my response:

"Wives working longer hours do not have time to monitor their husband's health and healthy behavior." Unless a man has an inordinately low IQ, or suffers from some form of physical or mental retardation, he is competent enough to monitor his own health. It goes like this. "Shit! I have been coughing up boogers and can't breathe as well. Might have to get some Tylenol PM!" Or, "Crap! I went up a few notches on my belt. Might have to eat more salad and less pork rinds." Does Noer think that men are not competent enough to monitor their own healthy behavior?

"After all, your typical career girl is well-educated, ambitious, informed and engaged. All seemingly good things, right? Sure...at least until you get married. Then, to put it bluntly, the more successful she is the more likely she is to grow dissatisfied with you" I'm sure that some women engage in trading up and that there is some truth to this. However, is Noer so naive to think that men don't engage in trading up as well? Jack marries Jill, his grad school sweetheart. Jack gets promoted to M.D. at a large downtown investment bank, and Jill gets pregnant. Jill's so busy raising newborns that she can't work out as much. Cottage cheese coagulates on her thighs, she doesn't have time to shave her legs as much, and stomach flab begins to set in. Enter Lacey, a masseuse at a Park Avenue spa 10 years Jack's junior, with perky C-cup tits, wavy blond hair, an ass you can bounce a quarter off of, and a bikini region as well manicured as the green on Pebble Beach. Jack knows that without the 7-figure salary, he wouldn't be able to score chicks as attractive as Lacey. So, dissatisfied with his current wife, Jack trades up.

Another one of Noer's warnings to the menfolk: "When your spouse works outside the home, chances increase they'll meet someone they like more than you." DUH. Women have known this for YEARS. Women have consistently turned the other cheek when, after spending the best years of our lives raising our husband's kids, he runs off with his secretary, leaving poor Wifey financially bereft after the divorce and the pre-nup (which she naively signed). See the example of Jack, Jill, and Lacey above. Jack would never have met Lacey if his buddies at the bank didn't recommend that he "de-stress" with some Shiatsu treatments. Next thing you know, Jack's paying for Lacey's steak dinners at Rothmann's with a black Am-Ex card in Jill's name, and ends up taking the corporate car home at 1AM to avoid having to speak to that shrew Jill.

Upon further investigation, it seems like Noer has some issues with women. In another Forbes piece, "The Economics of Prostitution" (published on Valentines' Day, no less), Noer begins with the question, "Wife or whore?", and then, using a study performed by a pair of economists, goes on with crude cost-benefit analysis which can be summed up in the following sentence: "Why should a man get married when he has access to cheap, available, disposable pussy?"

However, I'm not too incensed by Noer's piece. With his use of selective data, pseudo-economics, slippery-slope logic (Cheating leads to divorce! Divorce leads to alcoholism! Alcoholism leads to suicide!), and his portrayal of men as innocent victims of "feminism" (a word Noer uses in quotes in his article, perhaps to express discomfort with - or disdain toward - the term) as opposed to individuals who should be held accountable for their own marital actions, the article reads more like a piece of hyperbole, not meant to be taken seriously, and posted on the Forbes.com website to increase web traffic.