CAN CAREER WOMEN MAKE GOOD WIVES? – Aug 29^th 2006

 

No they can’t, according to an incendiary article causing a firestorm of debate in the States. Now the gloves come off here.

When writer Michael Noer wrote in US business bible Forbes magazine that marrying a career woman was a sure route to misery and divorce, he sparked a firestorm of protest. One woman’s response to his article described him as ‘blood-boilingly misogynistic’, but there has also been a significant amount of support for his argument. So does he have a point?

 

 

There is a support group for neo-Neanderthals like Michael Noer.

 

They, too, believe women are more suited to cleaning the home and raising children than forging a career, and think wives should be kept far away from the temptations of an office and attractive male co-workers. They’re called the Taliban, and if they’re ever short of a spin-doctor, they need look no further than Mr Noer.

 

According to his misogynistic logic, we are all flighty ninnies incapable of fidelity or multi-tasking. Permit us to have a career, and our morals and the ability to vacuum go out the window.

 

Putting aside the crucial fact that these days most households need two incomes just to make ends meet, Mr Noer is playing fast and loose with a host of questionable statistics.

 

If women who juggle children, marriage and a career are overly stressed, perhaps he should consider why. In the Seventies, when from financial necessity my mother was forced to look for a job, my father said he would ‘permit’ her to work as long as she didn’t fall behind in her other ‘household duties.’

 

These days, most men – including my father – have more sense than to actually voice this view, but that doesn’t mean that many of them don’t secretly think it.

 

A friend once told me that although he loved intelligent female company, he intended to marry an ‘old-fashioned’ girl who had no interest in pursuing a career. An Oxford graduate himself, he claimed he’d had enough of women who tied themselves in knots trying to ‘have it all.’

 

He married a bright, well-educated woman who’d clearly read articles like Mr Noer’s and determined that the way to keep a man was to devote herself to supporting his career.

 

Bored and frustrated, she made both their lives miserable for five years, until she had an affair with her personal trainer and they both went their separate ways.

 

My friend is now blissfully married to a high-powered PR executive whose six-figure salary dwarfs his. They can afford a nanny for their two sons, plus a cleaner and part-time housekeeper to do the domestic chores neither of them can be bothered with.

 

Marriage is about compromise and partnership, not ‘labour specialisation’. Approach it as a business – as Mr Noer does – and sooner or later, you’re going to end up bankrupt.