Wednesday, March 01, 2006

The Happiest Wives and the Dopiest Columnist I'd love to be able to ignore John Tierney because he's such a dope when he writes about modern marriage. You have to wonder what kind of cloistered world he lives in, or if he's stuck in some 1950s childhood fantasy of marriage. But you can't ignore him because he happens to have the platform of the NY Times op-ed page. How much longer will they continue to let him write his willfully ignorant take on the real world of men and women and family? See for example, this paragraph in his latest column "The Happiest Wives" attempting to explain men's higher salaries and a wife's supposed preference that her husband earn more than she does:  Similarly, there's a gender gap in enthusiasm for some outside jobs. Men are much more willing to take a job that pays a premium in exchange for long hours away from home or the risk of being killed. The extra money doesn't seem as important to women. In a more egalitarian world, there would be more wives mining coal and driving trucks, and more husbands cooking dinners and taking children to doctor's appointments. He writes about high-paying jobs like it's a CHOICE women make to bypass them. Women aren't hired for those jobs. Don't you get it? Read here. Never see the movie North Country? Read up. Do some real research. Start with Getting Even: Why Women Don't Get Paid Like Men and What to Do About It. by E.J. Graff and former MA Lt. Gov. Evelyn Murphy. Sure, women who are happier with their marriage like that their husbands earn the big bucks. Comfortable household income mitigates one of the two eternal reasons for marriages going sour: money problems and sex problems. (And by the way, women AND men would prefer to do less housework, and thanks to automatic dishwashers, microwaves, fast food and Zoots, we're all getting away with it.) My rhetorical pistol is loaded for when Tierney gets around to talking about sex and marriage. He'll probably argue that "the Happiest Wives" are those whose men are on top. Just wait. -RH 9:40:25 PM    comment []

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