As I sit and wait for Tropical Storm Ernesto to test the strength and resolve of the mammoth oak tree overhanging my home, I study the face of writer Michael Noer, whose charming little satire, "Don't Marry Career Women" recently ran on Forbes.com.
It's the mug of a guy who saw more front seat time than back when out with a hot babe.
I contemplate what horror Mommy Noer must have inflicted upon little Mikey in order to shape the kid into an adult with an obvious hard-on for women with fine-tooled brains and ambition.
How many cheerleaders walked by this guy in high school without a glance his way?
Regardless.
He's a real babe magnet now.
His pick-up line?
"Whatever you do, don't marry a career woman."
Yep. That would work on me.
Right along with my personal favorite, "Hey, does this smell like chloroform to you?"
The social controversy, er, I mean, social commentary, drew heated comments from Girls Gone Professionals everywhere.
So much heat, in fact, that Forbes.com removed the article, later reposting it, accompanied by another article, from a happily married female Forbes writer who's worked for more than 20 years. (WFTV.com, August 25, 2006).
Career women are identified by Noer as university-level (or higher) educated, working more than 35 hours a week outside the home and earning more than $30,000 a year.
"Guys: a word of advice," writes Noer.
"Marry pretty women or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Blondes or brunettes. Just, whatever you do, don't marry a woman with a career."
"Marrying these women is asking for trouble. If they quit their jobs and stay home with the kids, they will be unhappy (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2003). They will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Social Forces, 2006). You will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2001). You will be more likely to fall ill ( American Journal of Sociology). Even your house will be dirtier (Institute for Social Research)."
The moral of Noer's story...
"The more successful the professional woman, the more likely she is to grow dissatisfied with you."
Guys, he didn't leave you out.
Noer cites that "highly educated people are more likely to have had extramarital sex (those with graduate degrees are 1.75 times more likely to have cheated than those with high school diplomas)."
Additionally, individuals who earn more than $30,000 a year are more likely to cheat.
Is salary the commonality of this study?
Do $30,000 somethings seek each other out to cheat because it now takes a two cheater salary to "fling" outside marriage?
Not such an exagerration.
Have you seen the price of a glass of Merlot these days?
Michael, on behalf of accomplished women everywhere.
Get yourself a shrink.
Get yourself a date.
Pay for it if you have to.
Preferably with a Harvard post-grad leather clad dominatrix type with an Indiana Jones bull whip dangling from her professionally manicured finger tips.
30,000 lashes later-
Mikey's a changed man with a whole new outlook.
Career women rule!
http://www.forbes.com/...