Indian Writing

Michael Noer of Forbes tells you why you shouldn’t marry a career woman girl:

While everyone knows that marriage can be stressful, recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it. A recent study in Social Forces, a research journal, found that women–even those with a “feminist” outlook–are happier when their husband is the primary breadwinner.

To be clear, we’re not talking about a high-school dropout minding a cash register. 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. If a host of studies are to be believed, marrying these women is asking for trouble.

I’m not even going to begin on this, because the online world has already been having so much fun with this article that Forbes sneakily tried to pull it off the site, as Slate confirms.

Now they seem to have put it back along with a woman journalist’s rebuttal, such as it is.

Jack Shafer of Slate suggests that much of the article, as opposed to the headline, doesn’t really seem to insult women as much as present a gender-neutral set of findings:

Some of the sensational findings presented in the Forbes piece appear to be gender-neutral and hence don’t bait feminists at all. For instance, Noer holds that the literature indicates that “highly educated people are more likely to have had extra-marital sex,” and “individuals who earn more than $30,000 a year are more likely to cheat.” So, if career women are bad marriage bets, so are career men. It’s a wash.

Except that the article is addressed to guys. That part isn’t gender-neutral, is it?

Here’s Boing Boing with the whole story of the killing of the article and its rebirth. Screenshots and all.

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Update: Rediff summarises with customary panache and asks its readers (all of whom are male, one assumes) whether they would marry a career woman:

A recent study published in Social Forces, a research journal, found that women — even those with a ‘feminist’ outlook — are happier when their husband is the primary breadwinner.

Recent studies have also found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it.

What do YOU think? Are you career woman who agrees or refutes this argument? Are you a guy who is attracted to career-oriented women? Or do you prefer a partner who is a homemaker? Tell us.

Desperate for hits, looks like.