Mr. Mom All The Rage? Only in The New York Times
If the New York Times is to be believed, and I realize that that’s a stretch, apparently the hottest new accessory for powerful, successful career women working on Wall Street and living the feminist dream today isn’t a Fendi bag or a pair of Manolo Blahniks. It’s a stay-at-home husband. Consider the case of Marielle Jan de Beur:
Ms. Jan de Beur and some of her colleagues rely on support that growing numbers of women on Wall Street say is enabling them to compete with new intensity: a stay-at-home husband.
In an industry still dominated by men with only a smattering of women in its highest ranks, these bankers make up a small but rapidly expanding group, benefiting from what they call a direct link between their ability to achieve and their husbands’ willingness to handle domestic duties. The number of women in finance with stay-at-home spouses has climbed nearly tenfold since 1980, according to an analysis of census data, and some of the most successful women in the field are among them.
Even though the Liberal Death Star would like us to believe that this trend is all the rage, the phrase “climbed nearly ten fold since 1980” in an obviously agenda-driven story like this one screams “minuscule numbers.” If there were millions of dudes falling all over themselves to get fitted with aprons, they would have said so. I suspect that the reality is that this exciting movement for social change, demonstrating the unstoppable march of liberal progress, consists of, at most, a few thousand couples on each coast.
Once again, militant feminists, so desperate to transform a society in which, either because of their unfortunate physical appearances or the resentment and rage that oozes out of every one of their enlarged pores, or both, are trying to convince normal people that traditional gender roles are so 1950’s. To be truly modern, we must smash those bourgeois attitudes! Get with it, Guys! The little woman isn’t so little anymore. She is woman! Hear her roar, and get your butt back in the kitchen!
Granted, there are exceptions to every general rule, and I don’t doubt that there are some men who might be delighted to be the happy homemaker while their wives kick corporate butt 16 hours a day, and arrive home expecting their martinis chilled, their slippers ready for them to slip into and their pipes at the ready. Perhaps, given how politically-incorrect smoking has become today, the pipe thing is a tad over the top, but you get the idea. For most couples, though, this arrangement would be a disaster for a very simple reason. the wiring of the male brain.
I’m sorry. I don’t make the rules, but I as a veteran wife, I can tell you what they are. A simple example from my own personal experience will suffice to make the point. On numerous occasions, I will say to the Husband “Did you enjoy your sandwich, Dear?” He will respond with a blank look, and reply “how did you know I had a sandwich?” I’m no psychic, nor do I have a surveillance camera in the kitchen — although now that I think of it, that’s not the worst idea in the world — but I am a female with eyes that can see the sprinkling of crumbs, the knife encrusted with dried mustard, and all of the other evidence of man food preparation that he left behind.
In years past, before I had the benefit of the life experience of veteran wifedom, I might have been angry that he didn’t clean up after himself. No more. Now I understand that he literally can’t see these messes he makes. He actually thinks he left the kitchen in pristine condition when the opposite is true. He can’t help it. His brain isn’t wired that way. That, and the fact that testosterone is the hormone of tunnel vision, but that’s a subject for another day.
It’s a scientific fact, as this story in the Daily Mail reports. Women are not only better at multi-tasking, an essential skill for taking care of children while preparing meals and keeping things in order at home, our brains are wired to respond to a crying child immediately, while men’s brains allow them to continue watching the game. That explains a lot, doesn’t it, Ladies?
Even the New York Times has to admit the obvious: “A few women said that they resented the fact that their husbands did not cook or clean up, but that they had trouble telling them so, for fear that they would sound as if they were treating them like employees.”
If you really want to emasculate the already emasculated house husband, start nagging him!
So, dream as they might over at the New York Times about the feminist, brave new world of high-powered, glass-ceiling smashing females and feminized domesticated males, another trend is closer to reality; that is, educated women choosing to stay home with their children. Choice, isn’t that what feminism was supposed to be all about?
Image; Courtesy of: http://www.lynnefeatherstone.org/2010/09/lynne-featherstone-mp-visits-special-dads-playgroup-at-new-highgate-childrens-centre.htm
