A heterosexual male friend of mine told me that he’d thought it would be easier to find a mate here in America, since he wasn’t expected to find a virgin. But it was turning out to be a harder, because none of the women he met thought he had enough money.
He was from Jordan.
.
Studies show the number one factor in a woman’s decision to consider a man for a partner is his earning potential. I suppose this is wise enough, or rooted in biology, or both.
I myself have always found it odd that it is perfectly polite for a woman to ask a potential partner pointed questions about his job and financial resources. Few women ever get a chance to answer these questions, which I guess is good, because they would have to worry about making men feel insecure.
And I myself have always found it odd that a large number of women describe their partners as “good providers.” Usually in a sentence like this: “Sam’s a lot of things, but he’s a good provider.”
Isn’t that just another way of saying, “I pursue a romantic relationship with this person because of its effect on my finances”? Not to be blunt, but I think I know the word for that.
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Equal rights would mean that men are no longer providers any more than women.
I do know this much about male psychology: as long as women don’t find a man attractive unless he makes more money than she does, men are never going to let women earn as much money as men. We’ll have to kill them all first.
I think think-it-be-it might even apply here. Do you already resent your spouse for not being a better provider? Is that what you brought him home for?
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So in conclusion, I don’t think we’ve done so well inventing the brave new world of shared male/female power. The result is a problem beyond the lack of sense that it makes, beyond the social damage to the both sets of psyches, beyond the income discrepancy.
It’s making it harder for us to like each other.
Because what is it that dominates our decisions about the opposite sex now? Why, the nastiest parts of our judgment: body image and finance. People-as-livestock and people-as-ATMs. Yuck.
Why, those are exactly the same factors that used dictate our decisions in this regard! Fifty years ago! How queer!
(Wait, I left out one more factor: warped psychological grooves left behind by our relationship with our parent of the opposite sex. No, hold on, I meant to leave that out. Moving on.)
If we want to really be equal, we have to forcibly forget the ways we’ve been raised to evaluate members of the opposite sex. People are people, and we like the ones that are entertaining. The ones that are good company.
End of story. Pick that way; compete that way; forget the rest.
What other way is there? Equal is equal. Good luck.
(yes, yes I did.)