As I learned in an excellent documentary about pimping, true manhood is when you have women earning for YOU. This guy needs an attitude adjustment.

Yup it is a sad existence for them. And did you notice? These aren't even the Masters of the Universe. Just guys who were in the mortgage industry etc. No Hedgefund guys, no I-bankers, nothing too out of the ordinary.

OK, here's the thing. I definitely wanted a husband whom I could count on to do everything he could to find and keep a job. We didn't know then that we couldn't have kids and it was important to me to stay at home with them if at all possible. But you marry someone to be a partner, a helpmeet. So I looked for someone to partner me in that role. But if a woman's gonna be all "I'm traditional", i.e. "it's my job to build and keep a home with the money my husband makes", it's damn sure her job to scrimp and save and go without and find whatever work she can to make ends meet when her husband's out of work. I have no patience with these women who use "I'm traditional" (which I totally am) to mean "Bring home the bonbons".

Good post.

Well, shallow guys attract shallow gals. And vice versa.

How, precisely, is The Patriarcy to blame for women being attracted to men who start out the relationship by stating they're going to largely absent for the next 15 years?

Feminists will find it a lot easier to produce social change if they abandon this concept that there's this "thing" out there making men and women act the way they do.

Mike

Ezra, your hatred of bankers does you no credit. Were they "douchebags" before this crisis, or did they only become douchebags after?

Are *all* financiers douchebags, or only those who work with mortgage-backed securities? Are venture capitalists douchebags?

To the extent that the subprime-mortgage industry helped some people afford homes who couldn't have done so before, does that reduce their douchebaggery? So are they only 90% douchebags? Is the rate of douchebaggery proportional to the default rate?

Were they "douchebags" before this crisis

Yes, of course. I had no idea that people regarded I-Bankers any differently. You don't really think that normal people regarded them as the sort of Masters of the Universe they thought themselves to be, did you?

I guess what's so sad is how poseur-y these guys were. Seriously, in your 20s and taking women out to really expensive restaurants, spending $600 to $700/month on dates? Table service at a club which has a $240 minimum? They're all seeking after stuff which is specifically designed to separate them from their money. I make good money now and am gainfully employed, but I spent much of my 20s in graduate school where going to a place like Per Se was more of something you fantasized about doing to celebrate an engagement rather than a expected reality. And now that they're in their late 20s/early 30s, they're watching that fantasy lifestyle they spent their time chasing after go up in smoke.

Someone please send this to Jonathan Franzen. There is a story here that will make an excellent sequel to The Corrections.

There's a Cleveland Chinatown bus? cool, it's the post meltdown HSR system. "You won't be seeing much of me for the next 15 years, honey, because I"ll be on the bus."

Steve, I think Ezra is referring to shallow material obsessed men that predicate their self-worth on buying lavish gifts/dinners for their girlfriends.

Great points Ezra. The only thing I'm not sure I agree with is whether or not I feel sorry for this guy.

I'd have to know; are we talking about a two-time Bush voter? before I could say.

"As I learned in an excellent documentary about pimping, true manhood is when you have women earning for YOU. This guy needs an attitude adjustment. "

Everybody here knows Royce is a virgin whose mother still gives him sponge baths, right?

Hmmm...why is the daily newspaper dying? Perhaps it's because I read basically a story with this exact same premise two or three months ago in Details magazine.

The unemployed guy has a part of a point. You'd prefer your sister to date someone who can keep a job rather than someone who can't (my sister-in-law is married to someone who can't keep a job -- results haven't been good). On the other hand, someone who's going to devote the next 15 years solely to money-making probably doesn't have the values you want in a brother-in-law either.

The unemployed guy has a part of a point. You'd prefer your sister to date someone who can keep a job rather than someone who can't

Why? Is it because an inability to find and keep a job indicates you might be irresponsible or have some other issue (you're an alcoholic, say), or is it because you want your women "taken care of"?

I'm a queer feminist, and I'd sure as hell rather date someone who has the ability to keep a job than someone who can't. For my ex who couldn't keep a job, the traits that kept him from keeping a job also made him not the best partner, and the sheer fact of him not having a job would have been a problem if we'd stayed together.

But I can also keep a job myself, so it's really a matter of wanting someone with whom I can make financial agreements that more or less stick.

Those dudes in "Market for Romance" are a whole different ball game. It's a transactional view of romance which grosses me out, and it boxes both men and women into very narrow versions of their own roles. Sucks to be those guys, but I'd never date one of them.

Also, I'd prefer my brother to date someone who has the ability to keep a job.

"I was so used to using my financial situation to leverage my dating."

Douchebag of the year.

Yeah, the problem with that hot chicks with douchebags site was that no one seemed to realize that the girls likely sucked as well.

And not to mention that the folks most throwing the term "douchebag" are those that most fit the supposed meaning. Trust me, I'm taking a community college class for work with 20-year-olds this semester.

On top of everything else, the ex-Masters of the Universe are now going to crowd us off the China Bus?

I'm not sure that in the current economic environment, losing one's job is much of an indicator of terrible personality traits.

"Feminists will find it a lot easier to produce social change if they abandon this concept that there's this "thing" out there making men and women act the way they do."

Your knowledge on the subject of feminism is more shallow than a puddle, Mikey hon. Stick with topics you know something about - scratching balls and golf. Leave the critical thinking to the women.

I think North nails it: *everybody* ought to have a partner who can pull his or her own weight... or, maybe to be more fair, who has approximately the same capabilities you do. And what kind of New Model Army Soldier would care who a sister dated but not a brother?

---

As for master of the universe guy, you see that effect in a lot of guys: not just thinking that *being* "worthy" is the key to "getting" women but actually taking themselves *out* of consideration when they don't see themselves as worthy enough to "deserve" a partner. Looking at it from a feminist perspective both putting yourself in because you think money makes you attractive, and taking yourself out because you think not having it makes you unattractive, is kind of leaving, you know, actual women's opinions about whether or not they think you're attractive out of the equation.

I don't think there's a patriarchy in the "Elders of Zion / Trilateral Commission" conspiracy sense where there are a bunch of guys all running a giant scam and if we could just get to them (and their minions, of course, all conspiracies have minions, right?) the whole thing would go away.

But I *do* think there's large, interlinked set of behaviors and, especially, interpretations that amount to the same thing... only because there's no central office it's harder to subvert.

Master-of-the-universe guy certainly sounds caught in part of that. And yeah, to that extent patriarchy really is hurting him. On the other hand consider his girlfriend who, since she's still seeing him even though he rides the bus, must have, you know, *loved* him or something even though *he* thought he'd just bought her with all that money. She's doubly screwed in the sense that here this guy was pulling down what sounds like major bucks (or at least major for one's mid-20s, and since he squandered it on show, now that flush times are over he not only won't see her as often as perhaps either of them would like, he *can't.*

figleaf