Forbes appears to be in quite a spot of trouble after a controversial article from Michael Noer about the apparently dim prospect of marrying “career” women. The article, originally posted August 22 but subsequently taken down and reposted with a counterpoint,, contained some choice tidbits seemingly designed to raise the ire of working women everywhere:
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.
“Those with a ‘feminist’ outlook” shot back in droves. Boing Boing archived parts of the article after Forbes took it down. The blog Pandagon saved the accompanying sidebar that still has not resurfaced on the website. Another blog, Feministe, fired off a point-by-point riposte. Jennifer Saylor took the simpler route of merely changing all the gender pronouns to create Don’t Marry Career Men. And Salon managed to elicit responses from the likes of Gloria Steinem and Travelocity CEO Michelle Peluso. Ah, but Jack Shafer at Slate would like to remind you that the article isn’t all that offensive, chastising women ready to “break their nails pounding out angry e-mails to me” while at the same time debunking some of Noer’s points. Maybe if he dropped the attitude his point would come across clearer.
This isn’t the first time one of Noer’s articles has come under fire. (While other bloggers have noted that “The Economics of Prostitution” was taken down along with “Don’t Marry Career Women,” it appears to be back on the Forbes site.)



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five comments
The counterpoint article, written by Forbes contributor Elizabeth Corcoran, is interesting for several reasons. For one, it glosses over what seems to me to be a more compelling reason for many of the issues Noer brought up: two-income families struggling to make ends meet.
If you know any two-income families able to afford such services, please let me know so they can adopt me and fund my ill-advised drinking vacation in Paris.
It's also interesting to note the contrast in tone between Corcoran's article and the blog posts I've linked. The standard operating procedure in the blog world is to set the outrage and snarkiness dials to 11; Corcoran takes a lighter approach. Ultimately, though, who's more successful at the fine art of rebuttal?
Posted by Wesley
August 24, 2006, 1:45 PM
ugh!!!! Shame!!!! GRRRR!!!!
I can't even articulate my anger regarding this article. As a young woman who wants to have a career and a family, these perceptions frustrate me because they blame the woman for the pressures and problems that women face when balancing roles in the workplace and at home. At 19, I am already worrying about excelling as a journalist and a mother in the future. Maybe Mr. Noer should look into how pregnant women are treated in the worksplace, or how they are punished for taking maternity leave. Maybe he should consider that women are STILL expected to take on most of the unpaid work in the house, and that we still don't get equal work for equal pay. Maybe he should consider that not all women want to have children and that's their choice and partners should discuss these kinds of issues before they get married.
GAH!
Posted by Kaley
August 24, 2006, 4:15 PM
I was just about to blog about this, but Wes beat me to it. We "career girls" sure are trouble! I'd better get back into the kitchen...
Posted by Melinda
August 24, 2006, 4:49 PM
Did anyone notice that on top of being beyond sexist (And is Noer like, as dense as a piece of pound cake? Did he not realise that this article just makes him look stoopid? Sorry, my snarkiness levels are at 11), it's also classist: "To be clear, we're not talking about a high-school dropout minding a cash register."
And not to mention that he drops the "R" word without really going into what he means: "Many factors contribute to a stable marriage, including the marital status of your spouse's parents...age at first marriage, race."
Rebecca Traister in her response at Salon mentions that the data Noer relies on to show why marriage to career gals = bad, applies to white women and in fact shows the opposits stats for black women.
Does this mean that we can look forward to Noer's next article, "Don't Marry a White Girl. Maybe Marry a Black Girl. Better Yet, Marry a New Immigrant. Hopefully One that Doesn't Speak English."?
Posted by thea
August 26, 2006, 3:27 PM
The original article is 100% correct. For men who are in danger of marrying a modern westernised woman go to the website: www.nomarriage.com Also visit www.savethemales.ca (articles on truth about feminism).
Posted by UGK
May 9, 2007, 5:38 PM
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