Fiscal feminism and the married woman
September 25, 2008
How much money is enough?
When answering this question, single women might have an easier time of it than do women who share their private lives with partners. You go to work and apply 100 percent of your time and earnings to YOU. The right salary is whatever you say it is; whatever keeps you living the life you want to live.
But if you’re a married woman like me, with a husband earning an impressive salary (more than our parents have each ever made per year, to put it in perspective), you might start to find yourself taking “flexible” jobs…or part time jobs. Either of these types of “careers” afford you time to do the chores you used to reserve for weekends: laundry, grocery shopping, house cleaning, etc.
I don’t know exactly how it happened, but over time, my professional life has morphed, and I now spend alot of time trying to make sure that, in addition to running the aforementioned errands, I put a healthy and tasty meal on the table each night of the week, not to mention breakfast and lunch on the weekends. My husband helps. He takes out the garbage. He takes out the recyclables. He loads the dishwasher. And after I’ve spent the day washing and folding our clothes, he always says, very politely, “Thanks for doing the laundry, babe.”
I think that originally, when I decided to pursue a master’s degree on a part time basis, I entered a flexible schedule job (real estate sales) so that I could accommodate a school schedule. I didn’t think to myself, “Hmm…I’ll be getting married soon so I better get ready for the shackles.”
No. I’m emancipated. One day, however, the laundry and the cooking and the picking up his shoes and the long afternoon walks with our dogs, etc. became second nature to me. I don’t regret this change in me. I’ve embraced married life in this way. I am very proud that my husband earns as much money as he does, having navigated the rough waters of Corporate America. And I’m proud of me for making our home a comfortable place to be when we’re not at work or school.
But he earns money…MONEY. And since I don’t charge him for every shirt I fold or picture I frame and hang, I have no way to feel as if I’m entitled to the things that money can buy. I want to get a manicure. It’s a little luxury. I could ask my husband for the money. He would say “yes.” But inside, I’d be telling myself the whole time, “You don’t deserve this. You haven’t earned it.”
If you’re a single gal you know that, for instance, $60,000 per year keeps you in Nine West and Kenneth Cole. You’re happy with that. For a married gal whose husband has bought her the shoes and the handbag for her birthday, how much money is appropriate? What will make me feel like I’m contributing? $20,000? $40,000? $140,000?
I don’t have a hangup about being a housewife, or “domestic engineer” as some say. J*** and I have always agreed that if we decide to have children, one of us will stay home and raise them. I could not assume all the home chores I do, bring in $50,000 per year and have to worry about bringing up well-balanced kids too. No way! I have no idea how my mother did it. For me, the exchange of a real job for a life at home would not be a luxury but an absolute necessity. I get tired just thinking about it.
And let’s be realistic: it’s not like I’m going to drop everything and watch “Oprah” all day long. In fact, women who start sentences with the words “Oprah says…” are to be avoided. They’ve lost the ability to draw conclusions for themselves. I won’t even sit next to them at the park where our kids play together in the afternoon. Instead, I’ll read…literature.
I have a friend with two children in school who considers herself a “full time volunteer.” It’s true. You can never pin her down. She’s always helping to organize school plays and fundraisers, serving on various civic committees for the betterment of the environment or local arts, and assisting women and children in a battered women’s shelter in a nearby urban area. All of this is unpaid and I know that she and her husband feel the pinch. But honestly, is her life any less important than mine because her daily work is not validated by a pay stub?
I don’t think so…but something in my gut drives me to achieve a moment in my life when I can stand up straight and tall, take a deep breath through my nose and grin with the knowledge that I have achieved a six-figure income all on my own. Selling real estate has been lucrative, but not that lucrative. And when I went back to a full time, yet flexible, job as a reporter in the last year, I earned the least amount of money for that year than I’d ever earned since completing my undergraduate degree seven years ago. A few weeks ago, I gave up that job and my first thought was, “Now I know when I’ll be able to do the laundry.” Later, however, I wondered how I would afford my manicure.
What is fair? I’m taking a new job in a related industry for a lot more money. It uses many of my school-acquired skills and many of my street-acquired skills too. I’m really excited about this new venture. But when I get home at the end of the day, the last thing I’ll want to do is pick up my husband’s shoes and whip up a gourmet feast in the kitchen. And I’ll want at least one day on the weekend to play: see a movie, window shop at the mall, lunch with a girlfriend, etc. But I won’t have time to do those things if Saturday becomes the new laundry day and Sunday the day for grocery shopping.
How do I ask for help? Do I even have the right? As hard as I’ll work, my salary won’t beat his. And it’s not that I’m competing with my husband…I’m just competing with me. Does the amount of money we earn directly correlate to the amount of home chores we’re responsible for?
I’m not wishing for a single life again. I’m wishing for an answer.
If you’re married, and your husband earns enough, then how much is enough for you? What’s the magic number that makes a 21st Century wife’s life valid? When does it become okay to let the husband bring in all the dough so that you can bake it…after a long day of charity “work?”
Natalie Dylan: virgin or victim?
Natalie Dylan (pseudonym)
Although Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s eyewear seems to be getting more media attention than the announcement from a 22-year-old woman from California that she will sell her virginity to the highest bidder, the latter incident has not gone entirely unnoticed. Prostitution is largely illegal in the United States – it is legal in Nevada and Rhode Island, so it’s surprising that we Americans are spending more time debating abortion – which then presumptive Supreme Court Justice John Roberts said in 2005 was “settled as a precedent” – than we are about the concept of selling sex for money.
Natalie Dylan (left) has said that rather than work her way through graduate school, she’d like to auction off her virginity – she’s hoping for $1 million – in order to pay for a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy. Presumably, as we are living in a capitalist society which operates according to the principle of supply and demand, there is a demand out there for sex…but not just sex: sex with a virgin.
Of course, news of Ms. Dylan’s scheme has sparked speculation in the blogosphere that perhaps she is not what she says. Could it be that she is lying? Could it be that she is not a virgin, and therefore selling a used good claiming that it is new?
That seems to be the most popular angle on the debate over Dylan’s sex sale: is she or isn’t she a real virgin? What’s the difference? The penis doesn’t leave an impression behind after intercourse. It’s not like there will be grooves in a seasoned vagina that weren’t there before the…uh…seasoning. And any female who has ever used a tampon or participated in youth sports activities has broken her hymen. There will likely be no blood to prove your claim.
Guys, your dick won’t know the difference. Do men secretly want to be Captain Kirk (William Shatner), “boldly go(ing) where no man has gone before?”
If I had $1 million in spare cash just lying around, I wouldn’t pay for sex with a virgin. I’d smuggle ice cream into a secret gathering of women in Afghanistan and move all young girls slated for “circumcision” to a desert island. That way women who aren’t getting laid properly could at least enjoy the pleasure of eating forbidden food. And little girls who are being crippled so that they never have orgasms – EVER – could escape such a cruel, sexless existence.
And if there’s any money leftover, I’d buy something for me. I’m no saint. Behold:
Christian Louboutin $790
It’s not like Dylan will use the whole of her $1 million to pay for school. Graduate school doesn’t cost that much. I see extravagant satin shoes in her future.
But wait: even if somebody does agree to pay big bucks for sex with the big V, doesn’t the aforementioned prostitute get only half of the money that’s tendered? After all, Dylan has agreed to lose her virginity at the Moonlite BunnyRanch in Nevada, one of only a handful of legal brothels. But the location doesn’t come cheap: Dylan will have to fork over half of her earnings when the time comes. If she’s offered $1 million for her virginity, she’ll net $500,000. And BunnyRanch owner Dennis Hof will keep the remainder for…well…for having a keen business sense and the foresight to know that his 1993 $1.5 million investment in the existing brothel would pay off.
Everybody gets rich, I guess.
I had an argument about prostitution with a Marxist feminist wherein she outlined for me how prostitution exploits women. I don’t agree entirely. In the first place, exploitation would mean that a service is being provided without just compensation. In Dylan’s case, she has said up front what “just compensation” means to her. If a woman says that she will provide sex for $100, and she is subsequently paid $100 for that sex, there is no exploitation. If her customer stiffs her – in more ways than one – then there is exploitation. I am assuming that customers pay upfront in these legal brothels. How is there financial exploitation in such cases?
The hole in my argument (or, at least, the wrinkle) is that the house takes 50 percent of the working girls’ earnings. Because prostitution is only legal in these small areas of the country, women (and men where there’s demand) have very few potential employers.
Do real estate agents generally feel exploited by their real estate brokers? If they do, they can switch. Realtor X makes x percent of her commission and Realtor Y makes y percent at a different brokerage. Realtor X can make y percent if he or she changes companies. But a prostitute has few options. In our society, we consider prostitutes to be deviant; suppliers of a deviant product. (We don’t generally think about the level of deviance in the demanding population.) Therefore, we have isolated the identified deviants in small pockets of the country.
Natalie Dylan has said that in this capitalist society, she is going to capitalize on her virginity. But because her options are limited, so is her fiscal yield. It is therefore not capitalism that exploits prostitutes, as the Marxist feminist would argue, but rather moral rigidity in the law. More legal brothels would yield more competition for brothel owners and consequently higher commission splits for sex workers.
This doesn’t completely expound a platform in favor of prostitution. I believe that like most things having to do with our bodies – i.e. sexual preference and reproductive rights – prostitution should be above the law. One reason for the federal government to make abortion uniformly legal was to avoid the state border hopping that was going on prior to Roe v. Wade in 1973. Isn’t that why President George Bush and others are in favor of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage: to avoid mass vigilante behavior across the U.S.? Until more states permit prostitution as a legal means of income, there’s very little threat of such border hopping and mass vigilantism. It’s not likely that the federal government will address the issue any time soon.
I believe there shouldn’t even be an issue. What you do with your own body should be entirely up to you so long as you don’t infringe upon other human beings’ inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
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