I’m sure we’ve all seen the statistics that women control most of the purchasing decisions within a family [1]. This is a major reason why so much of marketing and advertising is aimed at women. From the statistics I cited in last week’s essay it is also clear that women are the major beneficiaries of income sharing within the family, on top of being the majority recipients of social benefits. This all breaks down to the fact that women control much of the money within a family, not only their own income, but the income of their husband, or many other men within the society via taxation. This follows from the fact that any social redistribution of income program is largely a process to redistribute money from men to women. Thus, a woman will not only control her own income, as is frequently the case with men.
Any man who has ever lived with a modern western woman knows the distinction between “our money“, which is the income earned by the man, and “my money” meaning the income earned by the woman. Thus, at best the man controls his own income, subtracting the income he contributes to joint expenses. The woman on the other hand controls her own income and part of the man’s income, and in some modern western states also gets specific allowances from the state. If the woman decides that she is not happy and wants to kick the guy out, then the state will rapidly step in to be her daddy.
Therefore, a woman within a family at minimum controls income equal to that of her own, plus part of that of her husband. A single woman at minimum controls her own income, and a single woman with children controls her own income, plus the income received via the state. Thus, it follows that any marketer worth his or her salt will seek to appeal to women.
The Working Woman
The working woman is not really a modern invention, prior to the 1950s or 1960s when home appliances become commonplace within households, being a homemaker was a full time job. If you go back before hot water heaters, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, fridges, and gas stoves, a woman could easily spend 8 – 10 hours a day just keeping up with household chores. So, women were working full-time, just not outside the house. If you go back further into the pre-industrial age, then women would often participate in agricultural work. However, the wage earning woman, working outside of the home and starting to rival men in labor force participation is a fairly new phenomenon starting in the post-war years.
Part of the reason for this was that during WW2, as men were off fighting the war, women stepped in and did many of the jobs that men would normally have done, for instance working in armament factories, and the likes. This was a necessary task, and a source of competitive advantage. However, once the war ended, many women went back to the life as a housewife, and this formed the backbone of the “boomer” years, and the image of the perfect American family.
However, some women had gotten a taste of the independence that comes with earning your own paycheck, and not being dependent on a man. Furthermore, the freedom associated with having the man off fighting a war, and thus being free to engage socially without limitations. Thus, the second wave of feminism hit in the 60s and 70s, demanding women’s right to work and be taken seriously at work.
As we moved along the 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s, we see that women are now eclipsing men in earning degrees, are catching up in labor force participation and income. However, this correlates strongly with women becoming less happy, decade after decade. [2]
Why?
The first question is, if women really wanted to work and their happiness was contingent on working, then how come they are steadily becoming more unhappy? There are other negative aspects as well, such as much higher divorce rates and lower birth rates. One could argue that wage labor contributes to the self-actualization of women, referring to the highest level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and this is perhaps the case for some women. However, if it was the case for all women, then one would not see female levels of happiness drop as they are getting more degrees, better jobs and more money.
One could even argue that a woman who graduates high school at 18, a 4 year college at 22/23, and then spends 4 – 10 years working before she hits her epiphany phase and decides to settle down and have children, has overshot her peak fertility and sexual market window, with the negative effects that come from that.
However, if one looks at reasons for females working, without considering female happiness or the betterment of families what are the effects?
For one, it increases the number of workers available to companies within the economy, meaning that you essentially double the available labor force. This increases competition in the labor force pushing down wages. In addition it increases the amount of money available to be spent for each family, meaning more consumption and demand for the products being produced. It increases tax revenue for the government, as they will be collecting sales taxes, income taxes and various other taxes on more people/more consumption. Finally, it increases GDP. The most interesting thing about the GDP is that a woman who is a homemaker is not producing a benefit for the GDP. However, if two women hired each other in a net zero transaction, style “I’ll do your house, if you do mine, and we’ll pay each other $5000 a year to do it” that would increase GDP.
So, for the government and the corporations, female participation in the labor market has a lot of positive effects, regardless of if it makes women happy or not. The trouble is, that if 2 income families form the baseline of an economy, then the consumption potential will reflect that. If the average American median personal income of the U.S per person is $30,240, and each family has 1 wage earner, that means that services and goods purchased by the family must reflect this level of income. If the norm is a family with two wage earners, then it follows that consumption can instead reflect an income per family of $60,480, which means a lot more consumption.
The Construction of the Female Entitlement
Female entitlement is often reflected on in the manosphere. The core of this is the “having it all” fantasy, which is a fantasy of a world where there are no mutually exclusive choices. It has long been known that men who do extremely well in their careers often select their careers over their families, their personal lives and their long-term health. They sacrifice some aspects of life in order to invest time in other aspects of their life. Time is a zero-sum value, and there is no way of making more.
However, the “having it all” fantasy, is generally composed of the following items:
A) A college education at a 4 year school in the current “in” field. For instance communications, business, or STEM.
B) A high powered job in a glamorous field such as marketing.
C) A “Sex & The City” lifestyle for a period of 5 – 10 years after graduating that in many ways is the very embodiment of consumerism and self-indulgence.
D) After C, a perfect Alpha husband with just enough Beta sprinkled in who earns more, has a higher SMV, and so on.
E) Perfect Children
However, this is a fantasy and while a few select women may be able to live this lifestyle, it is not available to the great majority. This forms an interesting dilemma, as woman cannot blame themselves for being deceived, they instead manufacture happiness through consumption. This is no different than the guy who married the battle-ax escaping to his “man-cave” in the basement or garage to somewhat relive his bachelor days when he was actually able to be himself.
Women, having been told they could have it all throughout their lives, from the time they were little girls, never having to face down reality as they have been carried on a cloud of encouragement for most of their life suffer a hard landing. Normally, this takes place between points C and D, where she realizes that C has severely damaged her ability to realize D. As D is not forthcoming in the time-frame she has designed, this also puts E into jeopardy.
However, as she has been told that she is entitled to A – E, and more, yet have never had to come to terms with the lack of realism in this fantasy. Much like every boy who was told that he could become an astronaut or President, but had to come to terms with it early on in life. These women become the female equivalent of the 38 year old man who still plays in a band and thinks they are just about to make it big. Thus, they find substitutes to attempt to recapture some of the fantasy.
This may be in the form of mindless consumerism, racking up debt to attempt to fill the void they are experiencing with items, trips and various other forms of enjoyment. It may be a full-blown epiphany phase crisis, where she drops everything and decides to go on an “Eat, Pray, Love” tour. However, it will always reflect the “Opportunity cost fallacy” that is central to the female psyche.
The female opportunity cost fallacy, can be formulated in the form of “A man looks at his wife and thinks, nobody’s perfect. A woman looks at her husband and thinks I can do better.” This combined with the tendency to blame shift, leads to blaming her husband for not being the perfect man she is entitled to, her support group for not offering adequate support, and society at large for not delivering what she was promised.
Summary and Conclusions
The “liberation” of women, has not lead to increases in happiness among women. As women to a larger and larger degree become what feminism has told them they could be, they become less and less happy. Divorce rates are high, and many children are growing up in single parent households. However, what the ongoing encouragement and lifting up of women has done is breed generations of women who feel entitled to live out a fantasy. When the realization that this will not come true for them, they compensate with consumerism. Alternatively, they conclude that there is something wrong with their lives (not themselves) and seek to self-actualize on “Eat, Pray, Love” tours.
This is a great benefit for corporations, who win on both sides of the equation. They get access to a more highly educated and larger workforce, thus increasing the competition for jobs, pushing down wages. It gives them a higher chance of finding the candidates they need. Plus, more disposable income means more shit people can buy.
It’s great for Universities and Colleges that due to an increase in demand for education can crank up tuition prices and create more courses thus increasing their revenue and available funds for research, thus increasing their status and respectability within their sector.
It’s great for the Government, as they get higher tax revenues, can push more costs onto the population directly, it increases GDP, and thus the status of the state. Furthermore, the higher level of tax revenue, means more power to the state to expand and become larger.
None of these aspects necessarily serve to make women or men happier, in fact it has created generations of women who adopt more male behavioral patterns, in conflict with their inherent nature. Which has lead to a generation or two of men who have been pushed and manipulated into getting very familiar with their feminine side. This breeds women who are less attractive to men, and men who are less attractive to women.
A note:
I recently launched a Patreon page where I will be posting additional content every month for those who support me and I will do a Google Hangout for the highest tier Patrons (limited to 10 people).
I’ve also had some requests for consults, which I’ve declined up until now, but due to demand I’ve chosen to open up for doing some consults on request. For details please check out my Consulting and Patreon Page
As always you can buy my book Gendernomics at Amazon.com as both paperback and Kindle
Sources
[2] http://ftp.iza.org/dp4200.pdf
