Who read last week’s article in the New York Times about Chinese women and their parents requiring a man to show proof of real property ownership as a condition precedent for marriage and wondered immediately, “What century are we in again?”
Women today have access to education, access to pretty much any career of their choosing, and even if their pay may still be lower than men in most cases and even if they experience gender discrimination at the C-levels of corporate professions, even if 9 times out a 10 a female attorney will still get mistaken for a paralegal, women have the autonomy and the resources availed to them to fight tooth and nail for what they deserve, money-wise, status-wise, profession-wise.
So in such a world, a golddigging woman is just lazy.
See, if today as a woman I were banned from pursuing higher education, if somehow I had neither the god-given strength nor resources to shatter glass ceilings and lacked any capability whatsoever to negotiate against a male-dominant society for my own seat at the table, then sure, I would be a golddigger. Why the hell not? That wouldn’t be lazy of me. That would be realistic.
However, women today do pursue higher education, especially in China where it is said that female students are outperforming the male students in academic institutions, and women do have the strength and resources to break barriers, to negotiate for higher earnings, and to be the ambitious, cutthroat competitors they innately are to not just get a seat at the table, but to sit at the head of it. Thus, women with these opportunities who nevertheless choose to be golddiggers are just lazy. And parents who encourage their daughters to gold-dig are enablers of this despicable laziness.
“A lot of girls, encouraged by their parents, see marriage as a way of instantly changing their status without the hard work,” says one scorned Chinese bachelor.
The bachelor’s former girlfriend’s mother peppered him with questions about his salary and fiscal plans for the future. When it became clear to the mother that his plans did not include home ownership any time soon, the girlfriend broke off the romance. The implication there is that the mother pressured her daughter into finding a wealthier mate.
If that girlfriend/daughter came from poverty, if her family could not aid her in obtaining a college degree, then well yeah, I give her the two thumbs up for golddigging. Girl, you gotta do whatchu gotta do.
These girlfriends/daughters though, are far from little match girl conditions. Rather, they are similarly situated with young Miss Gao, for instance. Miss Gao is an accountant and, as the article not-so-discretely points out, an aficionado of designer suits. She seems poised to achieve financial stability on her own merits, and yet declares that a man is obligated to tell her on their first date whether he owns an apartment. In other words, if he does not, she can end it there and not fall in love with the guy through false representation of prospective home ownership. That is not doing whatchu gotta do, girl; that’s just being a lazy ass. Why roll up your sleeves and earn what you want when you can marry a guy and then spread them (or spread them and then marry a guy, the chronology is at your discretion) and get him to give it to you instead?
“Women are putting economic factors above everything else when looking for a mate, and this is not a good thing for relationships or for society.”
Yeah. First, it’s throwing a middle finger at first- and second- wave feminist efforts. Second, since we’re talking about the PRC here, it’s not holding up half the sky, it’s sunbathing beneath a guy while his arms tremble from holding so much on his own and, on top of that, demanding of him, “Geez, can’t you hold up more of it?”
I am fine with a woman putting economic factors above everything else, only if wealth is an ambition she is personally willing to work for. What I am not fine with is a woman who takes up space, yields negative utility to society, and nags at the man, “Hey. Go earn more money. I want to be wealthy.”
“70 percent of single women in a recent survey said they would tie the knot only with a prospective husband who owned a home.”
Finally, and yes that virus of an issue is going to get brought up right here right now, a consequence of 70 percent of China’s women being effectively golddiggers is greater interracial relationship disparities, i.e. greater appeal for Asian female to White male pairings.
Foreigners to China (read here: White men) tend to be better financially situated than native Chinese men. As mentioned in the article, Mr. Wang makes $900 US a month as a 28-year-old college-educated insurance salesman. In the United States, Mr. Doe of like background can make at least $3,200 US a month.
If Mr. Doe were to move to China with what he’s saved from that $3,200 a month salary, he stands a far better chance than Mr. Wang to own a home in China and therefore, will be more appealing to that 70 percent of single Chinese women. It goes without saying that Mr. Doe in China will have far more opportunities to earn more than $900 US a month than Mr. Wang and will be in a far more privileged position than Mr. Wang.
Therefore Mr. Doe has his pick of the litter in China while Mr. Wang is left to sift out one not-so-lazy girl from the remaining 30 percent. Hot dang those are not good odds.
[h/t John]
[Photo courtesy of NY Times]
