Mothers are rejecting equality in the workplace and prefer the idea of becoming full-time housewives – but not ones who actually do housework. This is the overall conclusion of research among 2,100 British adults that says women are happy to abandon the workplace but not if it means spending all day at home cooking, cleaning and looking after children. Instead they want to play the “role” of housewife with a little help from, for instance, a nanny, and someone who does the ironing. And unlike Kylie Minogue, they don’t want to do any dusting either.The report, by Marian Salzman, chief strategic officer of Euro RSCG Worldwide, the world’s fifth largest advertising agency, describes these women as princess-style “domestic divas” who effectively exploit their husbands. “Today, ‘women’s lib’ means wanting to be liberated from the intense pressures of the modern-day working mum,” she said….
Her research suggested that the motivation to spend more time at home was “self-centred” for some women. “There are many women who choose to stay home out of concern for their children’s quality of life,” she said. “But there are plenty of others who are paying lip service to being the 2004 version of the perfect mum.
“In reality they are domestic divas who want the flawless kids, courtesy of the nanny; a spotless home, thanks to a cleaning service; and a reputation for being a fabulously put-together homemaker. “These are the women who are becoming a target of disdain and rage on the part of spouses who didn’t expect to be shouldering the financial burden single-handedly.”
But Miss Salzman said the reality was that women with older children were increasingly becoming self-indulgent. “They look at the realities of paid work – the stress, the politics, the pressure, the dress code – and they say that it would mean less ‘me’ time. “And we are not just talking about women who earn lots of money. Women who earn £27,500, or £55,000, or more than £55,000 did not want to work, and men are feeling a great deal of financial pressure. “Women think: ‘What’s mine is mine, and what’s his is mine.'”
This would explain why the much-ballyhooed British Bride service was a flop. It is amazing to learn how shockingly lazy many women are, though. I hail from a relatively wealthy family and I see an awful lot of women that I mentally categorize as “The Useless”, who simply don’t do anything, anything at all, but shop. And I’m not counting the tennis wives either, who tend to be the more traditional homemakers whose kids are out of the nest and whose husbands are often retired. No, I’m talking about the gaggles of butterballs you see at the coffee shops, who sit there gossiping and bitching about their hard lives for hours in the middle of the day – I know because I’m there for hours too when I’m working on a book – and who, based on their conversation, have literally nothing to do.
It’s no wonder that so many of these women are miserable and unhappy; knowing that you are a useless member of society who is contributing nothing to your marriage, your family or society has to be a terrible, soul-destroying thing. The sad thing is that they continue to look outside themselves for fulfillment, when they themselves are the only ones who can do anything about it.
These statistics are also telling:
“The basic problem is that expat men don’t want expat women, and Russian men don’t want expat women,” said notorious ex-Moscow Times columnist Owen Matthews, best known for his nightlife column “Batwing Soup.” “That doesn’t leave eXpat women with much room to maneuver.” Everyone here knows that there is far more cross-fertilization between expat men and Russian women than between expat women and Russian men. Evidence of this comes not only from observing bars and parties, but also in the form of statistics.Karmen Bruyeva, the director of the Dvorets Drakosochetanya #4 (marriage registry), which handles marriages between Russians and foreigners, noted that of the roughly 1,200 marriages between foreigners and Russians that she registers annually, only about 40-50 are between Western women and Russian men. When asked why this was the case, Bruyeva threw up her hands and said, “I don’t know-you tell me!”
Zhanna Kaminskaya, a partner in the International Agency Gimeni, a Russian marriage agency, has an answer. She says that Russian men simply aren’t attracted to Western women. “Western women can scare them away,” she said. Only one Western woman has actually tried to use her agency to find a Russian man. “I’m puzzled as to why Western women don’t want a Russian man. I think Russian men are nice, normal guys.”
Now, I suppose it’s possible that what Russian men and American men want are entirely different. But isn’t it more likely that we’re simply seeing the results of the drastic program of behavior and expectations modification performed by the feminist movement over the last forty years? Especially since the same thing is being seen in Asia:
UNTIL fairly recently, there weren’t that many single Caucasian career women in Singapore, or in Asia for that matter. More seem to have come, mainly with hopes of fast-tracking their careers, though it doesn’t appear to be doing likewise for their private lives. The topic was dealt with last month in an Asian Wall Street Journal article by Stan Sesser.In it, he quoted executive Julia Sleva, a 30-something Canadian living in Bangkok. Apparently, Ms Sleva’s on the career superhighway, but her love life moves slower than peak-hour Bangkok traffic. Most Caucasian men in Bangkok are either married, gay or have a young Thai hanging on their arm, while most Thai men don’t date expat women, she complains.
Sesser adds: ‘The difficulties of many single white women in Asia are so widespread that counsellors are dealing with it every day.’ It’s apparently no different in Singapore.
One British female friend tells me: ‘Many Caucasian men arrive as normal human beings and morph into total idiots after sleeping their way around the SPG [Sarong Party Girl] hangouts. ‘They can’t go back home and find a woman because it would shatter their illusions of being a sex god.’ Another friend, an Australian, adds: ‘Everywhere you look, a white guy is holding an Asian girl’s hand. What’s left for us?
Obviously, the rise of lesbian chic. And you wonder if these bitter women have ever considered that those men don’t prefer Asian women because they harbor illusions of being a sex god, but because they simply prefer spending their time with pretty women who are attracted to them and treat them like decent human beings instead of spending it with demanding, self-centered narcissists who openly consider them to be idiots.
Now, it is possible to find a nice, beautiful, good-hearted American woman. Space Bunny is the poster girl for proving that such beings do exist. But I had to burn through an awful lot of girls to find her; speaking as a tri-lingual man who has lived in America, Europe and Asia, it’s quite evident that they can be found much more easily elsewhere.
