Don't get me wrong guys, I'm not a fan and am not advocating her work
However, I heard something on the radio recently about her, talking about marriage and she made a comment that although interesting, was spectacularly deluded, it was something along the lines of 'how marriage benefits men much more than women'
It struck me that this was a a very simplistic (and typically female in a sense) view of the matter, looking at the idea of marriage purely from a woman's perspective, while giving no thought at all to the huge commitment it is from a man's perspective, and all that a man gives up, in order to commit to one woman for the long term
Ok, there are situations where an aimless sad sack of a man, gets transformed for the better, when hitching himself to a woman, particularly in the first year or so, and perhaps this is what she is getting at, but otherwise, I see no sense in her comments and it strikes me as the type of hamsterisation we're all so used to by now, in our dealings with (in particular Western) women
Here's an article which desribes what I'm talking about:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/01/05...iage.book/
And here's the relevant part, I was alluding to above:
CNN: Marriage has often been portrayed as something that protects women. But you found in your book that it benefits men the most. Were you surprised by that?
Gilbert: It's surprising, though it shouldn't be. Looking at study after study, it becomes quite chilling to see how very much benefited men are by marriage. Married men perform in life exceptionally better than single men, they live longer, they're richer, they're happier.
CNN: And yet men are often reluctant to enter into marriage.
Gilbert: Which is the big irony. They have to be dragged kicking and screaming into something that will benefit them enormously in life. And the cruel irony is that the people who drag them kicking and screaming into it -- the women -- are the ones who often find that they've gotten the short end of the stick.
Women give more and as a result they give up more.
I think the other problem is that women go into marriage with such high expectations, really inflated romantic ideas about what this relationship is going to be. Men go into marriage with virtually no expectations whatsoever. Ten years later, the men are delightfully surprised to find out that it's actually kind of nice, and the women have sort of had to take a nose dive from what they thought it was going to be.
However, I heard something on the radio recently about her, talking about marriage and she made a comment that although interesting, was spectacularly deluded, it was something along the lines of 'how marriage benefits men much more than women'
It struck me that this was a a very simplistic (and typically female in a sense) view of the matter, looking at the idea of marriage purely from a woman's perspective, while giving no thought at all to the huge commitment it is from a man's perspective, and all that a man gives up, in order to commit to one woman for the long term
Ok, there are situations where an aimless sad sack of a man, gets transformed for the better, when hitching himself to a woman, particularly in the first year or so, and perhaps this is what she is getting at, but otherwise, I see no sense in her comments and it strikes me as the type of hamsterisation we're all so used to by now, in our dealings with (in particular Western) women
Here's an article which desribes what I'm talking about:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/01/05...iage.book/
And here's the relevant part, I was alluding to above:
CNN: Marriage has often been portrayed as something that protects women. But you found in your book that it benefits men the most. Were you surprised by that?
Gilbert: It's surprising, though it shouldn't be. Looking at study after study, it becomes quite chilling to see how very much benefited men are by marriage. Married men perform in life exceptionally better than single men, they live longer, they're richer, they're happier.
CNN: And yet men are often reluctant to enter into marriage.
Gilbert: Which is the big irony. They have to be dragged kicking and screaming into something that will benefit them enormously in life. And the cruel irony is that the people who drag them kicking and screaming into it -- the women -- are the ones who often find that they've gotten the short end of the stick.
Women give more and as a result they give up more.
I think the other problem is that women go into marriage with such high expectations, really inflated romantic ideas about what this relationship is going to be. Men go into marriage with virtually no expectations whatsoever. Ten years later, the men are delightfully surprised to find out that it's actually kind of nice, and the women have sort of had to take a nose dive from what they thought it was going to be.