June 15, 2012

"For the longest time I would not date anyone who would now be called a one-percenter because money and power are such a potent combination..."

"... and if I am going to be bossed around, I don't want that to be the reason. When it's come up, I have chosen not to get married. Over and over again, I have opted for my integrity and independence over what was easy or obvious. And I am happy. I don't want everyone to live like me, but I do expect educated and able-bodied women to be holding their own in the world of work."

Says Elizabeth Wurtzel, who's blaming the "war on women" on the "one percenters" and insisting that "real feminists" earn their own living, and proclaiming that there's " only one kind of equality... and it's economic."

She's irritating for about 10 reasons, including the fact/fiction that rich men are clamoring to marry her.

91 comments:

dreams said...

The war on the one-percent continues. I'm going to assume they don't need any help from me.

Skyler said...

Ann zinged, "She's irritating for about 10 reasons, including the fact/fiction that rich men are clamoring to marry her."

Well played.

Meow.

KJE said...

Assuming I were rich; I could buy far prettier than she is.

madAsHell said...

How can you read that tripe? I couldn't get past this line: "Being a mother isn't a real job -- and the men who run the world know it."

This is how a 14-year-old girl rationalizes being left out.

Sorun said...

She's not bad. And to old rich Chinese guys, I bet she's super hot!

Anonymous said...

She's probably talking about her youth.

I don't know. My mom was no feminist when young, nor is she now - a stylish, smart Mad Men era vixen in a bad marriage. After her youngest (me) had gotten old enough, she got a little job. I will never forget how that little crap job changed the entire power dynamic of the household.

My older sister OTOH is a loud and vocal dominant feminist with a law degree - who doesn't work. She's a soccer mom. She absolutely rules the household, but I truly believe the only reason her husband (a good guy) can deal is that he earns the $$$ and she takes yoga classes and goes to craft fairs. IOW, no matter what she does, he's got the balls of the family. It makes her a bit of a paper tiger.

I really have no conclusion here other than - yeah, money matters in power dynamics. A lot.

Shanna said...

What about the other 99%?

Revenant said...

There are still one or two aspects of ordinary American life in which women are NOT doing much better than men are.

This is known as "the war on women". Only a war could stop women from claiming their rightful place as the uniformly superior gender.

Valentine Smith said...

I met her when she had her 15 minutes. Let's just say SSRIs are wonderful but they don't perform miracles.

ricpic said...

Rich men boss their wives around? Not in this matriarchy.

chickelit said...

She's at a delicate age...

Valentine Smith said...

Oh, I forgot. She's irritating in person as well.

Sydney said...

To be a stay-at-home mom is a privilege, and most of the housewives I have ever met -- none of whom do anything around the house -- live in New York City and Los Angeles, far from Peoria.

That girl needs to get out more

LordSomber said...

Maureen Dowd 2.0

edutcher said...

Note, por favor, we don't see a photo of our little 99%er in the article.

madAsHell said...

Some reporter put a knot in Obama's panties cuz he interrupted Obama's amnesty announcement.

YoungHegelian said...

So this woman has two books to her credit and is a lawyer at Boies, Schiller & Flexner in New York.

Could someone explain to me how she could be anything other than a 1%?

Well, at least it's good for old times sake to hear a lefty mouth the classical Marxist line that culture mores are epiphenomena of economic structures. It's just never stated so plainly anymore, probably because no one believes it anymore on the left.

chickelit said...

Ah, I see by cursory googling that Wurztel detested Sarah Palin for the same reasons that Carol Herman refused to tell me about.

I love my own personal litmus tests.

SteveR said...

From what I can see, she should probably consider any decent offer.

Anonymous said...

You know, I forgot who she was. Now I remember her "Prozac Nation" days (1994). She was considered very attractive indeed IIRC. With her background, Harvard and Yale and the pr circuit she would have been on, she probably did have quite a few proposals from 1%. She (somewhat ironically) had that "lost girl" Fiona Apple thing going on. I'm going to give her props for taking the harder road and working out her personal demons. We all have to do it one way or another

Interesting: She got a bad LSAT score and was admitted for "Prozac Nation" etc.

(tag: Nostalgia!)

MadisonMan said...

My advice to her?

If you're going to earn a living as a writer, at least be original. Is there anything that she said that hasn't been said better by others? That's a question even if you disagree with her.

Seriously: she writes horribly.

Scalito said...

Wurtzel sold copies of her book by appearing topless on the cover with a "tasteful" shadow obscuring her nipples. What a feminist hero---she proved that a woman can make it as an author by stripping and posing provacatively for male readers!

Amartel said...

Integrity? Independence?
She's a slave to a politicized fantasy world and willfully blind to reality. She's unhappy with her own life and looking for a scapegoat. Aha! Other women, rich women, have let her down; it's all their fault. Then follows all this delusional verbiage in the service of making similarly situated women, and the drones who worship them, feel better about themselves so they'll vote to maintain the delusion.

Notice how it always comes down to the money for greedy little girls and boys like this one. Other peoples' money, of course, since they don't have what it takes to earn what they want on their own.

Chicks like this remind me of guys who purport to "hate" the military or the corporate world. The subject of their "hate" is really the subject of their great envy and secret admiration and what they actually hate is that they know they wouldn't measure up.

Michael K said...

Whatever makes her feel good about herself. It would be nice if she didn't blab about it.

This sounds like what women with 40 cats say,

n.n said...

I'm guessing she is not a fan of the natural order and has little respect for the enlightened order (other than her own dignity). She needs a beta male to complement her ego.

n.n said...

Amartel:

It is traditional knowledge that envy and impotence are such a potent combination.

BarryD said...

...because wives like this: http://www.amazon.com/More-Now-Again-Memoir-Addiction/dp/0743223314 are what all men crave!

Ipso Fatso said...

"Note, por favor, we don't see a photo of our little 99%er in the article."

I thought the same thing, google her. No great loss IMO.

Freeman Hunt said...

Money is the point of life. We know this because dying people are always asking to have coins and bills stacked around their beds.

Freeman Hunt said...

Who would she have raise the children? Other real feminists who are raising children as a paid job?

How about if my best friend and I each pay each other equal amounts to raise each other's kids, but then we switch kids for the convenience? Feminist power!

chickelit said...

Ipso Fatso said...
I thought the same thing, google her. No great loss IMO.

Ah but that's subjective. I'm sure she had her prime. But what about her mind? Her thinking is contagious. Just because Wurtzel removed herself from the future generations won't inhibit her way of thinking.

Freeman Hunt said...

Additional Dumb Moment in Feminism:

Today on Facebook someone shared a state ACLU image that read, "Vagina. If you can't say it, don't legislate it."

What does that mean?

It's the making women nod thing again.

paul a'barge said...

I wonder who did the injections on her lips? It must have cost some change.

Paddy O said...

Interesting that she would refuse to marry a 1%er but assumes that it's noble that she is not, thus, married.

What about those other 99%?

Michael said...

Sounds like she is fucking a young and poor Occupy guy. Why else would a grown woman use the "one percent" meme when it is such bullshit and so failed yesterday. She is showing loyalty here, fealty actually, to the youth she has found herself with. And whom she bosses. Because. She. Is. A. One. Percenter.

Scalito said...

Wurtzel reminds me of some of my wife's friends who couldn't understand when we were first dating why she would participate in entertainment that I enjoyed and she merely tolerated. Silly things, like going to the movies to watch a mindless flick with lots of fighting. Why compromise her time like that, they actually asked, forcing her to point out that I did the same thing for her and that's what you do in a relationship. These same friends were horrified, like Wurtzel would be, that my wife abandoned a legal career to raise our baby. One of them stated bluntly that my wife owed it to society to work. What did it matter if my wife enjoyed corporate law about as much as she enjoyed my mindless movies?

That is how these women were raised taught to think, and I pity them for it because most of them are now my friends too and they are unhappy. They spent their twenties proving that they only needed men for casual sex, and are now entering their mid thirties desperate to comprise on the first guy who will put a ring on their finger. But the men in their social circles who aren't married aren't as interested as they used to be---they are dating the twenty somethings.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Beyond annoying. She tells herself lies and is smug about her perception of herself as being superior.

Being a feminist to her is all about being a career woman and how much money you make? How shallow.

Marriage is a team effort. A family is a team effort. If part of the team is more valuable as a stay at home wife/mother and both people on the team are benefiting from the arrangement, just who in the Hell does this woman think she is to be able to judge other people's lives.

Doc Holliday's Hat said...

I think I understand modern militant feminism now. It does not seek a world of equality between men and women, it seeks a world of absolute independence for women. The funny thing is that even in the most misogynistic fever dreams of the past men still relied on women albeit often in a subordinate role, but they chose not to take on life alone. And to that I say fine. Live your lonely life and die out. I'll try to find a woman who wants me to be her partner and hope we have plentiful healthy confident babies who realize that people need more than just themselves to be happy.

virgil xenophon said...

@DBQ

If it weren't for a) her husband and b) my wife of 39 years, I'd propose marriage...dead on target once again, DBQ..

Anonymous said...

Scalito,

Your wife did it for love, the bad movies, love of your child( I'm presuming). Also how could the love of corporate law trump the love of humans? Hard for me to wrap my head around.

My daughter is facing a dilemma, not unusual in our economy and the times we live in. She is in her very early 30's, she will be getting married in fall and they want to start a family right away. Her fiancé is in marketing, tough field in this economy. My daughter is an attorney. So her desire to stay at home with their future children is dashed, she will the the main breadwinner.

I wish she had a better choice. I think that young women with careers don't have as much freedom to follow their heart as did women even 10 years ago.

This writers outlook is outdated.

Methadras said...

Oh please. She's your typical urban, east coast bug-eyed bitch that places more street cred on how whiny she can be vs. how smug and elitist she can be in delivering her type of candor. If I was a 1% I'd just find a way to throw her out a window.

chickelit said...

his writers outlook is outdated

This is where Oma Allie should step up to plate as in former Soviet times.

chickelit said...

(last comment should be read with Russian accent)

Anonymous said...

Chickelit, Oma Aliie has every intention of helping out where I can. That's the way it was done in the old world, some traditions are worth keeping.

Michael Haz said...

Men seem to never obsess over stuff like this.

We just work hard and want to be treated with love and fairness while we wait for the heart attack.

Paddy O said...

Allie, my wife and I were in the same situation.

Not that my advice is of much worth, but I would suggest that if she's in her early 30s to not have kids right away. Wait a couple of years. Let them experience married life together, on their own, for a while is so, so helpful to build the kind of trust and communication that having kids absolutely needs.

Moreover, it takes some of the bite out of the old "what if" dilemma that is a cancer in so many marriages.

I love our new daughter, and I love that we waited 2.5 years to have her, even though my wife is now 34 and I'm 37.

It gave me a chance to get 90% through a PhD program and establish me as employable. It gave her a chance to work, to explore, to live in a position of income making that, honestly, will also serve us both for years to come. It's humbling being the man whose expenses are paid for, but it's a good humbling in many cases.

There's no rush for kids anymore. Anyway it works, however, I'm sure that having a good family network will make all the difference. Blessings to you and your daughter's marriage!

Valentine Smith said...

Bottom line: Wurtzel is incapable of forming a healthy bond with another human being, especially a bairn. That's what her feminism is really all about.

Anonymous said...

Good advice PaddyO. Your ages are very similar to my daughter and future son in law. I'm hoping they would consider doing what you and your wife have done. I've suggested that her fiancé go back to school, look into a different field.

But they are hesitent to do so. He is in on the ground floor of a new business, which has grown even in this economy, mainly because it's in a college town dealing with services for students.

My hope is that our economy improves and they find themselves able to start their family in better circumstances.

lowercase said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
chickelit said...

Sorry smiley, but Wurtzel's piece is filled with vile screed mostly aimed at Anne Romeny. Her earlier work directed insults at people like Sarah Palin.

Whoever nailed Wurtzel as Dowd.2.0 was spot on. No need for you to come on here and insult everybody. :)

Known Unknown said...

For all the talk of right wing logic v left wing feelings, I count 14 ad hominem attacks, 13 whose basic misunderstandings shows they didn't read the article, 7 neutral, 5 a mix of dealing with her ideas and one of the above, and only 4 that deal solely with her ideas.

Kudos! You can do maths!

Fen said...

insisting that "real feminists" earn their own living,

Then why do I have to pay for her birth control? No one is paying for mine but me.

William said...

She's good looking and smart. I suppose she could find someone to marry, but she must be self aware enough to know that her chances of having a happy marriage are less than Charley Sheen's. Perhaps she could get another book out of it, but that's the best case scenario. She should keep in mind that sales will be better if she marries someone rich and famous. The downside of marrying a one percenter is that those pricks all insist on killer prenups.....I can sympathize somewhat with her plight. In the final analysis, the reason why I broke up with the Olson twins wasn't the difference in our ages or even society's absurd prohibitions against polygamy and incest. No, the real reason for the break up was tne enormous gap in our relative incomes. I just wasn't comfortable with the power dynamic.

MadisonMan said...

Today on Facebook someone shared a state ACLU image that read, "Vagina. If you can't say it, don't legislate it."

What does that mean?

Some dust-up in Michigan.

Link.

Freeman Hunt said...

Paddy O., normally I agree with you, but I have too many friends who followed that advice and ended up tens of thousands of dollars poorer and unable to have the families they'd hoped to be able to have.

Marketing's not so bad. Maybe we'll get rid of Obama soon, and marketing will be back up.

Freeman Hunt said...

MM, thanks. Oh my, it's even more stupid than I would have guessed. What has happened? Are the standards for women now so low that we can really say any idiotic thing, and people will come to our defense?

"Snerkle snerkle snerkle lee! Boddity boo nockle knee!

"It's lady-talk. Can I get some mad props? Equality, y'all! Crotches! Yahoo! Go feminism!"

Henry said...

if I am going to be bossed around, I don't want that to be the reason

She prefers to be bossed around by her own super-ego.

bagoh20 said...

What is so hip about having 20 year old stale ideas that nobody is happy with following?

Try being stupid and happy, it's way better. Which is smart, if that's what you need it to be.

bagoh20 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Paul said...

Well Ann, I'm married now so I'm off the market. BUT, maybe 30 years ago if some rich damsel had batted her eyes at me, well sure I'd take her out (or she take me out as she has the bucks.)

Sadly my wife was no rich damsel and I sure was not rich gent. But we are still happily married for many many moons.

This Ms. Wurtzel though has a problem with her perception of herself.

I think it's called being 'stuck up'.

Writ Small said...

As a man, I understand where Ms. Wurtzel is coming from.
For the longest time I would not date anyone who would now be called a Supermodel because youth and sex appeal are such a potent combination and if I am going to be diva-whipped, I don't want that to be the reason. When it's come up, I have chosen not to date them. Over and over and over and over and over again, I have opted for my integrity and independence over what was easy or obvious. And I am happy. I don't want everyone to live like me – supermodel-free. Nay, I can hardly expect other men to show the nobility, fortitude, courage, dignity and strength that have come to characterize my humble existence, but I do expect educated and able-bodied men to be holding their own in the world of work.

Paddy O said...

Freeman, I value your disagreement. That's why I was a bit humble about offering my experiences as advice. There's risk involved either way. It worked out for us, I think, but you're right to not that it doesn't work out for others. Then again, I know people who felt they had to jump right into having kids and they have had no end of struggle in their life and marriage.

I don't suggest waiting for the "ideal" time, because that never comes. There are a lot of elements of life that are still very much up in the air. We tried to find a balance between the ideal and the right time for us. It absolutely helped that all my tuition was paid for through fellowships, so there was no added debt along the way for us.

Everyone is different.

Kevin said...

She's irritating for about 10 reasons, including the fact/fiction that rich men are clamoring to marry her.

She also failed the bar exam the first time she took it in 2008 (she finally passed in 2010).

Of course, she wrote an article on how irrelevant and out of touch the bar exam is, and how all sorts of now-famous people have failed it.

Translation: celebrities shouldn't be required to take the bar exam.

Floyd said...

Who knew I was a 1% guy? YES! That's funny, here in my SoCal neighborhood there are a lot of stay at home Moms. Some of them are pink slipped teachers who realized the myth that one has to have two incomes to make it.

My wife told me she was staying home. Is that equal that she told me we were taking a 40% pay cut -- while increasing our outlay on diapers, etc.? (very slight exaggeration for effect)

Just Googled Wurtzel... pretty enough. NOT a trophy wife sorry. Just what every knuckle dragger wants... a mouthy not quite first place trophy wife.

MTF said...

Watching Wurtzel live out her most intimate thoughts in public is like watching an adolescent driver backing up a slow moving car in a crowded parking lot. You know she's going to hit at least one car, and maybe several,, before being able to do the simplest thing and leave her parking spot but there's nothing that can be done. Damage to herself compulsively must be done.

Crash!

edward said...

We're broke, the house is a mess, and the "new" car is 12 years old; BUT the kids are alright.... so I think we are winning the game.

edward said...

We're broke, the house is a mess, and the "new" car is 12 years old; BUT the kids are alright.... so I think we are winning the game.

Claude Hopper said...

I never heard of this lady. But I think it would be wonderful if she never procreated. It would save us from the kind of damage some other unbalanced lady gave gave us via BHO.

technogypsy said...

Y'all are mean. On those cold nights when she sleeps alone, knowing no sane male will touch her with a ten foot pole, she thinks of shit like this to justify why she's not loved.

A more extreme case of Dowd's hot and intelligent line.

Magic word: oarage. old enough to row.

Segesta said...

SPY magazine was pure satiric genius in its heyday, and along with 'short fingered vulgarian' Donald Trump, a frequent source of their mocking was Elizabeth Wurtzel.

It's good to see she remains as un-self-aware as ever.

damikesc said...

Rich men boss their wives around? Not in this matriarchy.

Sounds like a woman who has never actually experienced the real world. Elizabeth is a bit of a clown.

Want to know why a lot of young women detest feminism (honestly, I don't know of anybody who hates feminism more than several women in my life)? Because they equate feminism to bitches like Elizabeth.

JAL said...

"Over and over ..."

hahahahhhhhhaaaaaaahhahahhhaaaaaa

ROTFL

gasp

David R. Graham said...

I rather liked the article, which I read in full. She's right, motherhood is not a job, it's part of life. It's work. Ditto fatherhood. I'm surprised common-sense Ann snarks this writer/writing. For her ego, perhaps, putting her self center stage, the writer is disparage-able. But that's also part of life, not unique. A job is unique, not something one has to do as part of living. The writer disparages women who think motherhood is a job. I find that observation unobjectionable. Motherhood is work but not a job. Ditto fatherhood. Americans need to work more and job less.

Unknown said...

I think she likes messing around with bad boys and needs to find a dignified rationale for that. :)

David R. Graham said...

"Just what every knuckle dragger wants... a mouthy not quite first place trophy wife."

LOLOLO

JAL said...

Hey bagho2 -- you mean this chickee isn't your cup of latte?

Still laughing as I read the comments.

Jose_K said...

Note, por favor, we don't see a photo ... creo que the woman on the cover below the article is her.

Ernst Stavro Blofeld said...

She gives an account of her love life at the link below. There's a notable lack of 1%'ers. Perhaps she's been chased by a few Wall Streeters looking for a brief hookup with someone with a degree of fame or notoriety.

http://www.elle.com/Life-Love/Sex-Relationships/Failure-to-Launch-When-Beauty-Fades

"And so, I cheated on him. With everyone I could. Bass players, editors, actors, waiters who wished they were actors, photographers. And everywhere I could, like that Sarah Silverman and Matt Damon video: on the floor, by the door, up against the minibar. I couldn’t sit still or stand still or lie still. And I didn’t want to lose Gregg either."

Nora said...

I do not know why women, that never cared about anybody but themselves, think they can pontificate to other women how to run their lives, and why journal editors give them an opportunity to do so.

Although I think that income equalty is a serious matter and fought to have it, successfully, this particular author's actually tries taking away choices women fought too hard to obtain, while sounding a sore looser, as well as well as fairly prejudiced.

technogypsy said...

Okay I went and read Earnest's link. Self-centered, egoistical, easy, and bitter. Yep, written while she cries at night over fucking up her life. Sadly based on the Elle article, she deserves no better...

And anyone who says a job is only when you get paid doesn't do serious volunteer work.

the wolf said...

To women like Wurtzel who subscribe to this fictitious war on women, in the present era, I would gladly switch with you on how genders are perceived and treated in all facets of life (in the US), be it culturally or otherwise.

chernevik said...

"real feminists don't depend on men"

Because co-operation is for losers!

We've known about productivity gains from divided labor since Socrates, and known those gains aren't just economic but across all dimensions of human activity. But we should forego all that because folks like Ms. Wurtzel want to be Equal. And Equal means Same. Any woman imagining anything Different betrays some moral imperative that every woman behave such that there is no suggestion that Elizabeth will bug out to have a baby once she's promoted.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Enh. I never did get around to reading Wurtzel, mainly because her purely aesthetic description of one of the Twin Towers falling was about the most appalling thing I read in mid-September 2001. Granted, it had competition. (I'm thinking of Karlheinz Stockhausen, and of the lit professor, whose name escapes me, who talked about the Pentagon as a vaginal symbol.)

JorgXMcKie said...

Wow! She reminds me of nothing so much as an aging stereotypical Sorority Girl [and I knew many, many very nice and decent women who belonged to sororities, but you know the stereotype] with the Pauline Kael universe. "No one I know in New York or Los Angeles" [that's the entire interesting or useful part of the universe] who . . . sort of stuff.

She apparently really, truly deserves to end up as a bitter, old cat woman.

I mean, really, where is there any evidence that she has tried to enjoy life by making someone else happy? I never feel better than when my wife says, "Thank you. I really appreciate that" because I did something that made her feel good.

Also, she's past her "best used by" date by some time.

Perhaps this is ad hominem, but sometimes it is called for. [Besides, her screed is hardly logical argument. More like "argumentum ad ignorantiam" so we're even. ;->=

wildswan said...

Reading her is kind of like watching Charlie Sheen shouting "winning"!

Constant Reader said...

My God - what a miserable, miserable excuse for a woma - er, I mean, human being. And "Being a mother isn't a real job -- and the men who run the world know it" has got to be one of the more sexist statements I've had the displeasure of seeing in some time.

I'll stick with Jackie O. on this one:
"If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much."

Constant Reader said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ed said...

1. Ok so how does her opinion compare to the vast popularity of "50 shades of grey"?

2. 5 goats and 10 chickens but that's my -final- offer.

kmg said...

People should read Heartiste to learn about the psychology of this feminist fool.

http://heartiste.wordpress.com

A few wealthy guys used her for short-term entertainment. She interpreted that as those men wanting to marry her. Hence, she estimated her own marriage market value to be vastly higher than it is.

kmg said...

Looking up her pictures, I'll agree that some wealthy men may have wanted to marry her two decades ago.

But now? At age 45? Fat chance.

Any woman that age better have great character to stand any chance whatsoever....

Martin said...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, who am I to judge Wurtzell's looks?

But I can say without any fear of being wrong, that based on this article she is really, really stupid and ill-informed and VERY VERY stuck on herself. Hard to imagine that wearing well over a long-term relationship.