IWF’s Carrie Lukas takes on the Forbes debate (for background info see Carrie’s earlier post on the matter here at InkWell) over at National Review Online this morning.
Carrie thinks that women should ignore the controversial article, much like we ignored annoying boys who pulled our hair in elementary school:
“The article was written to offend. Does that mean that women have to be offended? After all, career women should be confident in their value, both as individuals and as marriage material; they shouldn’t care about the opinion of this man. No woman hoping to wed can seriously think that her boyfriend, reading this advice, is going to dump her to pursue a modern-day June Cleaver.”
As Carrie mentioned in her earlier post, none of the critics of the article have been able to effectively dispute the statistics in the article:
“Working women are more likely to get divorced. They have less time for housework. They are less likely to have kids, and, if they do have kids and choose to stay home, they are more likely to be unhappy. None of this is surprising. In fact, if these stats were cited by a feminist writer, they could be framed as good news for women. One reason feminists urge women to maintain their careers and avoid economic dependency on a husband is specifically so they can more easily exit unhappy marriages. The numbers show that this strategy works.
“Responses to Noer’s article also show a misunderstanding of statistics. Elizabeth Corcoran’s rebuttal on Forbes.com, for example, argues that she is a career woman about to celebrate her 18th anniversary of marital bliss, as if this proves his data wrong. But of course there are plenty of happily married career women, a point Mr. Noer himself makes: ‘of course, many working women are indeed happily and fruitfully married – it’s just that they are less likely to be so than non-working women. And that, statistically speaking, is the rub.’
“Career women able to look past the deliberately obnoxiousness might find this information useful. If maintaining a happy marriage is a priority, it’s worth being aware of the potential pitfalls of juggling two careers and a family.”