The State of “Fair” in Gal-Land

(The author is the force behind www.menandmarriage.com) 

“I just don’t get it,” said my friend John.  “We’ve had a million fights over this, and nothing changes.” 

John and Melissa have been married for over twenty years. In that time they’ve had a million fights over the same thing.

“She thinks the money I earn (75% of the family income) is “ours” but the money she earns (25%) is “hers.” What’s worse is that she deposits her whole check then withdraws, at the time of deposit, half of as cash it for her casual expense money.  Then she continues to spend, in large part on herself, not from the withdrawn half of her pay check but from the joint account.  When I confront her on it she tells me that I have no room to complain because she deposits her whole check!” 

In doing research for my book (“How To Give Her Your Heart Without Losing Your  A$$”) I came across what I believe to be the answer for my friend John.  Women like Melissa are essentially Marxists.  You know: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Only that isn’t entirely true, either.  If Melissa ever decided to pursue a job more according to her ability that paid more, she probably could, but she has not chosen to do so.    

The women-as-marxists hook is mine (little tongue in cheek there), but I came across what I believe to be an answer for John’s conundrum.  It has to do with fairness and how men and women see it differently. 

From the book I’m working on:

“There can also be, generally speaking, a gender component to what is fair.  Dr. Leon James, Professor, University of Hawaii (Manoa), from his online lecture notes wrote the following:

“Research also suggests that men and women have different notions about fairness. Example: women are more likely to spread the available rewards around equally, regardless of who performed better, while men tend to give greater rewards to the persons who perform better. Every married couple must periodically reconsider the inputs made by each, the benefits available, and the needs of each, and then decide ‘what is fair’ for each person. If you do more for a relationship, perhaps you should get more rewards. Don’t cheat yourself.”(Dr. James cites mentalhelp.net/psychelp/chap10/chap10h.htm as a source here.)

“Dr. James’ words dove tail with the amazing work of Deborah Tannen, renowned sociolinguist and Carol Gilligan, author of the book “In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development” who believe that the different social orientation of men and women cause them to see “fairness” through different prisms.  Because men tend to deal with hierarchies (competition, a earn it, own it) and women tend to deal more in terms of connections, inclusion and exclusion, in the words of James Q. Wilson in his book, “The Moral Sense,” writes Wilson, “To oversimplify, men will be more likely to value equity, women equality.”   

“Very generally, in Guyland you receive in some proportion to what you contribute, in whatever form (not must monetary), but you contribute and benefit accordingly.  In Gal-land, because you’re equals, you share equally. Both genders often assume that the other sees it their way. Most couples adopt somewhat of a hybrid of both, but many of these can be extremely unsatisfying.”

I’m not sure where that leaves John and Melissa.  Although, twenty-something years into it, it’s safe to assume that nobody’s stuck an ice pick in anyone’s ear drum while they slept, and they probably won’t.

Now, honestly, I’m wondering, therefore, where this leaves us in the big meritocracy of the working world.  It would seem that the venue determines the rules in Gal-land.  (Double Standard, party of one…) Women, for example, are twice as likely to approve of prenuptial agreements if they are the ones with the greater wealth in a connubial merger (marriage) but twice as likely as men to object to one when they’re not.   To men’s credit, they’re just as likely to go along with a prenup in both scenarios.  

In fact, when women throw the penalty flag of “that’s not fair” it causes me to wonder by what comparative yardstick is this declared?  The whole Hillaryesque “glass ceiling” that limits women in their professional endeavors just because they have a uterus is a reaction to perceived just-rewards denied for merit-based effort.  (I do not support this and nobody should.)  On the other hand, the feminist-fueled cry that women are “under represented” in this group or that (telegraphing crypto-support for quotas) is everywhere.  So which is it?  I’m still confused.  

The smartest thing I’ve seen on this whole fairness business comes from political satirist P.J. O’Rourke who said the following: 

“I have a 10-year-old at home, and she is always saying, ‘That’s not fair.’ When she says that, I say, ‘Honey, you’re cute; that’s not fair. Your family is pretty well off; that’s not fair. You were born in America; that’s not fair. Honey, you had better pray to God that things don’t start getting fair for you.’”

Fairness a la Gal-Land is to allow for a certain knee-jerk, capricious subjectivity to overtrump an objective and consistent standard if a ‘higher’ extrinsic ideal is being served. 
Gezus.

So what if, in the face of these shape-shifting, morphing imperatives men withdrew themselves and their sense of merit-based ethics from the discourse and everything else for thirty days? Pull ourselves right out of the equation.  If we all would just all go to some island retreat to wait-it-out with ESPN, yard darts and keg beer. What would become of cohesive society ‘back home?’

Blood in the streets inside of ten days. For the first few days it’d be a big Sappho Love Fest, DeGeneres-a-thon. Then the feelings based agendas would emerge and collide, and it would evolve into  “Mean Girls” with nuclear, first-strike capability.

The horror.

So, it all begs the question: If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no woman to hear, it’s still the MANS FAULT?

Ya, probably.
Yawn.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 10:05 pm and is filed under Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. | 1,417 views | Trackback | Print this page |

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