The XX Factor: What women really think.

Do Women Really Ask for Raises Less Often Than Men?

A guest post from DoubleX intern Danny Townsend:

In the New York Times last week, Joanne Lipman declared that women's progress has stalled because "we've focused primarily on numbers at the expense of attitudes." She tells one story with a precise tally: "In my time as an editor," she writes, "many, many men have come through my door asking for a raise or demanding a promotion. Guess how many women have ever asked me for a promotion? I'll tell you. Exactly ... zero." Reluctance to ask for a raise is, in Lipman's eyes, a problem of the prevalence of trying to be a "passive 'good girl'" ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

Little McMansion on the Prairie

I'm admittedly coming very late to the lengthy, sugar-daddy exchange, but maybe for that reason, after reading all the posts at once, I think it's worth acknowledging what a privileged, upper-middle-class discussion this is. After all, these days, most people scarcely dare dream of keeping their lousy, $7-an-hour job, much less of self-actualization. The desire for nannies, private schools (and for the record, my daughter, to date, has benefited from both, so I’m not casting stones)—such accoutrements are beyond the reach of 90 percent, maybe even 95 percent, of all Americans. And I wonder if this normalization of luxury desires, which Paul Krugman has lamented as one aspect of the new (now surely passed) "Gilded Age," isn’t part of what’s gone wrong in our country over the last 30 to 40 years.

When I was growing up in Dallas, even the wealthiest families in town often drove average, American-made cars. Yes, teenagers were as fashion-conscious as today, but keeping up with the Joneses didn't cost an arm or an iPod. (I still remember when you could buy clothes on layaway at Casual Corner.) Even affluent families often saved up for years for major home purchases, such as a new sofa or dining-room table. By contrast, as the real-estate bubble expanded, shelter magazines exhorted us to change our entire look—from, say, shabby chic to ultra-cool modern—every few years, at a cost of thousands of dollars. Furniture from Ikea is almost disposable. As a kid, I don’t recall a single family (including my own) that replaced its kitchen or bathroom counters. And there were plenty of fine home cooks who somehow managed without a Viking stove or All-Clad cookware.

Yet, in recent years, many average, middle-class families often seemed to want it all—and by “all” I don’t mean work-life balance—but the German (or at least Swedish) car, the multi-thousand-square-foot home, the remodeled kitchen or bath, the beautiful Eames furnishings, the designer shoes and handbags, every foodie kitchen appliance (whether anyone in the home actually cooked or not), in addition to the scheduled kids, the nanny and "best" schools. Even for those on a budget, high design has trickled down to the masses and can now be purchased at Target. Some of that, no doubt, is all for the good: I have no problem with everyone getting to enjoy a Michael Graves teapot.

But in my own life, I yearn to be satisfied with less and struggle with how to hold on to what really matters (which typically costs surprisingly little) in the distracting, expensive clutter of American life. Recently, I was reading the Little House books to my daughter, who is now 5, and kept having this pang for a one-room log cabin with a dirt floor swept clean by a straw broom, no more clothes or furnishings than one could carry in a covered wagon and instead of the usual Christmas bonanza of plastic toys, a tin cup, a piece of candy, and a shiny new penny. That’s a fantasy, too, of course—and equally out of reach. But nowadays when I dream, that’s what I often think of, not Sugar Pa.

It's Not My Generation

Hanna, I think it's a misnomer that wanting a "sugar daddy" is a generational thing. While I posed the initial question, it was more an observation based on themes in The Secret Currency of Love rather than a personal conviction. Purely anecdotally, I've noticed that my fellow Gen-Y female friends would rather die than "opt out," sugar daddies or no. We've heard horror stories about women leaving their fast-paced jobs for several years to tend to their children, and when they come back they're unemployable; we've seen women of our mothers' generation spend their days with the PTA until a divorce sends them back into a workplace for which they're ill-equipped. Here's a cautionary tale that I often think about: A female rock star from the '90s with a cult following now has an incredibly rich and well-known boyfriend. I heard through the grapevine that all she does these days is sit in his townhouse and smoke cloves and go to yoga. She never writes music. That story makes me want to barf.

As a group, I think we're incredibly ambitious, and I can at least say for myself that I would hate going freelance unless I was so wildly successful that I could guarantee a series of lucrative assignments and continued relevance. It would make me too nervous otherwise. I like having a title and, like Dahlia, a dental plan.

I think what Sam is getting at is not that women in their 20s want a benefactor; it's that they want to work hard and succeed in the field of their choice and not worry about paying for private school for their future children. Perhaps in these economic times it's entitled, E.J., or a pipe dream, June, but I don't think it's an entirely unreasonable hope.

... Except That Princess Dreams Eat Away Your Self-Respect

Jessica, Samantha: I recognize this impulse, the vague belief of some middle-class or upper-middle-class girls and young women (primarily white, I think; don't know if brown and black women have this too) that the world owes them a living so that their creative, artistic, interesting inner selves can be supported and thrive. I certainly had this in my 20s, when I graduated from college with my brilliance in English literature and writing poetry. I was shocked by the cold, brutal world of the itty-bitty paycheck and the boring filing jobs. I think this vague sense that we will be rescued—whether by NEA grants, as I imagined, or by a sugar daddy—is a serious problem in girls' upbringings and inner lives. It's what worries me about the cult of the princess toys for girls.

Here's what I've come to feel, in the decades since: I was insanely lucky to be a lesbian. Not just because girls are so much cuter than boys (ahem!!), but because it's forced me to test myself in the harsh world of the market ... and to grow up. No more protecting my precious creativity! I've had to market it. It's terrifying at first, but a gas, really, to get good at negotiating and at making demands in charming ways, to stop being afraid of being smart in public, and all the other challenges that grow from knowing that no one is ever gonna support you—so you have to figure out how to support yourself (and potentially a family). Honestly, I feel my life is much bigger, more rewarding, and richer precisely because I never had the sugar-daddy option.

So Samantha—don't do it. Don't retreat. Figure out how to dive in and turn your education and talents into your own income. Not only will you be safer from the post-divorce poverty that struck my mother waaaaay back in the late 1970s, which still strikes too many women who rely on their husbands' incomes, and of course, from the widow's poverty that strikes when the husband's pension and Social Security dies with him—but you'll respect yourself more in the morning.

Toward that end, some interesting reading: Linda Hirshman's Get To Work struck me as harsh, but I know a lot of young women who have found her message to be bracing and helpful. Anna Fels' Necessary Dreams takes a good look at the female retreat from work as well. And Hannah Seligson's New Girl on the Job has some good practical suggestions about how to cope with the scary, nasty office.

Sugar, What?

Searching for My Sugar Daddy

Jessica, I fear I am solidly, if not proudly, in Abby Ellin's camp. It's not that I want to be rich, exactly, but I do want those upper-middle-class comforts: separate bedrooms for the kids; occasional family vacations to far-flung countries; the assurance that I'll be able to send my kids to the college that's right for them, even if it's not the cheapest option. And, at least at age 8 or so, I also wanted a second car for my house in the country ... but that's a dream I'm willing to give up.

I remember in college having a long discussion about exactly what kind of sugar daddy would be right for me. I figured an investment banker or corporate lawyer wouldn't really work, since I find those professions fairly dull and have always had high on my List of Traits for My Future Husband that he have a job I enjoy hearing about at the dinner table. The other obvious choice was old money, but that didn't seem right either—I had spent a year of high school at a ritzy Manhattan private school (sandwiched among 12 years of public school in suburban Maryland) and found it tough to relate to the über wealthy there. By the end of that college conversation—still completely unaware of what my starting salary would be after graduation or if I'd even manage to snag a journalism job—I had at least one thing sorted out: I'd need to find an inventor of some kind, a creative thinker entrepreneurial enough to turn his grand idea into an equally grand paycheck. And then I'd need to marry him.

I don't think that any of that fantasizing (creepy as it was) took away from my assumption that taking care of myself would be my responsibility long before I brought a partner on to share the burden. My first priority out of college wasn't finding that inventor; it was getting health insurance. And unlike Karen Karbo, I've never let my boyfriends pick up all the tabs.

But I will say that I get it. I get how someone with a strong working mother can still grow up with this notion that she will be provided for in a vague sense that, when probed, starts to materialize as a man. And although I'm sure part of that stems from growing up in a society that continues to trumpet the notion—although obviously more subtly these days, than in the Mad Men era—of woman being cared for by man, I think another part is just the general tendency for people of both sexes to imagine things they can't have, then make the logical leaps to whatever missing factor might make those things possible. I've known for a long time that I won't have a job that gives me that extra car for my country home. And it seems less dangerous for me to occasionally wonder if a marriage might make that possible than to start hoping something like the lottery will.

For Love or Money

Hilary Black, the editor of an anthology called The Secret Currency of Love: The Unabashed Truth About Women, Money, and Relationships, was on the Today show this morning, gabbing with Ann Curry about—what else?—love and money. I read a good chunk of the anthology earlier this week and was struck by a thread running through several of the essays, most of which were written by women who supported themselves as freelance writers. Many of these women came from upper-middle-class backgrounds, and while it took them a while to admit to themselves, they all secretly expected that some wealthyish dude would ultimately rescue them from their quasi-bohemian, small trust-funded existences. Abby Ellin described it best in her essay, "Tool Belts, Not Tuxes":

And okay, there's this: I've always been taken care of. My family never had great wealth, but my parents managed to send me to camp and college and graduate school—an extraordinary gift for which I'm eternally grateful. And they even bought me an apartment. ... And so this leads to a mortifying admission—especially for a feminist who was taught that every woman should possess both her own bank account and the ability to be self-sufficient. On some level, I always believed that eventually someone else would take care of the big stuff. That someone, of course, would be my husband.

Barack vs. Blahniks