Let's pass a hat for the poor, poor investment bankers

This article from the New York Times is endlessly frustrating. Basically, it's trying to make a case for the massive salaries Wall Street Types make and denouncing the idea of Obama's proposed $500,000 salary cap. The most frustrating bits of the article for your reading pleasure:

"Sure, the solution may seem simple: move to Brooklyn or Hoboken, put the children in public schools and buy a MetroCard. But more than a few of the New York-based financial executives who would have their pay limited are men (and they are almost invariably men) whose identities are entwined with living a certain way in a certain neighborhood west of Third Avenue: a life of private schools, summer houses and charity galas that only a seven-figure income can stretch to cover."

Here we're taking it as a given that these MEN have a God-given right to live that extravagant lifestyle... sure, I'm not going to say it's not their right to, but in light of what they've done to the economy, I think they can stand a little frugality, too. Also, prices will only stay that high as long as the market can bear it, surely. So wouldn't it be good for everyone for the number of people who can afford that lifestyle to dwindle and drive prices down? I know, I know, then the RABBLE would get in.

"The work in the gym pays off when one must don a formal gown for a charity gala. “Going to those parties,” said David Patrick Columbia, who is the editor of the New York Social Diary (newyorksocialdiary.com), “a woman can spend $10,000 or $15,000 on a dress. If she goes to three or four of those a year, she’s not going to wear the same dress.” Total cost for three gowns: about $35,000."

I guess it goes without saying that the man in these couples is inevitably going to be buying the dress for his wife or girlfriend who is busy hanging out with society types and working on charities and is obviously not earning a living. This brings me to my biggest gripe with this article and with the whole system behind it. These Big Wall Street Men are allowed by our society to expect this kind of coddled existence, including a big pay check to pay for all these completely unnecessary things and it is just accepted as the state of affairs that one of these things is a trophy wife of varying intellect who doesn't work and doesn't contribute to the exorbitant bills their lifestyle kicks up. How is this shit still going on? Don't these people realize that if both people in the couple were earning $500,000, then they'd be back up to their precious seven figures and then they'd maybe have a good reason to hire a nanny? Ugh. I hate investment banking/bankers/the society that still allows this kind of shit.

"Of mice and women..."

This is a very good column by Judith Warner.

It still makes me extremely sad, though, that we're talking about Hillary's run for President in the past tense. Damn it.

Maybe part of the problem is that she started out as a "trailing spouse" but then couldn't successfully negotiate the change to leading? (I don't think this is the case. She negotiated that shift beautifully. The public and her ex-President-husband left a little to desire in this area. He certainly didn't take kindly to it - note the wild campaign trail antics - and the public talked more about her as First Lady than as a potential President.

Also, this article in todays Times does portray the candidates as having come to a peaceful conclusion (read: Hillary is happy about no longer running, which I can't quite swallow), which is nice. However, the article really plays up Hillary's deference (she smiled deferentially while he spoke), wonders at the lack of physical affection between them (they're not suddenly in a relationship, even if the rally was a pseudo Love-in), and shows a photo with him in a very patriarchial/protective posture, one hand on the little girl's shoulder. Ugh.

I understand it's not her place to run the show anymore, but the press is going to have to find a better vocabulary to deal with that fact. I'm stunned by the continued sexism even after she's stopped being a threat to the country's collective machismo.

And no, Obama's little crack about her being able to "anything the boys can do, and do it better, and do it in heels" doesn't help. Anyone else ever noticed that the word boys has an entirely different effect than the word girls? It implies a kind of bosom-buddyness, an inside-joke tone, a faux humility which tries to come off as self-deprecation but instead actually brags of its down-to-earthness. It says "look at this powerful man who is confident enough to still feel like just one of the boys." There's the Old Boys network from the north and the Good Ol' Boys of the south. Always centers of power-brokerage. Girls, on the other hand are weak, deferential, and the use of the word generally doesn't cross into dialogues of politics or power. It's confined instead to girls' nights out, girly movies, girlish figures, etc. And what kills me is that Obama is signalling his consciousness of this voacabulary issue by very carefully saying that "Women can do whatever the boys do." He knows he isn't allowed to call Hillary a girl, but it suits his cause better to refer to himself as one of the boys. Anyway, what the FUCK do heels have to do with anything? Quick boys, undermine her authority and seriousness as quickly as you can! She could still go off at any moment!

Polemic over.

Trailing spouses

This post on Jezebel and the article on CNN that it refers to are really interesting. The idea of trailing spouses is one I've been thinking about a lot lately. I'm on a career path at the moment that is likely going to force me to move around for a while at least (at least until I get tenure or give up). I worry about my young man finding a job that is equally satisfying and demanding and that might not be very flexible, location-wise. I worry about us having difficulty deciding who will "trail" (though I think that term is really irritating) and who will lead (or whatever).

The other problem with this analysis of the problem is the vaguely sexist idea that it's the woman's own fault for choosing a more flexible career. Like it's her own damned fault? That's a little difficult for me to swallow.

Anyway, this is one of the many things I worry about heading into marriage. It's funny to be thinking about all these issues concretely (since the Hitching is just around the corner) instead of just theoretically. Very very very strange.