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The American Psychological Association Journal of Personality and Social Psychology released a study earlier this year that showed that men who were told their partners scored in the top 12 percent of university students demonstrated “significantly lower implicit self esteem” than men who were told their partners were in the bottom 12 percent. If you needed any further proof that the current state of masculinity has decayed to a skinny jeans-wearing, over-emotional, self-esteem lacking embarrassment, there it is. There are few things more “beta male” in this world than taking an emotional hit when the person you supposedly care about most knocks it out of the park.
If you can’t tell already, I couldn’t feel more differently. Obviously I’m going to date someone I’m attracted to, but she better have more qualities than looks if she thinks she’s getting a ring. A girl who is smart, hot, and fun to hang out with is the Holy Grail, so the idea that this many men would be upset about having a girl with a brain is beyond me. Instead, this is why having a smart and successful partner should be the ultimate goal and not a source of stress induced erectile dysfunction.
1. A Smart, Successful Wife Helps Your Ego
You bet your ass that my future wife will be a success in whatever she does and you can guarantee I’m going to be happy for her. Hell, I’ll even brag about it. Your wife did some sort of yoga in a 100 degree room today? Mine saved lives. Your wife got her nails done? So did mine, in between landing major accounts. Your wife posted the hundredth picture of your dog on Facebook? Mine posted an article she wrote and it went viral. Your wife is there for her looks? Mine’s there for her brain and she’s better looking on top of it.
2. A Smart, Successful Wife Helps Your Career
Dumb arm candy might impress your boss with her hemline, but smart arm candy will impress your boss and more importantly, his wife. There are always girls who you can show off at events and dinners, but if a girl can’t show you off as well through her looks AND her impeccable conversation skills you’re not going to get that invite from the boss’s wife to his house for dinner, which gets you into the boss’s social circle, which gets you that promotion to the big leagues. Not to mention that if you’re in any sort of business, your wife’s company, coworkers, boss, PhD professor, and everyone in her social circle is a potential personal or business relationship. Married life is rough enough without the ability for your wife to throw great parties and cookouts that couples actually want to come to.
3. A Smart, Successful Wife Makes You Richer
The idea that I would be okay with working nonstop to provide a lifestyle to someone for them to only consume and leech off of my output is disgusting, and those men whose machismo is offended by the concept of a successful partner are nothing more than wimps. What kind of man are you if the very thought of your wife or girlfriend being smart or successful makes you sad inside? I’ll answer that for you: you’re an embarrassment. I’m going to be successful in life, so if my future wife brings in even more than me that doesn’t make me emasculated; that makes us filthy fucking rich.
4. A Smart, Successful Wife Is A Hedge On Your Future
After all, regardless of how much longevity you can buy, looks always fade. What remains for women or men is a finely tuned composite of character and personality that should be cultivated on top of external appearance, not in spite of or as a replacement for. Looks, brains, and personality really aren’t “either or” or “best two out of three” descriptions. On top of that, what do you think you’re going to be doing when you’re 70? You’re going to be spending every waking moment not on the golf course with this person. While they may have been able to get away with sucking, and sucking, before, you better hope they don’t suck when they’re old.
5. A Successful Wife Can Be Successful In Many Different Ways
This isn’t a knock on stay-at-home mothers or centuries-old chosen gender roles. There are many ways to define success outside of a career. My own mother even stayed home for 14 years to raise me and busted her ass to bring my siblings and myself up right, but she bookended that time with a Masters degree and a career. If you chose to be a stay-at-home mom, then be the absolute best at it and raise your kids to extraordinary levels. Don’t do it because you’re lazy or because your infant of a husband would cry himself to sleep every night if he wasn’t the main breadwinner.
Respond
@RogerSterlingUS
Am I the only one who thinks a smart wife would add to the attraction?
I mean, I did write an entire rant about it
You really hit home on all of the success angles. I’m talking about just the fact that you can have a conversation about any number of topics. Really does it for me.
You’d be amazed what all guys are afraid of: https://pgparchive.wpengine.com/why-dating-beautiful-women-does-not-have-pitfalls/
Insecurity starts with a small penis, and it just goes downhill from there.
Is that why guys wear the skinny jeans? To make it look bigger? Because it doesn’t work.
I wouldn’t be the one to ask, I’m no expert on the plight of the small-cocked male.
http://www.walgreens.com/q/penis-pump
I agree with everything you said here, but “centuries-old chosen gender roles”? Please tell me you don’t think the man-bread winner/women-home maker roles were just chosen at random one day.
hah, fair.
I’m very impressed. When you find her, I hope you two are an intense power-couple that completely runs shit.
That is 100% my goal
I’m right here. I golf, too.
I awkwardly tweeted it to the world. You’re the #1 draft pick so far
Marry me. No, follow me on Twitter.
decisions, decisions
I can’t believe you’re cheating on me like this. I not only golf, I write columns about it.
There’s more than enough of ole Roge to go around
A few have offered the criticism that the above post seems to imply that a man’s boss is always going to be another man. I get that the article is written half-jokingly (and I’m sure the author isn’t really expecting an all-male upper management team), but I think there’s another glaring issue here: treating a woman (or a man) as an object in general.
It’s great that men today are realizing they need to choose a partner who is smart and successful. But the point of doing this is not so that you can have “intelligent arm candy”- no one should ever be considered arm candy, male or female. The benefit of finding a driven, hardworking spouse is not so you can show that person off to all our your friends and colleagues – the goal is to find someone who challenges you to be better than you could be alone. It doesn’t matter if that person is a CEO or a full-time stay at home parent.
So, in the end, having an intelligent, successful spouse will help you get noticed by your boss – because your relationship will have helped you become a critically-thinking, competent worker who gets shit done.
While less amusing, this is incredibly true, so A+ for that.
I get that you can’t change the way an entire culture thinks and is used to seeing things overnight. But this isn’t good enough.
Listing 5 things that your wife’s success can do for YOU is still objectifying women. It still makes us a means to an end. How about celebrating your partner’s success because it is what they want and it makes them happy. I know we’re only human, but is it so difficult to think about something other than ourselves for five minutes?
The part that gets me is that the last line of the article is a huge insult: “Stay at home if you want. But you better raise a president and keep my house spotless.” You know what the message in this article is? “Work harder, honey. I’ve finally realized I need your help and want more of it.”
You know what a benefit of a smart wife is? Being able to ask her advice before posting passively chauvinistic articles on the Internet. Hey, hon, does it make you happy that I view your success as a stepping stone for mine?
If a woman wrote that her husband’s intelligence and success made her more likely to succeed in her career, people would say she can’t make it on her own. If a women said her husband’s success makes her more confident, people would say she’s co-dependent. If a woman said her husband’s income helps supplement her own to elevate their quality of living, she’s a gold-digger. And so on…
So if you expect that men saying these things will make them appear sensitive and enlightened…. Good luck finding a smart girl!
Why do crazies keep attacking TFM and PGP articles all of the sudden? Does that mean you guys have officially made it?
I know people who aren’t regular readers are coming to this article now, but honestly BriniG I would hope that the style it is written in and the language used would be a clue as to the level of seriousness it entails. Do I mean what I say? Sure. Is it intentionally over the top? You bet.
As far as “If a woman wrote that her husband’s intelligence and success made her more likely to succeed in her career, people would say she can’t make it on her own. If a women said her husband’s success makes her more confident, people would say she’s co-dependent. If a woman said her husband’s income helps supplement her own to elevate their quality of living, she’s a gold-digger.” I absolutely love that you caught on to that and commented on it.
Yeah, let’s talk about the style of language used here. Starting with calling women “girls”. That’s super scholarly of you.
“Obviously I’m going to date someone I’m attracted to” == “Obviously, you still need to be hot”. Very well placed sentence up at the top of the article, lest we forget that women should obviously be good-looking. That’s important.
Actually, let’s back up… starting with the title. And the whole premise of this article and talking about successful women as being “beneficial” wives is male-centric. Be smart and hot so you make a good wife and make me look good is what I am reading here.
God, everything about the way this is written, “There are always girls who you can show off at events and dinners”… yeah brah! But at some point you can’t put up with the “dumb” ones, you need a woman that can throw events so your (straight male, obviously) boss comes over with *his* “arm candy”. That’s really all women are to you, huh?
Talking about womens’ brains as a commodity vs their looks is still talking about women AS COMMODITIES and from reading this I’m pretty convinced you don’t know what intelligence means.
TBH this is one of the worst articles I’ve read all week. No, you don’t get a gold star for trying either.
Fuck off.
Further, this is objectively one of the worst comments I have read on this site or others. Re-examining your life should be in order.
No, that person’s right, you’re not advocating for smart, successful women. You’re saying again and again that “hot girls” are the only acceptable ones, but they still have to earn a ring with further notes and addenda. Don’t just be smart because it means they’re active and fulfilled, be smart to accessorize their roles as arm candy. How do you not see that? I can tell your intentions were better but the chauvinistic language got in the way. I’m an MBA with a lovely marriage of six years, and I think your shitty article explains why you’re still “dreaming of writing for a living.”
You don’t have to respond, I’m not giving you any more clicks.
Yes! Thank you! I bet RogerSterlingJr is going to call you a poo-poo head. It’s funny to watch him personally attack the commenters.
It amuses me that you ask “how do you not see that?” when you obviously didn’t catch the tone of the article (or my signature line?) nor realize the intentions behind it. Frankly, my “shitty article” doesn’t need any more clicks from you. Check the tracker at the top – I’m good already.
I bet you get no dick.
Hahaha this is laughably idiotic.
First of all, this is a humor site. It is not meant to be educational, scholarly, progressive, or anything other than marginally amusing takes on the “first world” struggles of recent graduates. So starting off, you’re a somewhat of a moron for even taking it seriously. The fact that you got offended by it is even more ridiculous.
As another commentator noted, the idea that a woman would have been torn apart if she wrote this about man but me writing it about women gets shared 30,000+ times is part of the amusement. Likewise, writing a “girl power” piece littered with chauvinism is also pretty funny to, it seems, a lot of people.
It is a great message (smart and successful women are better wives) delivered in an off-kilter way…because this is a humor site…and everything here is written in a specific voice for a specific audience.
Maybe you don’t find it funny, and that’s fine. Different strokes for different folks. But to come here and embarrass yourself with your “LOOK AT ME I’M OFFENDED” drivel is pretty terrible.
Okay, so if people like your article, you stand by it, but id people call it out for the chauvinistic bullshit that it is, it’s a joke. Are you owning it or disowning it? Is this an entirely satirical article demonstrating what NOT to believe? I sure as hell hope so, but I don’t buy for a second that that was your intention. You were looking for props for being evolved, but alas, you weren’t able to escape yourself. And now you’re trying to say “I was just kidding” after saying “woman, make me a sandwich.”. It’s 2013 and smart women don’t go for that shit. Jokes like that are the first step on the yellow brick road to abuse. Make your own sandwich, and whole you’re at it, move out.
you’re a sharp cookie. but you’re onto something which goes much much deeper. Men are the default for everything…their weaknesses, their strengths, their struggles are looked upon with dignity and depth…often spun any which way they like. Most often woman’s achievements, weaknesses, struggles are seen as intrinsic to her gender…her feebleness. Gloria Steinem’s essay “If Men Could Menstruate” captures this concept perfectly.
I think it’s unfair to attack the author for not reaching this level of depth in the struggle for equal respect of the genders. I try to view each small “pro-female” attempt as gracious, given all the people out there who resent and hate women. While you’re technically far more correct…it’s not a method of shifting the nation to our side. They just don’t quite get it yet. Not even the women do.
Wow…so if I walk up to an NFL football player and say “you know, I just love black people who are really athletic. They are so much fun to watch.” I am somehow not a completely patronising racist, because I am complimenting them? I do not want RogerSterlingJr’s fucked up favors. This article implies that smart and successful women are a special commodity for the infinite supply of smart and successful men. I don’t need him to pull me forward, or tap lamely on any glass ceilings for me, while simultaneously hoping I will press my breasts against such glass. My mind is BLOWN by how much you are selling yourself short. Now watch, he’s going to say something about how he doesn’t want to see my breasts anyway. Because women who don’t buy the bullshit don’t get the golden penis *wipes away tear*
Thank you, decathexisplexus
Envisioning Roger Sterling, the character, reading Gloria Steinem. Got a good laugh out of that one.
to be fair…passively aggressive chauvanism (when it’s not overtly chauvanistic) is kind of the main male audience here. with varying degrees of self-depreciation that is.
My chauvinism is not passive aggressive! How dare you!
i thought i was the only one. this is great
*golf clap*
What’s with all the golf around here? 😛
Tons of golf. Tons and tons of golf.
As the woman you described above, I took nothing but pride in this article. My husband is a high school teacher and I am a former NFL cheerleader turned lawyer. I am just as proud to be his arm candy as he is to show me off. Those complaining about this article likely have more issues with their own self-esteem than they do with your words. Grow a pair, ladies!
This is the best thing I’ve ever seen. I hope this starts a trend of guys including intelligence as part of the whole package.
Ahem *points to column*
“RogerSterlingJr: contributing writer to TFM and PGP, and aspiring trendsetter.”
Oh please. I was “aspiring” back in highschool.
“RogerSterlingJr: contributing writer to TFM and PGP, aspired to be a trendsetter in high school and is still chasing that ambition.”
You just got demoted from the bullpen to the minors
Because I’m witty? C’mon, that’s counterintuitive to your column.
Promotion reinstated upon review