Women can't talk for themselves? Do women still want a man who is financially secure? What about independent women? How many women have posted in this thread (compared to HN's overall male-female posting ratio)?
Most of my female friends are professionals (graduate degrees, well-paying jobs, etc). The vast majority of them (literally 90%+) want a man who is financially secure. Part of it is attraction, but it's also part pragmatic. Most women will have kids at some point in their lives (the %-age of women who remain childless by 45 is actually trending down slightly after peaking around 20%), and even in 2013 the burden of child rearing still falls disproportionately on women. Women are still the ones that, disproportionately, compromise their careers to take care of children.[1] Given the statistics, even "independent" women have a rational reason to seek financially secure men.
[1] A longitudinal study of graduates of the UVA Law School class of 1990 found that while women and men went into private practice and to large law firms in similar proportions, after 20 years almost all the men were still working while half the women had either dropped out of practice entirely or were part-time.
Understandable, Why.. Continue reading..
>>Women are still the ones that, disproportionately, compromise their careers to take care of children.
Sorry. women 'want' to compromise their careers and take care of the kids. I'm not saying raising kids isn't tough.
But most men I know will happily stay back at home and take care of the kids, if the their wives would take up all the financial problems/responsibilities of the home.
'Compared'(and compared to raising kids) what you have to do make the financial ends meet. I would say most women will pick raising kids. That's more or less is a no brainer.
I understand the point you're making -- the value of expensive things in signaling to someone you don't know. I can't see the point in marrying someone if I couldn't trust them with my bank account.
Edit: I'm realizing that this is entirely from my perspective. How does a woman without earning potential display her husband's wealth to her family and friends? She asks him to buy her an ornament to prove how much he values her. This puts the man above the woman, inequalizing them.
Is there any custom where a bride and groom exchange gifts of equal value?
No matter how nice a car is, the large-scale social consequences of flashing a status symbol should be considered before purchasing a brand associated with that, especially for a daily driver.
Last week I was in a sales training course where the trainer explained 'leitmotifs' of buyers, one being 'status', his example being 'a guy driving a Porsche and wearing a Rolex'. Of course there was one guy there with a Porsche and a Rolex who then found it necessary to defend his choices as being objective, rational, etc. (He didn't need to, but I guess it's hard not feeling being put on the spot in a situation like that). Still it was funny seeing him squirm while being hit over the head with all sorts of variations of your argument. (not that I disapprove of status symbols or some such thing, I'd buy them if I could afford them I guess :) )
Not sure what you mean here - are you saying 'show everybody the receipt'? That's not signalling, signalling includes 'being socially acceptable', which talking about how money you have or walking around showing your ATM receipts certainly isn't.
(Scroll down for more reporting on how the liberal view and equality mindset might currently clash with reality; the explosion of this comment thread is more evidence of the same phenomena)
Or, as you indicate, perhaps that's just a symptom of the general male-female ratio.