We women wanted this...but...
No one is immune from unconscious defaults. WaPo's Carolyn Hax responds to defaults it's easy for all of us to fall prey to--even though it's exactly what we said we wanted.
From Carolyn Hax’ column in the Washington Post on December 11, 2024. I originally posted this as a gift link, but some of you had trouble accessing it—and it’s too on-point to not share. Many of us have been here; the Gen Zs in my own family keep me asking, “why didn’t I think of that???”
Dear Carolyn: I am feeling a lot of resentment — jealousy? — at my two nieces. They are in their 20s, and both make a massive amount of money. One works at a tech firm where her starting salary was higher than I will ever make, and the other is a “content creator” and “influencer.” Both spend time on their jobs, but they don’t seem to realize how much many others in our family — especially the women — have struggled to get good-paying jobs, and they say a lot of things that feel really tone deaf — like how Kim Kardashian told people not to be lazy. [Her exact words to Variety: “It seems like nobody wants to work these days.” — CH] I like my job fine, but it’s a fraction of either of their salaries, and I’m in my late 50s with multiple graduate degrees. Is there a way I can be empathetic and even guide them to be so? — Resenting the Young and Wealthy
Carolyn Hax’ response: There’s a simple one, but, hard part first: Be ungrudgingly happy for them that they are killing it. Because it is a good thing.
No — great. It is great.
Your nieces are two green shoots of what you and every feminist before you worked so hard to cultivate. It wasn’t just about big pay for the women with all the degrees, was it? I’ll answer for you because I’m talking to myself: No, it wasn’t. It was always about removing gender-based disparities in pay and barriers to work and to self-determination.
Therefore, any list of victories must include giving two young women big stupid pay for things that mystify an aunt from a prior economy. As long as big stupid pay keeps happening — which cultural and economic indicators say it will, increasingly — then your nieces might as well be the ones who receive it. (This assumes their male peers aren’t making multiples of your nieces’ stupid pay. In which case: 1. Ugh. 2. Then you are most definitely resenting the wrong people.)Let’s go one better: Your air quotes around “content creator” and “influencer” betray you as, arguably, just as stuck in your bubble as you say they are in theirs.
Which brings us to the simple part, and why it’s convenient you cited the Kardashian gaffe: Did you also clock the backlash? It was immediate, fierce and effective.
I don’t suggest you thrash your nieces the way the public did Kim. But family-scale pushback in the moment is your best approach. “When you say X, it stings. You may not realize how others have struggled. Others being me.” Are honest sharing and vulnerability easy? No, never. But sometimes that’s the nudge we need to understand.