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Every once in a while, you get to thinking that maybe you can get to the end of the month without someone making you want to go all Lewis Black on them. You think that just maybe, no one's going to say something so stupid that you seriously doubt your grip on reality.

Of course, this just has to get blown to shit.

So I'm reading Maryam Scoble's blog. (Yes, yes, her husband's a prat, but she's okay. A good writer, and pretty funny to boot.) And I see an article where she's talking about some fucking dumbass who says "Don't marry a career woman", and it's an article, not on "Stupid Redneck Monthly" or "Mullet and Wifebeater", but Forbes.

No way. No fucking way. This is just not possible. It's a joke. It must be a joke. Because no one who writes for a publication like Forbes can actually write about, much less believe that kind of stupidity.

Oh no, it's not a joke.

Fucking HAM. Who let Snooch on the computer?

You know it's going to be a rousing game of "I'M STUPIDER THAN YOUUUUU ARRRRRE" when the second paragraph contains this bit of...WTF?:

While everyone knows that marriage can be stressful, recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it. A recent study in Social Forces, a research journal, found that women--even those with a "feminist" outlook--are happier when their husband is the primary breadwinner.

Okay, so I have to read this. Because statements like that without context are meaningless. You could substitute "cat" for "woman" in that statement, and have it be just as valid, namely, not at all. So a few paragraphs down, you get some meat. Rancid, diseased meat, but meat nonetheless. The kind of meat a hooker sees when she's blowing a hobo:

If a host of studies are to be believed, marrying these women is asking for trouble. If they quit their jobs and stay home with the kids, they will be unhappy (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2003). They will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Social Forces, 2006). You will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2001). You will be more likely to fall ill (American Journal of Sociology). Even your house will be dirtier (Institute for Social Research).

This is just fucking stupid. Let's see...if you take someone with a successful career, and make them do something they don't want to do, they'll be unhappy. DEE-DEEDEE! No shit sherlock. If I yanked you out of your life and career and made you watch a rugrat for 18 years, you'd be pretty resentful too. Of course, I'm guessing in Michael Noer's (the author of this tripe) world, the idea of oh, PAID CHILDCARE doesn't happen. "You had the kid, you put your life on hold for two decades, I'm off with Bill for 2-for-1 highballs at the club, taa." Please. It's a kid, not a jail sentence. How about handling them more constructively than saying "LOOK! A PENIS! NOT MY PROBLEM!" As far as women being unhappy if they make more money than the man, well, I've seen it happen one time. But then, the guy wasn't making ANY money, so it's a bit different. Guys unhappy about their wives making more? Sure, if they're MORONS. Here's a tip...when a guy reveals he's that stupid and insecure, no kidding, she's gonna dump him. If she's smart, she'll kick him on the way out the door. Life's too short to stay married to an insecure ass. Me, and most men I know? We DREAM about our spouses and SO's making more money than us. It's our fucking dream man. "What's that honey? My salary is now a rounding error compared to yours? I LOVE you so much. Take me roughly from behind!" Rich women rule in the real world. In Noer's? Not so much. He's kinda dumb that way.

But it gets better still:

Why? Well, despite the fact that the link between work, women and divorce rates is complex and controversial, much of the reasoning is based on a lot of economic theory and a bit of common sense. In classic economics, a marriage is, at least in part, an exercise in labor specialization. Traditionally men have tended to do "market" or paid work outside the home and women have tended to do "non-market" or household work, including raising children. All of the work must get done by somebody, and this pairing, regardless of who is in the home and who is outside the home, accomplishes that goal. Nobel laureate Gary S. Becker argued that when the labor specialization in a marriage decreases--if, for example, both spouses have careers--the overall value of the marriage is lower for both partners because less of the total needed work is getting done, making life harder for both partners and divorce more likely. And, indeed, empirical studies have concluded just that.

Okay, get me a big fuckin' stick and a rabid weasel. Mikey and I need to chat. I'm not much for attendance, but the weasel insists. Look, this is just stupid. This is saying that if both people work, both are going to do less work around the house. Huh? What bunch of idiots did they study. The housework still gets done. It's just an expectation that both people will help. Mike's still in this "I am the king of my castle" shit. Well Mike, in the good old days, when you got a divorce, you paid her way through life until she remarried or died. You want to go back to the days of helpless spouses, be my guest, but you're an idiot if you do. The idea that a lack of "labor specialization" kills a marriage is not just dumb, but it makes no fucking sense. What, the fact that the guy does the dishes makes the marriage suck? What if he's better at cleaning? What if she's better at fixing the car, and he's a cooking fool? Should they settle for burnt food and a busted car just to make some fucking nimrod "expert" happy? In Mike's world, yes, yes you do. Because if you don't, then there's not the correct kind of "labor specialization".

Here's another quote from the article:

In 2004, John H. Johnson examined data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation and concluded that gender has a significant influence on the relationship between work hours and increases in the probability of divorce. Women's work hours consistently increase divorce, whereas increases in men's work hours often have no statistical effect.

As soon as you read "examined data", the spin alarms should go up. An overview of the study is here for you to read. It's a continuing study on the effects of poverty, focusing on welfare programs. So there's some good data for the effects of a career woman. I know that all the career women I've met live for "New Food Stamp Day". Why, they just lay some monster rubber in their BMWs to get there early, 'cause Food Stamp Day is the high point of their month. The study is a tracking of people living at the poverty level, and how various government programs and initiatives that affect them work. Think about that in the context of "Career Women are teh suck". Hell, don't take my word for it, here's the purpose of the study, from the SIPP site:

To collect source and amount of income, labor force information, program participation and eligibility data, and general demographic characteristics to measure the effectiveness of existing federal, state, and local programs; to estimate future costs and coverage for government programs, such as food stamps; and to provide improved statistics on the distribution of income and measures of economic well-being in the country.

This is a WELFARE study. Someone tell me how you can extrapolate the effect of successful college-educated career women, (this is Noer's stipulation) from a study on the effects of government programs on people in various welfare programs? Hell, look at the preferred uses of SIPP, it has nothing to do with anything Johnson OR Noer are babbling about. As well, oddly, Johnson seems to write a lot about how women's employment is FAR more detrimental to families than men's. Almost as if he had an ax to grind. But the sure sign of a weak source? Later in the same paragraph:

A few other studies, which have focused on employment (as opposed to working hours) have concluded that working outside the home actually increases marital stability, at least when the marriage is a happy one. But even in these studies, wives' employment does correlate positively to divorce rates, when the marriage is of "low marital quality."

So it ain't necessarily that women being employed makes you get divorced...unless your marriage sucks in the first place. Wow...more sucky marriages end in divorce. Thank GOD someone with a Ph.D pointed that out.

Here's a humdinger that says a lot about Noer, none of it good:

The other reason a career can hurt a marriage will be obvious to anyone who has seen their mate run off with a co-worker: When your spouse works outside the home, chances increase they'll meet someone they like more than you. "The work environment provides a host of potential partners," researcher Adrian J. Blow reported in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, "and individuals frequently find themselves spending a great deal of time with these individuals."

Wait...so this doesn't happen to men? No man has ever had an affair with a female, (or male for that matter) co-worker? It's all just poor weak women who can't say no when confronted with a host of men, all exuding strange new testosterone? EXCUSE ME? You know it's funny, because I could swear that in my dating and having-sex experience, women have never had a problem saying "no". Maybe I just need to start dating the weak-willed bimbos that Noer surrounds himself with. Pathetic.

But then we get into the "not really saying what you want it to, unless you don't pay attention":

There's more: According to a wide-ranging review of the published literature, highly educated people are more likely to have had extra-marital sex (those with graduate degrees are 1.75 more likely to have cheated than those with high school diplomas.) Additionally, individuals who earn more than $30,000 a year are more likely to cheat.

Hmm. That doesn't say "highly educated women", it says "highly educated people". Last I checked, the set of "people" did in fact, completely include men as well as women. In fact, nothing in that paragraph specifies gender. But if you don't really pay attention, it seems to agree with Noer's dumb point. It's only when you apply some critical thinking that you realize he's spinning these statements to support his point. And insulting your intelligence, 'cause he's not doing it terribly well. 'Cause he's an idiot.

The next paragraph is another non-proof:

And if the cheating leads to divorce, you're really in trouble. Divorce has been positively correlated with higher rates of alcoholism, clinical depression and suicide. Other studies have associated divorce with increased rates of cancer, stroke, and sexually-transmitted disease. Plus divorce is financially devastating. According to one recent study on "Marriage and Divorce's Impact on Wealth," published in The Journal of Sociology, divorced people see their overall net worth drop an average of 77%

Again, this has nothing to do with Noer's point, but it's a nice strawman. The effects of divorce don't apply if you aren't divorced, and this is, theoretically, an article about why you shouldn't marry career women, not the effects your divorce will have on you. But it does raise a nice spectre of doooooooooom. If you're as stupid as Noer thinks you must be, that is.

His last two paragraphs wander off into some idiocy about the health benefits of marriage, which again, don't apply in his thesis. But, when you don't have a good point, or solid supporting evidence, you have to distract your readers somehow.

What Noer wants is what I call a remora. (Put that finger down, men are just as able to be remoras too.) He wants a woman who has no real life outside of him, no job, no career no money. That lets him be the big man, and have all the control, and all she does is cleave to him, and live off what he chooses to give her. Remora. Dude, if you're that insecure, then you deserve a Remora. The more you get, the better off those of us with a penis and some security in our self image, sexuality, and gender idea are.

This is just feces, and Forbes should be ashamed for publishing it. Not because it's anti-PC, but because it's crap. Forbes publishing crap is FAR more offensive than them publishing reactionary bullshit.

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