4 ms·

> It took me some time to figure out that they were not successful entrepreneurs, but that these were fronts to cover for rich parents. "Housewife jobs" are st

by gyulai 5y ago

> It took me some time to figure out that they were not successful entrepreneurs, but that these were fronts to cover for rich parents. "Housewife jobs" are structurally similar. I'm based in Europe and work U.S. hours, so I usually have my mornings and early afternoons for leisure activities, including riding my horse. This means I travel a fair bit in social circles comprised mostly of middle-aged women who don't have regular jobs. If you ask those women their job or, with a slight lack of tact, even ask directly how they make a living, it's usually something like yoga teacher, photographer, landscape designer, etc. Initially, I always walked away from these interactions thinking something like: Wow, you must be a really good landscape designer, if you can actually make a living at it, and have the time and money for two horses at a pricey stable. Later, I realized that these occupations are mostly fronts they put up because it's not socially acceptable these days for a woman to have a husband who does most of the earning for the shared household. What you do is: You take some online class on landscaping and tell your girlfriend (the one who you're regularly giving $100-christmas-gifts to) that you're now a trained landscape designer. You do a bit of consulting for her by making a few suggestions about what flowers would look good on her front yard and have her pay $30 for the privilege of having consulted a trained landscape designer. From now on, whenever someone asks you your job, you no longer need to say "housewife", but you can say "landscape designer". If someone walks away with the misconception that you actually make enough money from your landscape designing to pay for your lifestyle, then that's just a misconception that you're under no moral obligation to straighten out. The problem: This sort of behaviour is not really advancing the cause of feminism at all. Because now, when a man tells me he's a landscape designer, I assume he makes enough money as a landscape designer to pay for his lifestyle. When a woman tells me she's a landscape designer, I assume it's a front and she really just has a rich husband who pays for everything.

JohnBooty 5y ago
Yeah, this is a plague. At face value, it's not a big deal. Who cares if housewives lie/fib? In the larger sense, it's absolutely toxic, because it projects a wholly unrealistic vision. People see others "succeeding", and blame themselves for "failing" when in reality, the "failures" don't realize that the "successes" were bankrolled by parents/spouses. It is of course possible to succeed without the benefit of being bankrolled, but our weirdo faux-entrepreneur class makes it really challenging for others to understand what it takes or their odds of success.
- gyulai 5y ago
  ...yeah, misrepresentation of the odds of success is actually an interesting part of the whole dynamic: I think many women sort of fall into this without intending it. Their peers suddenly all seem to be super-successful yoga solopreneurs, so they might get into it fully intending to use that as a career to financially support themselves and their families. When they later fail and discover the truth about their peers, they don't want to admit defeat and themselves fall into the pattern of bs'ing people about their success, thus becoming part of the problem.
- rendall 5y ago
  > In the larger sense, it's absolutely toxic, because it projects a wholly unrealistic vision. People see others "succeeding", and blame themselves for "failing" when in reality, the "failures" don't realize that the "successes" were bankrolled by parents/spouses. I'm glad someone else gets this. I would have a real-talk conversation with some of those friends about this, but it was really hard to get it across. "People really look up to you, and aspire to do what you do." "Oh that's awesome!" "No, not awesome. They won't be able to. They don't have the advantages you do." "Are you mad that I have money?" "No, you're great. It's just that people won't have a realistic idea of what it takes to get where you are, if they think all you do is take photos for a living." "Hmm. Is this important? I have to get ready for other thing." They would assume it had something to do with jealousy, so I mostly stopped bothering.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
>The problem: This sort of behaviour is not really advancing the cause of feminism at all. Isn't the real problem that it is socially unacceptable to not have a job, even if you are a housewife, mother or even househusband. We have gone from women not having the choice to work to not having the choice to not work.
- gyulai 5y ago
  I thought that's what I was implying, although my choice of words was probably clumsy. I guess it's a sort of chicken-and-egg relationship. If it was more socially acceptable for women to be housewives, they would admit to it more freely. If women admitted to being housewives more freely, it would become more socially acceptable.
- nonameiguess 5y ago
  In what circles is it socially unacceptable to not have a job? I know of no systematic studies of who does this kind of thing and who does not and what the relative prevalence is, but of my entire extended family on both my side and my wife's side, other than my wife, I can't think of a single wife that has a job, and none of them pretend to have jobs, either. If we're talking solely of the class of people who own horses kept in upscale stables and have the leisure time to ride them daily, then perhaps for them simply maintaining a household and raising children isn't enough and they feel idle if they don't pretend to have jobs because they can pay full time maids and nannies and maintaining a household and raising children really isn't time consuming and leaves them too much idle time. That is hardly a common position to be in, though.
ElephantsMyAnus 5y ago
There is a guy, Viktor Kozeny, who is known for some hard to understand scam, and, I think he's a guy just like that, who through some horrible mistake ended up having actual responsibility, and screwed up so completely that nobody is willing to believe it, and there is no hidden tax haven money, only his well of mother.
Viliam1234 5y ago
You could even use Patreon to create an online proof of your successful business. If you have a hobby, like writing blogs or making photos, just subscribe to your friends' accounts, and they will subscribe to yours. Patreon will take some 30% of the money, which is not a problem if you are rich, and now you are a successful artist and you can prove it to the whole world.

by gyulai 5y ago

JohnBooty 5y ago

Yeah, this is a plague. At face value, it's not a big deal. Who cares if housewives lie/fib? In the larger sense, it's absolutely toxic, because it projects a wholly unrealistic vision. People see others "succeeding", and blame themselves for "failing" when in reality, the "failures" don't realize that the "successes" were bankrolled by parents/spouses. It is of course possible to succeed without the benefit of being bankrolled, but our weirdo faux-entrepreneur class makes it really challenging for others to understand what it takes or their odds of success.

gyulai 5y ago
...yeah, misrepresentation of the odds of success is actually an interesting part of the whole dynamic: I think many women sort of fall into this without intending it. Their peers suddenly all seem to be super-successful yoga solopreneurs, so they might get into it fully intending to use that as a career to financially support themselves and their families. When they later fail and discover the truth about their peers, they don't want to admit defeat and themselves fall into the pattern of bs'ing people about their success, thus becoming part of the problem.
rendall 5y ago
> In the larger sense, it's absolutely toxic, because it projects a wholly unrealistic vision. People see others "succeeding", and blame themselves for "failing" when in reality, the "failures" don't realize that the "successes" were bankrolled by parents/spouses. I'm glad someone else gets this. I would have a real-talk conversation with some of those friends about this, but it was really hard to get it across. "People really look up to you, and aspire to do what you do." "Oh that's awesome!" "No, not awesome. They won't be able to. They don't have the advantages you do." "Are you mad that I have money?" "No, you're great. It's just that people won't have a realistic idea of what it takes to get where you are, if they think all you do is take photos for a living." "Hmm. Is this important? I have to get ready for other thing." They would assume it had something to do with jealousy, so I mostly stopped bothering.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago

>The problem: This sort of behaviour is not really advancing the cause of feminism at all. Isn't the real problem that it is socially unacceptable to not have a job, even if you are a housewife, mother or even househusband. We have gone from women not having the choice to work to not having the choice to not work.

gyulai 5y ago
I thought that's what I was implying, although my choice of words was probably clumsy. I guess it's a sort of chicken-and-egg relationship. If it was more socially acceptable for women to be housewives, they would admit to it more freely. If women admitted to being housewives more freely, it would become more socially acceptable.
nonameiguess 5y ago
In what circles is it socially unacceptable to not have a job? I know of no systematic studies of who does this kind of thing and who does not and what the relative prevalence is, but of my entire extended family on both my side and my wife's side, other than my wife, I can't think of a single wife that has a job, and none of them pretend to have jobs, either. If we're talking solely of the class of people who own horses kept in upscale stables and have the leisure time to ride them daily, then perhaps for them simply maintaining a household and raising children isn't enough and they feel idle if they don't pretend to have jobs because they can pay full time maids and nannies and maintaining a household and raising children really isn't time consuming and leaves them too much idle time. That is hardly a common position to be in, though.

ElephantsMyAnus 5y ago

There is a guy, Viktor Kozeny, who is known for some hard to understand scam, and, I think he's a guy just like that, who through some horrible mistake ended up having actual responsibility, and screwed up so completely that nobody is willing to believe it, and there is no hidden tax haven money, only his well of mother.

Viliam1234 5y ago

You could even use Patreon to create an online proof of your successful business. If you have a hobby, like writing blogs or making photos, just subscribe to your friends' accounts, and they will subscribe to yours. Patreon will take some 30% of the money, which is not a problem if you are rich, and now you are a successful artist and you can prove it to the whole world.