| By Jesse Singal - Sep 23rd, 2007 at 12:01 pm EDT |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
I know it's not productive or original for me to get annoyed at the New York Times's ridiculously elitist tendencies, but, still, this article about the realities of women "dating down" (women in their 20s now make more than men of the same age, on average, in cities like New York, Chicago, Boston, and Minneapolis) really took it too far.
Yes, the piece does make some good points about how men and women are expected to react to having money. But the interesting sociological observations are drowned out by stuff like this:
Ms. Rowland, like some other women interviewed, said that she has come to the conclusion that it would be easier to date someone in the same economic bracket.
“I love traveling, going to the opera and good restaurants,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be Per Se, but good food is important in my life. It’s sometimes hard to maintain the lifestyle I’m used to when I’m in a relationship with a guy who makes less than me, since I don’t want to be paying for the guy I’m with all the time.”
That's rough. Good luck with that. I think my fundamental problem with the Times is that I forget that, despite the fact that it's considered a national paper, when it comes to lifestyle reporting it's still catering to New York City and Manhattan in particular -- a Never-Never Land where the average salary is over $75,500.
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"Women said the income disparity becomes obvious in all facets of dating: where you live, what you like to do for fun and how you travel. It often comes down to minimizing who they are — successful, focused women — with their dates, who may be lagging a bit behind."
I may be misreading here, but that seems to suggest that a high income is necessarily coincident with success and focus. Someone please stand up for the academics and journalists out there!
Please keep in mind most people in NYC are not very wealthy, most don't make over 70,000 especially in their 20s and 70,000 rarely gets you very far in NYC anyway. I agree with you though overall, I just always here people talking about how elite New York is and define the typical New York experience as living extravagently when few do and most who do are rarely native New Yorkers anyway. It's just a pet peeve of mine so I had to say it =).
In other words, the fact that Manhattan is a very rich place on average (and it is -- it's gotten to the point where most of its neighborhoods are unaffordable to the vast majority of Americans) is only part of the problem; plenty of blame should go to the paper itself and what it sees as its priorities when it comes to lifestyle reporting. The editorial stance seems to be, more or less, that rich people are fascinating and that their lives are worthy of endless inches of column space. Especially in a world capital-type place like NYC -- a city where an almost baffling decrease in crime and runaway gentrification have led to monumental changes in the past 25 years or so -- shouldn't there be more pressing lifestyle issues to cover?
However, I don't think the Times is only to blame. It seems that lately most people are fascinated with the wealthy and their lifestyles and many often try to emulate it whether or not they really can.Just look at the obsession people have with pop cultural icons (Paris Hilton, Brittney Spears etc.). The Times is just feeding people what they want to read and most aren't interested in real substantial stories unfortunately. Maybe, hopefully, the trend will change as people begin to get sick with, or just bored of, reading about elitist lifestyles.
This isn't a recent development. Marilyn Monroe was Marilyn Monroe, and celebrity human-interest cases like the Lindbergh baby have been around since time immemorial. As best I can tell, it was much the same in ancient Greece and Rome (Though politics hadn't yet acquired its reputation as "show business for ugly people").
Any reason why they wouldn't? Like all news organizations, they're a business. Catering to whatever the opposite of 'upper-crust' is doesn't bring in advertising dollars.