Karma be damned but women as a whole are swayed more by marketing then men are. They've been sold the princess wedding, the diamond ring, the brand-name clothing, etc. It's difficult to break them of this so sometimes the fight isn't worth it.
I didn't pay for my wedding so that was my in-laws problem although it wasn't grandiose (but it could've been) and I was fairly poor when we got engaged so the two-month salary guideline was a joke.
As for diamonds, my wife loves jewelery but has grown up and realized that everyone off the street can't tell the difference between CZ and a diamond. Case in point, I bought her a very nice ring from Nordstrom that looks like it's probably an $8k+ diamond ring and that everyone else thinks is a 'rock'. But it's just a big piece of CZ, surrounded by smaller pieces of CZ. Not one person has ever questioned whether it's a diamond or at least doesn't have the balls to. If asked my wife would be honest but she's never been asked (at least around me).
To make a claim like this, I'd normally expect data, not a bunch of anecdotes. Men I know are highly swayed by marketing as well. They want expensive cars, tools, games, alcohol, and other toys. It is hard to reason about the degree to which each is influenced solely from the products that are marketed to them.
It is quite a stretch for me to believe that women are fundamentally more susceptible to marketing of frivolous luxuries than men. My guess is that you just don't think the things you want a frivolous.
It's not a name brand or a lifestyle, almost everything marketed to men has some sort of pragmatic function to it. Be it the big F-150 that can tow a ton, to the comfortable (yet fuel efficient!) 4-door sedan. Sport cars might be an exception for most men (although not for me). As much as you don't need it, a $2000 60" HDTV is still more functional than a purse that costs the same amount of money.
And now to the marketing for women. Victoria's Secret: you want to look as good as this. Coach: you want a purse that looks like you can afford it. Disney: every girl is a princess. DeBeers: it shows you he loves you. I can go on, but there's no practicality in any of it. It's even worse when the target of the ads are women but the stuff they are selling are for men, since women do a lot of purchasing in relationships. You see this a lot in 'high-end' stuff like watches and sunglasses.
It's not sexism if it's honest - just accept that men and women are wired differently otherwise you do a disservice to women.
I'm amused at your implied claim that men aren't advertised to in fashion, since I can barely turn on the TV or radio without hearing an ad for Men's Wearhouse. Disney absolutely sells the prince metaphor to little boys too, and the fact that they grow into men who wants princesses is a big part of why that whole thing has stuck around so long. And if you think diamond advertisements aren't at least partially to men who don't know their wives and are at a loss for what will please them besides jewelry, then you simply aren't paying attention to the imagery in these ads or the types of shows they get placed on (e.g. the god damn Superbowl).
The Men's Warehouse commercials are as I described before, they talk about looking good for a function - work but life also. This is the pragmatic men's marketing. It's not the 'expensive so it must be good' branding that is on a lot of female products.
When was the last Disney 'prince' movie? Aladdin? Lion King? Meanwhile, Disney has now deemed Mulan and Tinker Bell as a princesses, there is now an African-American princess (Princess and the Frog), they added another pretty, white princess (Rapunzel from Tangled), a Scottish princess (Brave) and Disney is adding a hispanic princess[1] (although light on the hispanic). Girls have been sold the knight in shining armor. Boy could care less about princesses they just want be an action hero.
Diamond advertisements that talk about 'investment' are for men, but there aren't many of those. It's all about 'forever', 'love', etc, which are emotional pleas to women.
And the Superbowl has A TON of women watching[2]. It's sexist to think otherwise. The NFL is openly courting women as a way to increase viewership[3].
[1] http://www.examiner.com/article/disney-s-princess-sofia-the-...
[2] http://jamiedunham.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/marketing-to-wom...
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/sports/football/nfl-hones-...
Are you serious? Is this a joke?
A purse actually serves a useful function. It doesn't serve $2000 of function, but it's useful in that it lets you carry around important items.
A TV serves no useful purpose whatsoever. None. Zero. There is nothing useful in your life that the TV lets you do.
I think your bias might be showing here just a little bit.
I won't bother arguing the value of a TV. I think there are many that can argue the value of a designer purse.
As far as the _quality_ of the TV being purchased, it seems the point that GP was making (whether I agree with his larger point or not) is that the 60" TV fills its function a lot better than the 19" one which costs a tenth of the price. By contrast, as far as I know there is no correlation to "how well a purse carries items" and its price (beyond the very very low end, of course, but far from the $2000 level). GP's point was that the price difference between a 200 and 2000 dollar purse is being spent almost entirely on brand (even the appearance is the same, when you consider off-brand purses), and the difference between a 200 and 2000 dollar TV is being spent on a VERY large difference in quality as far as functionality. This distinction between "paying for brand" and "paying for functionality" is exactly the point that GP is making about marketing.
As a thought experiment, consider what would happen if Sony started selling its current flagship $2000 TV for 20 dollars, and it was widely known and permanent. Now consider what would happen if the same happened for Louis Vuitton's flagship $2000 handbag. The perceived value of the handbag would vanish almost instantly. No one wants a status symbol that's cheap. You can't destroy _real_ consumer value (vs brand/marketing value) that easily just by dropping the price.
[1]http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/05/nielsen-gaming-tv-console/
Keywords being "marketed to." Marketing is a perverse beast and should not really be taken as proof of anything. I mean, the DeBeers story which eventually lead to the article here is specifically about how you can create, from whole cloth, a societal tradition simply with quality marketing.
I think you assume masculine things are functional while feminine things are not but that's not entirely true. You're completely overlooking, say, cleaning product and vacuum cleaner ads directed straight at women, and that masculine marketing is just as vapid in as many ways (e.g. Monster Cables, energy drinks). While diamonds don't really "do things" in the way that a car or a TV does, there are incredibly rational social reasons for buying the former and incredibly irrational, marketing-driven reasons for purchasing the latter.
I also think it's incredibly silly to assume we can learn anything about how men and women are wired by looking at marketing. A century or so ago pink was a color for boys and blue was for girls, and at that time you could have made some assumptions about what each sex innately prefers and you would have been just as wrong.
Purely for the sake of argument let's accept your premise for the moment that men are more concerned with pragmatism than women. It does NOT logically follow that men are less influenced by marketing than women.
You are pretty easily refuted by basically every beer commercial ever. Likewise the trucks you point to - show me a truck advertisement where an engineer comes out and explains exhaustively why this truck is better designed. That basically never happens, instead you get shots of the truck driving over mountains while "fk yea" rock music plays in the background and the truck is shown hauling giant weights around.
There certainly are differences in the way men and women think about things (in a general overall sense)...and I have no doubt that the WAYS in which things are marketed differ between men and women (in a general overall sense)...that doesn't mean women are somehow "more susceptible" though. The fact that advertising to men is just as common as advertising to women suggests they are about equally effective. If you want to suggest otherwise you need to provide actual evidence.
There have been studies on chimpanzees showing that female chimps choose girly toys (dolls etc), and male chimps choose male toys (weapons, trucks etc) without any outside influence. Yet people act like the human species is different. They believe people only become who they are because of indoctrination into their respective gender roles.
Then when you call BS on that... you're called a sexist. Then when you say "YES I AM A SEXIST" you're called a misogynist. I don't see how treating women differently (better in many cases) leads to "hating women."
As for marketing - I think women do choose products differently than men. It's because they're wired differently. They are more likely to choose products based on sentimental or perceived social value. If you look at the majority of Meyers-Briggs personality types among women, there aren't as many INTP,INTJ or other engineering types. Even if you don't agree with Meyers-Briggs... that there exists such a strong difference between the male and female population that an INTP (my type) is 4 times as likely to be a male, it should prove there are major differences.
The end result of these differences is that you should buy the woman you want to marry a diamond. As an INTP I know it's illogical - but I can accept it since I believe women and men are wired differently. I feel sorry for the men on HN who believe otherwise and are going to argue against diamonds with their future wife. (good luck with that - unless she's an INTP)
If I had bought my wife a diamond ring it would have showed her I really didn't know her.
Pull out whatever study you want that says men are wired X and women are wired Y - that study is based on samples and statistics. You'll find plenty of girls that like trucks and boys that like dolls. Treat the people around you like individuals who can have both male and female traits and their own unique personality.
And nobody is disagreeing with you. It is sexist to say "women are more influenced by marketing" when they are not. If men and women are influenced the same, then making a statement about the difference between them is being sexist.
So, if someone can actually provide some data that shows whether or not women are more influenced than men, instead of everyone continuing to provide anecdotes (as you have), then we can either stop saying false things, or we can accept that different genders work differently.
The thing is... if you value how you are perceived by others, then fashion is an extremely important investment. It does serve a purpose to women (and some socially-conscious men).
There is some interesting data that shows women are buying more... just Google "percentage of purchasing decisions made by women." It's over 70% - so it wouldn't be surprising if most marketing is targeted towards women.
This leads to the assumption that innate behavioral differences between genders is directly responsible for the discrepancy seen in cultural representations of gender in marketing, media, or even language.
this assumption is not only intuitively wrong, but it is directly contradicted by decades of sociological research.
Almost all of our perceived gender differences are constructed through our use of language and perpetuation of harmful, inaccurate stereotypes[0]. This means that a gender concept such as heterogeneous masculinity is self fulfilling. It simultaneously provides a standard of behavior (men should build stuff, men should be powerful, men should make lots of money, men should 'have' a woman) and is constructed by men's behavior (I made stuff, I am powerful, I make lots of money, I 'have' a woman, therefore I 'am a man').[1]
In regards to it being intuitively wrong:
You mentioned that many items that are marketed to men have a 'pragmatic' function. I'd argue that they're not always pragmatic (you mentioned sports cars), and instead, the overarching theme of most products marketed towards men(and, often by extension, most advertisements) is power.
An immediate example that comes to my mind is toy advertisements that are targeted at children. Most toys that are marketed towards boys feature an element of construction, violence, or critical thinking, while most ads targeted towards girls feature homemaking or visual arts. I don't feel the need to provide a footnote here as the google search 'gender differences in childrens' advertisements' provides a wealth of information.
These differences in advertisements are not because children who have a feminine gender identity are bad at or naturally averse to thinking critically. The disconnect between advertisements targeted at children is a clear example of marketing agencies accomplishing gender on a large scale. This is a particularly potent example because not only does it show that there _are_ differences in the way that gender is constructed, it shows that there is actually a power differential created between the two genders!
This is not to say that the marketing agencies are evil in any way - they are simply playing into a market separation that already exists because of our current construction of gender roles. However, by 'doing gender' and continuing to perpetuate our harmful stereotypes, they are in fact doing society a great disservice.
[0] West & Zimmerman, 1987, 'Doing gender'
[1] Mumby, 1998, 'Organizing Men: Power, Discourse, and the Social Construction of Masculinity(s) in the Workplace'
Either you provide a scientific cite for that claim or that is a straight up sexist statement. In case you haven't heard there's a lot of stupid irrational purchasing behavior by guys too.
There are a ton of crazy figures to digest on that page, again none addresses which sex is "swayed" more by a given advertisement. For example, "Women account for 85% of all consumer purchases including everything from autos to health care"; "Senior women age 50 and older control net worth of $19 trillion and own more than three-fourths of the nation’s financial wealth"; and "Wealthy boomer women...make 95 percent of the purchase decisions for their households".
Assuming it is true, women making 85% of consumer purchases is kind of mind blowing. This does not necessarily mean women are swayed more by marketing, but I think it is safe to say women as a whole are targeted by marketing campaigns more than men - at least after reading these numbers that is how I would market a consumer product.
>Women account for 85% of all consumer purchases including everything from autos to health care: 91% of New Homes 66% PCs 92% Vacations 80% Healthcare 65% New Cars 89% Bank Accounts 93% Food 93 % OTC Pharmaceuticals American women spend about $5 trillion annually… Over half the U.S. GDP
The list must be referencing "items purchased" rather than "dollar-wise". It is by no means definitive of the answer who makes more expensive purchases, but if women are buying 9 out of every 10 new houses, 65% of new cars, and 80% of healthcare plans what big ticket items are left for men to buy to outspend women?
Now the part at the end about $5 trillion being 1/2 the US GDP, might not be an error but be more telling of when these statistics are from (US GDP currently closer to $15T). Nevertheless like in my OP, the numbers are mind blowing, consider the following:
GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports)
Or
1/2 GDP = women spending = (private consumption - women spending) + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports)
If you reread the page you posted, you can see the hints of that. People talking about how older women make up a demo that "no advertiser can afford to ignore" -- that's not something an advertiser would say unprompted about 18-35 year old males, for example, because the idea of advertisers ignoring 18-35 year old males would be absurd.
Citation needed. Plenty of men are swayed by marketing -- for instance, you'll note that the marketing ploy in TFA is directed at men.
It's also worth noting that the commentary here is lopsided. There are comments from men saying they don't care about diamonds but their fiancee did, but you don't see a whole lot of the inverse (women saying "I don't care about diamonds") . One could easily assume that's because "women...are swayed more by marketing then men are". In reality, it's more likely due to HN's readership being predominantly male.
I'll occasionally take shots at my sister for this (because, well, she's my sister and she loves taking shots at me too so it's fair). But my God I don't dare challenge the issue of spending extravagantly on rings/weddings with another woman (I once did, it didn't go very nicely for me).
But... overtime here's how I've come to rationalize it: symbolism is a strong emotional asset. If it helps make the girl happy, then it's worth it -- because mental happiness is worth it; because mental health is a component of your overall state. And hey, afterall, I did spend $700 on my chair, $300 on my kinesis keyboard, $800 on my LCD monitor, etc. etc.
Emotion is all in your head after all. :-)
The difference is that these are all things that increase comfort and health, not only happiness. As somebody who sits at a computer all day, this has a huge impact on your back, wrists, eyes, etc.
We've all seen plenty of insane, $50k weddings result in 3-year marriages.
There's no doubt that the wedding industry is a racket (oh, did you want your dinner guests to have forks? That'll be $3 each. Water glasses too? ...) but also there's something to be said for not cheaping out on what's ostensibly one of the most important days of your life. FWIW, we managed to pay less than many people, while getting much better food and drinks than the average wedding and a more memorable, personalized experience by foregoing traditional wedding venues and caterers and instead simply buying out one of our favorite restaurants for the evening.
The key though is having a good quality stone from a reputable cutter with full certification. Diamonds are not fungible like say gold. A low-quality diamond purchased in an expensive mass-market ring isn't going to be worth anything on resale.
My wedding was stockily expensive by my standards (low to mid five figures), but with gifts we essentially broke even and the party was priceless. I would do it again.
what real use does a piece of rock (which is what a diamond is) have? How can it possibly give mental happiness? I'm not sure I understand
It is also a well-entrenched example of costly signaling [1] in humans [2]
(For the lazy, costly signaling basically says, a costly empty gesture is a strong indicator of mate quality, because only a high-quality mate can afford to waste lots of resources on an empty gesture)
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory#Costly_signal...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory#Human_honest_...
Good, at least you understand it is only an illusion ;)
When was the last time your murdered someone with your bare hands at the supermarket?
toh-may-toh/toh-mah-toh
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagement_ring
> Before the 20th century, other types of betrothal gifts were common. Near the end of the 19th century, it was typical for the bride-to-be to receive a sewing thimble rather than an engagement ring.[1] This practice was particularly common among religious groups that shunned jewelry (plain people). Engagement rings did not become standard in the West until the end of the 19th century, and diamond rings did not become common until in the 1930s in the United States, as a result of an extensive nationwide marketing campaign by the diamond industry. The phenomenon arose even later in other countries.[1] Now, 80% of American women are offered a diamond ring to signify engagement.[1]
> The idea that a man should spend a significant fraction of his annual income for an engagement ring originated de novo from De Beers marketing materials in the early 20th century, in an effort to increase the sale of diamonds.[1] In the 1930s, they suggested that a man should spend the equivalent of one month's income in the engagement ring; later they suggested that he should spend two months' income on it.[1] In 2007, the average cost of an engagement ring in USA as reported by the industry was US$2,100.[9]
Having an understanding with my partner that we're willing to indulge each others irrational, socialized preferences does have its upsides.
Now, the misstep in marrying a geologist is that she owns many other rocks worth much more.
For an actual rock (which are classified differently than gemstones) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourmaline
and her reasoning, "Actually gains value, good ones are not common (like diamonds are), awesome variety of colors"
Also said she likes aquamarine for actual gemstones (it's beryl, same thing as emeralds), but it's not as hard as diamond and wouldn't stand up to the daily abuse as well.
She also said she'd enjoy an uncut diamond mounted in a ring, but that's probably purely the geologist in her speaking.
She's also a fan of monzinite and clear topaz.
My wife is a diamond nerd, as well as one of the most rational people you'll ever meet, and she'd explain it this way: the diamond is a test that serves various useful purposes from the perspective of the woman:
1) It demonstrates the man's ability to provide; 2) It demonstrates the man's willingness to forgo the other things he could buy with the money for a gift for her that does not directly benefit him in any way; and 3) It demonstrates to the woman's peers her husband's social standing.
An important thing to remember is that women take on a huge opportunity cost in getting married and having kids. My wife and I just had our first baby. Pregnancy and childbirth is a barbaric process and a woman will never be quite the same after. Taking care of an infant is tiring, stressful, boring, and thankless--and no matter how enlightened the husband is and how willing he is to help out, because of the baby's hard-wired inclinations the buck will always stop with the wife. Finally, if the woman is educated and has a career, that career will be permanently compromised by virtue of getting married and having kids. With all this in the background, it is evident that the social convention of the ring conveys valuable information to a woman considering getting married and bearing these costs. Re: 1, all else being equal a man that can provide more is more valuable than a man that can provide less. Re: 2, all else being equal a man that is willing to forgo things for himself is better than a man who is not; Re: 3, all else being equal a woman's social life will be positively affected in a tangible way by marring a man of higher social standing than of a lower one. It is totally rational for a woman to ask: "I'm willing to give up all this, what are you willing to do?" The ring is just a way to demonstrate this commitment in a way that is universally understood and spares everyone the awkward conversation of laying all the chips on the table.
Now, these elements are less important in 2013 than they were in say 1813. But at the same time to an extent they are not diminished in importance, but rather culture has shifted to downplay the uncomfortable truths at the root of these elements. For example, we like to downplay how much women really give up by being the child-bearers. But for an educated woman, if having kids cuts the probability of attaining a high position on her career by half,[1] the choice to have kids could mean millions of dollars in lost income over a lifetime. It's totally rational for a woman thinking of making such a compromise to demand from her potential husband a gesture showing that he is willing and able to take the other half of the bargain. But all this is something that we don't say in polite company, because we have fully bought into the mythologies about marriage that are in vogue at the moment: that it's just about "love" and all that matters is a mate that makes you "happy" and that it's an arrangement that is costless to enter into and exit out of.
There is, of course, nothing inherent about diamonds that makes them the only option for this kind of signaling. Indeed, in other cultures a cash gift is the norm instead. But the value of a signal is in its standardization, so to speak, and it just so happens that the diamond is the standard signal in western culture.
[1] Less than 20% of women never have kids, but about half of very high achieving women (executives, etc) never have kids.
2) See: 1)
3) It demonstrates to the woman's peers that she is shallow enough to respect social standing over more admirable (and important) qualities, unless they're just as shallow.
1) It demonstrates the man's ability to provide; 2) It
demonstrates the man's willingness to forgo the other
things he could buy with the money for a gift for her
that does not directly benefit him in any way; and 3)
It demonstrates to the woman's peers her husband's
social standing.
I've got a daughter. She's only 4 months old, but I've had occasion to think a bit about this. I would not want her to marry someone who wasn't willing to give her a ring? Why? Reasons (1) and (2) I mentioned, sure, but also reason (3). It is the mark of a sensible man that he cares what other people think about him. People who buck social conventions sometimes become trend-setters and are incredibly successful for it, but more often just make life harder on themselves and the people that depend on them. Do I want my daughter to be with a man that is willing to create headwinds for himself out of foolish principles and refusal to conform? All else being equal, no (although I don't have any illusions about how much of it is up to me!)
After all, it's just a matter of her social standing, not the importance of the relationship and a marriage between two human people. I hesitate to use the word soul, but maybe here it applies.
Diamonds are _so dehumanizing_ and this thread would have me thoroughly depressed if so many people weren't arguing against DeBeers.
That seems like a really shallow and material evaluator of the character of a human being.
> People who buck social conventions sometimes become trend-setters and are incredibly successful for it, but more often just make life harder on themselves and the people that depend on them
Well thank God that Jackie Robinson, Marie Curie, or Barack Obama didn't believe this. Sometimes being different from the rest of the crowd and following your passions is more worthwhile rather than striving to "fit in" by purchasing status-enhancers.
You've completely missed his point. It's about knowing when it's not worth the effort to buck society's dictates.
>Well thank God that Jackie Robinson, Marie Curie, or Barack Obama didn't believe this.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://rollingout.com/wp...
Most of us nerds are fighting the idea of diamonds signifying social standing. The practice, and culture of giving expensive rings is objectively wacky. You're right that in your social circle taking an odd position will cost you your reputation, but consider that in the past many morally reprehensible practices were the norm and being an odd one out would cost you your reputation. If you operate on a framework so rigidly tied to social standing you might make pretty wacky decisions down the line. Ultimately, decisions made on this framework may not always be the wisest decisions.
On the one hand, I admire you saying that outright.
On the other hand, isn't it somewhat true that the vast majority of backwardness and oppression in the world stems from that same doctrine?
The desire for a short timescale pragmatic conformism seems to be a partial cause of much of the world's problems throughout history.
A sensible man only cares what other people think about him when it is to his benefit to do so. A foolish man cares what other people think about him all of the time.
> People who buck social conventions sometimes become trend-setters and are incredibly successful for it, but more often just make life harder on themselves and the people that depend on them.
In my experience, people who believe in marking the checkboxes of life have an awfully hard time discerning the difference between falling off the beaten path, and taking a shortcut.
> Do I want my daughter to be with a man that is willing to create headwinds for himself out of foolish principles and refusal to conform? All else being equal, no
It seems exceptionally foolish for you to rely on abstractions and proxy signaling (eg, buying a diamond) to discern the attributes of the person your daughter would be considering marrying. One would hope that the evidence for those attributes ought to be entirely apparent to her before that point.
My wife and I have been married 4 years now and gone primarily without rings. No negative consequences so far, and I'm definitely glad I didn't dedicate 20%+ of my income to a valueless trinket. We have objects that signify our relationship, but they're cheap or free, and imbued primarily with sentimental value only. This is, in my estimation, much better than propping up the diamond myth and cartel.
*Just to clarify, to avoid making this seem like a strawman: I'm creating a deliberately extreme example that to me seems like the logical extension of optimizing for "success" (or minimizing headwinds) at the expense of character (personified in your example by someone who's principled as opposed to a follow-the-herd type person). The purpose of this is to highlight the fact that this is someone you're accepting into your family, and the importance of that becomes particularly clear when you consider that the man he is will in large part shape the men and women you're grandchildren are.
Parent commenter is interested in someone who thinks the way he does. There is nothing wrong with that and there are probably more parents from my experience who wants someone who hold their views then are willing to accept someone with different views.
I hope you get your wish! Children often find a way to push our buttons, however.
Tell me this statement is satire: "Do I want my daughter to be with a man that is willing to create headwinds for himself out of foolish principles and refusal to conform? All else being equal, no"
Agree with you (and my daughter is much much older).
I would be totally wary of a man that decided in lieu of buying a ring for my daughter to make a donation to a charity. The ring is a gift for the woman. In the event of a divorce the woman typically gets to keep the ring it's an asset and does have value despite all the drivel of the OP and everyone else here is saying. Owning 100% of something that is only worth 50% of what someone else paid for it is still more than 0 (what you get with a charity donation at least monetarily).
Someone who actually cares what someone thinks of him based on whether he bought an overpriced hunk of carbon is what sensible call a "deuschebag."
This is a really disgusting line of thinking
That's a pretty loaded way of putting it. It comes across as saying that the only two options are being an incredibly successful trendsetter or making things difficult for themselves and dependents. Yes, you could argue that technically it's not saying these are the only options, but it sure strongly suggests they are.
I think that dichotomy is ridiculous - as if the two ends of the spectrum are the only two possible outcomes. If you put it that way of course it seems like a bad thing to buck social conventions.
> Do I want my daughter to be with a man that is willing to create headwinds for himself out of foolish principles and refusal to conform?
I don't think your comment gives an argument for why those principles are supposedly foolish.
.
You are of course free to say and do as you please. Such freedom of views also applies to others, and IMO the attitude expressed in your comment is a small-minded one.
Blind conformity is one of the most dangerous behaviors a society could exhibit.
Caring about what other people think of you leads to things like joining the KKK, stockpiling guns and killing six million Jews. It's religious think.
See, me, for my daughter, I'd be proud if she married someone who suggested they take the $30,000 he would have spent on a dumb diamond ring and try their hand at starting a business. Even from failure they would grow and learn.
There is no learning from in buying a diamond ring. It does not prepare you for life in any imaginable way. It does not prepare you for economic difficulties, medical problems or to develop a good sense on financial matters. It's just plain dumb.
So what's the functional value of entertainment then? It makes you feel good. A diamond makes a woman feel good. It's that simple. Doesn't matter why. It's for her. Not up to a man to judge the value anymore then you want a woman deciding the value of why you might spend you money on whatever makes you feel good.
(To be clear, though, I'm a nerdy gay like the parent commenter, and I can't fathom a situation where either my boyfriend or I would ever want the other one to buy a diamond for any reason, so there's probably some component of the dynamics here that I don't fully grasp.)
The ring does have functional value, but for her and not for you. Part of the point is that is doesn't directly benefit you at all.
tl;dr if a woman will only love you / stay with you when you buy them expensive things they don't actually love you.
When you buy things for other people, it is generally a positive for your relationship with them. In general, they are happier and think better of you. Getting upset about it and saying they don't 'really love you' is not true and not super helpful.
Human nature is very hard to change, no matter how intelligent / introspective we become. Do you never buy your significant other dinner, a night out, or gifts of any kind?
If someone isn't willing to compromise in the face of reason (e.g. "we can't afford an expensive wedding or a ring", or "I'm concerned about supporting conflict in Africa and supporting the diamond cartel") then I'd say the relationship is probably not strong enough to last.
And you're moving the argument here - previously we were talking about buying an expensive ring, not supporting armed conflict or purchasing something you can't afford.
And if the _symbol_ of your supposedly permanent commitment is a diamond, that says something very cynical about that marriage.
I'm sure there are good marriages with diamond rings involved. I'm pretty sure those marriages aren't successful because of that, but rather in spite of it.
1) Your wife can measure how much you can provide just as well by having you actually provide valuable things. Like a house.
2) Your wife can measure your unselfishness by having you buy something that is actually valuable to her but useless to you. Like daycations with her friends. There's no sense in buying something which is valuable to neither party.
3) The need to demonstrate your social standing to other people is the result of low self-esteem. Maybe your wife needs therapy, not a diamond.
This doesn't make it right, but there are numerous human psychology reasons why this tradition endures and so many people take part in it. Writing off people who want or provide a diamond ring as mentally ill (as many people in this thread seem to be doing) is silly.
What do you consider mental illness to be? And what is therapy in your view?
The term 'mentally ill' in my view has been stigmatized quite a bit, and being 'unwell' mentally does not mean you are crazy, but that you have issues you feel you need to deal with. Isn't that the point of seeing a therapist?
An interesting blog on this topic here:
http://www.theage.com.au/executive-style/culture/blogs/all-m...
Just about anything people may have talked to priests about in the past they can now talk to therapists about.
Now, if you want to define mental illness such that it covers all of these things, and all the other reasons to see a therapist, that is fine. Words are just what you make of them; you can, of course, define them as you see fit.
However, if you redefine mental illness in such a way then I can see really no justification for using the negative connotations that mental illness normally holds to facilitate mock outrage ("Writing off people who want or provide a diamond ring as mentally ill (as many people in this thread seem to be doing) is silly.") Instead of criticizing erikpukinskis for "writing off those people as mentally ill", perhaps you should instead explain why you do not agree with his suggestion that low self-esteem could be a factor.
Enjoy your stay. Good luck and have fun!
No, wasting money on a valueless shiny rock is silly. But let's just keep advocating people 'keep up the tradition' instead.
Why? It is, to this day, even in the U.S., the dominant arrangement between men and women, especially in the context of relationships that result in children.
> The need to demonstrate your social standing to other people is the result of low self-esteem.
That are very pragmatic reasons to invest in signals of social standing. It minimizes the cultural friction between yourself and the people who can help you get ahead, who are overwhelmingly people of high social standing themselves.
Because I advocate relationships where contributions are granulated and distributed according to participant interest, not participant gender. Monolithic roles like "provider" (and the concomitant role of "consumer/sex object") of are inherently coercive. Because they're monolithic and tied to gender. I think that kind of coercion is perverse.
> That are very pragmatic reasons to invest in signals of social standing
I don't think those signals are meaningfully connected to anything real, they're just signals of standing. They are power begetting power, and I think willfully engaging that system is perverse.
Okay how do you distribute child-bearing according to participant interest? How do you distribute child-rearing according to participant interest, bearing in mind that an infant just wants to suck on a breast and doesn't care about your views on gender roles.
Adoption.
> How do you distribute child-rearing according to participant interest, bearing in mind that an infant just wants to suck on a breast and doesn't care about your views on gender roles.
There are some limits to what can be shared. I advocate going right up to that line. A woman who wants to raise a baby at some point has to make tough choices about formula, breast pumping, bonding, and her other priorities in life. There is a qualitative difference between the handful of hard limits imposed by biology, and the many limits imposed by compulsory monolithic gender roles.
The IQ of children is highly correlated with the IQ of parents. Adoption is not, for educated couples, an alternative to having their own children.
> A woman who wants to raise a baby at some point has to make tough choices about formula, breast pumping, bonding, and her other priorities in life.
You can make things as equal as possible, but no more. My wife and I have almost identical educational backgrounds. We accepted very similar jobs out of school (she will technically be making more money than me considering benefits). We had our baby her last year of school so she wouldn't have to take maternity leave, with the negative stigma associated with that. I'm taking a couple of years off from working at a large law firm so I can work a 9-5 with a judge and take more baby responsibilities and allow her to focus on her career. We're trying extremely hard to make things as equitable as possible between the two of us.
But at the end of the day if my wife had suffered a complication in child birth (it is still the most dangerous thing most people do), it would have fallen to me to provide for her and the child. I was not the one who had to take that bodily risk, therefore I assumed by default the "provider" role, or at least had to be fully prepared to assume that role. Therefore, it was totally rational for her to have been concerned, pre-marriage, about my ability to do so.
That's some useful education.
This is the most depressing thing I read in this whole thread. The idea that one should view raising "highly successful" children as some kind of outcome they can control or influence through "high IQ tigerness" and cold economic analysis is humorous and sad all at once. Coupled with encouragement to not buck a pointless social tradition because it may make (shallow, deplorable) people judge you as less worthy and thus may negatively impact your future prospects of becoming more like them seems like a rather sad way to live life, but I guess we all have our own goals. The fact that after thousands of years our species is still mesmerized by shiny rocks we dug out of the ground is also odd to me, but apparently not others.
Like BBC radio 4 has a leftie, public-services-union-member audience and a rightwing traditionalist audience who are largely unaware of each other, HN has an ivy league educated randian-hero readership and a more old-school, "just give me an ounce of weed and a hex editor and I'm happy forever" readership, and both is convinced the other is intruding on their community.
There is plenty of research to suggest that socio-economic (SES) status is the driving factor behind IQ, not genetics. An adopted child's IQ will tend to be higher if adopting parents have high SES
Translation: I have shitty friends and assume everyone else does too.
"We" spend on average three months worth of salary. Around £5k I guess. Certainly not enough for a house, but a good amount of money to put towards your first family home when you get married. Houses need furniture and all that fancy stuff. :)
I'm British and I've never heard this three month thing outside of the US. Surely this isn't a UK cultural thing too?
Never been married either, mind, or in a position to propose, so it hasn't exactly come up.
The silly/sad/stupid thing is when you put it in context of a ring+marriage ceremony. The same way many college students are starting out life with debt, they often go and add 25-30K of extra debt between an expensive, value-less ring and a wedding ceremony.
A mortgage is usually on three times annual salary, so 312x = 36x. A ring is 'worth' 3x, so not far off a tenth.
1. Adherence to social convention for its own sake
2. Submission to a multinational construed as something positive
3. Imbalanced monogamous relationships based on opportunity cost and trading status for reproductive capacity
4. Spending money and life on creating more humans
Probably a few more but I don't really want to dig through it any more.
We are a species where, thus far, the burdens of
motherhood are associated with a single gender
But I disagree on the point that the role of motherhood inextricably falls down on a woman's turf for the years to come. As a male I can say that I would be happy to be a stay-at-home-dad after the infant is of a certain age -- and I have met many women who're okay with this idea (of the man staying at home while the woman makes money).
As a practical matter, the latter follows the former, almost inexorably. Between the negative stigma of being pregnant at work to the negative stigma of taking maternity leave, to the negative stigma of having to be there for your young child when it is still in the "I need my mommy" stage (which lasts into the first couple of years), by the time the father can assume a fully co-equal role in parenting the woman has already substantially compromised her career and it becomes rational, in a perverse way, for her to be the one to undertake further compromises.
However I wonder if many of the stigmas you mention are ingrained into society only by the persisting culture, and so one should not fear challenging them? There are many single-dads that do a wonderful job of raising kids alone as a single parent (admittedly I don't know any who started taking care of the kids below the age of 2 -- and I do accept that even 2 years is a hell of a long time).
I'd recommend dropping a small note to info@ycombinator.com telling them to do something about this.
edit: I just did, let's see what they do about it. (and it was this post that is showing up as dead: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5404947)
Forunately none of these things prescribe (or justify) human behavior.
It's not an "alternate" world when many of us are already living here and welcoming others.
No, an end to population growth isn't good for economic growth, luckily that's not what life's about.
That's ok though, desires/hobbies/cultural practices/etc are generally not based in reason.
/* For example, it's very doubtful that today you would gain any real insight into a persons ability to "provide" from them giving you a diamond...in fact it's more likely to deceive you (they could purchase on credit, buy a stolen/fake one, etc). You'd learn much more about that from simply dating/courting them - knowing about their spending/saving habits, profession, etc.
Seriously?
I guess this just shows one aspect of how screwed up our modern society is.
Yeah, it's "magical" and whatnot, but my wife would rather be water-boarded than be pregnant again.
It is a life changing experience for both wife and husband. It's part of life. Life isn't a video game. It's not a synthetic experience. Some people may prefer to be a brain in a jar hooked to some wires but then where would they put the diamond ring? :-)
But, yes, giving birth can involve complications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_death
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-re...
What you so casually disregard as "mythologies of marriage" is the result of striving for equality. A hundred years ago, marriage was indeed just another economic transaction. The suitor paid the father of the girl, who was happy to have her off his hands, being of no use in succeeding him to lead the family business.
We have not yet reached equality, so alimony is still law and being pregnant a career ender. Hence we still need the economic signaling provided by diamonds.
Edit: And that reads like I'm competing with you. I'm not, because that just as bad. Remembering the loud comments and idiocy of strangers makes me a touch wild.
I can do that by buying houses. Diamonds are only a good indicator of frivolity with cash.
"2) It demonstrates the man's willingness to forgo the other things he could buy with the money for a gift for her that does not directly benefit him in any way;"
It demonstrates a lack of sense on the part of both parties.
"3) It demonstrates to the woman's peers her husband's social standing."
Not if you start to look at it as a huge waste of cash it doesn't.
--edit-- to expand on that last point; if diamonds started to be viewed as a pointless and vulgar excess, like shiny rims or a full set of gold teeth, then it could demonstrate a lack of social standing. They only currently demonstrate a positive social message because of convention. Why not change convention?
I wanted to bring up rims and teeth to head off the obvious criticism that something expensive (the diamond) is worn to demonstrate exactly that you don't have to think about money - many other things purchased for this reason are sneered at by most people.
Giving up sex with other women.
The lack of social traditions and traditional obligations seems daunting at first but it's kind of fun to be unencumbered (especially when I read reynir's replies and go white-faced from the ridiculous sexist pressure put on men and women to be macho and feminine still today).