Why the hell are you (or, for that matter, this guy agreeing with you) assuming that a highly educated woman would want to marry some millionaire type?
Having your own helipad, truffle farm, and earlobe masseuse is the ultimate goal of some people, but if you’ve gone to the trouble of getting a PhD, you’re probably interested in a different kind of success altogether.
When I met my man, I wasn’t looking for someone to spend the rest of my life with. But when I realized that he was into cooking, football, and reading creepy fairy tales on dark and stormy evenings, the angels did a chorus, organ music swelled, and golden beams of light reached towards him as if providence itself were leading me into his arms (or… something like that). Even if I did have the looks to snag me some playboy instead, I’d be bored to tears with a dude who was busy with his investments 90% of the time, and wanted to spend the other 10% draping me in diamonds and showing me off on yachts. It’s just not my idea of happiness, plain and simple. Hell, my mother was smokin’ hot in her youth, and when some guy who owned a castle proposed to her on account of her smokin’ hotness, she ran away screaming.
Because… dude. Some people are simply a bad match.
And here’s another thing: if you are really, really smart and discerning, your dating pool automatically gets smaller. It’s also true that men are often taught by their family and/or culture that it’s OK to marry a woman who’s either a) not particularly bright, or b) dumbs herself down. Women? Not so much. Now, I know several highly successful and wealthy women who married men whose primary function in life is sipping daiquiris and waxing their chests, which is perfectly fine as long as both parties are happy. And I’m not going to say that those men are stupid, because they could also simply refuse to advertise their intelligence on account of it interfering with their marriage. Whatever.
Everyone has their own idea of bliss, and I think it’s safe to say that for Carolyn Kaufman, this idea most likely involves someone who is just as erudite and committed to a profession as she is.
I’ll drink to that.
Natalia A. 
When Vox Day and Larijani talk about preferring a confidante to a competitor, they’re probably replicating, in their marital preferences, their memories of their parents. Thus Vox and Larijani would prefer a confidante (supportive mother figure) to a competitor (father, because sons compete with their fathers). In the first half of the 20th century, there was a popular song with the line, “I want a girl just like the girl that married dear old Dad.” Vox and Larijani, at least to my mind, reveal the psychological source of their marital preferences because they see the role of “confidante” as one not overlapping with the role of “competitor,” because, in children’s eyes, the roles of father and mother don’t overlap, at least not in traditional families.
It’s unfortunate that Vox and Larijani would find a “successful” wife threatening, i.e., as a “competitor”. Something tells me, from Vox’s definition of a “successful guy” as someone with at least $500K in annual income, that in real life Vox’s circle of friends doesn’t actually include anyone who meets Vox’s definition of “success,” except perhaps drug lords or mortgage swindlers. It’s also noteworthy that Vox goes to great lengths to disparage the achievement of a doctorate in psychology and the holding of a college teaching position. He probably feels threatened by that as well. My guess is that, in real life, Vox doesn’t meet his own stated definition of “success,” and he feels threatened by women who do.
I know that my comments are stock critiques of men like Vox and Larijani, but those two guys really are psychological stereotypes. In my experience in grad school, the hyperhypercompetitive guys inevitably hooked up with women who were very openly dependent personalities, women who would sometimes vocally defer to their “man.”
It’s a commonplace that male hyperhypercompetitiveness is all too frequently a mask for insecurity, but that commonplace is almost always borne out in real life. It doesn’t surprise me that Vox and Larijani prefer a “confidante” to a “competitor.” They want to go home to mama.
Sophocles is turning over in his grave….
With the reference to Sophocles, I wanted to add the issue of the fear of abandonment to the reasons why hypercompetitive men sometimes prefer dependent women. The very tone of Vox Day’s post to which you linked suggests, to me, an almost hysterical fear of abandonment by a “successful” wife, including a wife who is educated enough (like Carolyn Kaufman) to know that she doesn’t have to put up with a childish husband. Vox Day’s tone in his post was almost high-pitched in his disparagement of Carolyn Kaufman’s professional credentials, which would leads me to suspect that he fears that someone like Carolyn Kaufman would not stick around long for someone like Vox Day.
The fear of abandonment really does play a role in men’s preferences in any long-term relationship, including marriage. It’s a matter of degree with each individual man. To me, that explains why I witness hypercompetitive men forming long-term relationships, including marriage, with obviously dependent women — both parties are motivated by a mutual fear of abandonment.
My suspicion is that fear of abandonment probably aggravates Oedipal impulses as well — in the original Greek myth, Oedipus was abandoned by his father to die, and quite literally “returned home” to his mother by first killing his father. In other words, for Oedipus, the roles of father and mother are mutually exclusive and do not overlap. Given that he was willing to kill his father (and did), Oedipus was probably hypercompetitive as well.
But enough diagnosis.:)
Paying attention to Vox is generally a bad idea. James, for example, would probably want to read some more of Vox’s posts before giving him such a gentle, sympathetic reading. Vox is a selfish attention seeking asshole, and a sensitive one at that – if he seeks this link he’ll send his monkeys around to throw shit all over you blog, and you’ll soon find them very boring.
We have a saying in Russian – it doesn’t translate very well, but it’s still hilarious – “you can’t frighten a hedgehog with your bare ass.”
😉
“I want a girl just like the girl that married dear old Dad.”
yeah, I knew about that one, and yeah, another case of “sweetie, your Freudian slip isn’t just showing, it’s puddled around your ankles.”
and yeah, Kyso’s right, he does send the flying monkeys, I got a small influx once and I hadn’t even directly linked to ol’ Fish Head.
At the very least you’ll know how you compare to Spacebunny. All women yearn to know how they measure up to the Spacebunny standard.
Spacebunny…? Do I even want to know?
Competitive!!???!! Vox Day wants a mommy, because he fears, deep down, he can’t compete.
Deep down, he’s wiser than he is in the shallows, where he spends most of his time.
Vox fears he can’t compete with men who are big enough and balanced enough to have strong women around. And he’s sure he can’t compete with strong women.
It’s a syndrome. You’ve seen it before, I’m sure.
argh! this makes me so mad.
belonging to the same subset of women as Kaufman…(and about to get much worse as i start law school in the fall), i’ve discovered i’d much rather be on my own than, say, with the drunk old man who wanted me to sit with him bc he was “rich and alone”.
it takes balls to be alone rather than settle, but i’d like to think my education and friends are much better company than a rich douche who wants me during his “downtime.” ugh.
Spacebunny is Vox’s significant other.
Kyso K said: “Spacebunny is Vox’s significant other.”
In real life, could someone like Vox actually have a significant other, or at least one that was psychologically healthy? I saw that in one of Vox’s other posts, Spacebunny actually put in a very quiet, very brief appearance, but I can’t imagine that, in real life, any psychologically healthy woman would want to be near someone like Vox, given the idiocy that he puts online. Or maybe, in real life, Vox is a mature, psychologically normal man who doesn’t actually believe the gibberish he puts online, and that’s why he has Spacebunny.
Otherwise Spacebunny needs help herself, or she’s simply another aspect of Vox’s online personality. It happens.
After reading a few more of Vox Day’s posts, I can only wonder why anyone is upset by what this guy puts online? Vox is just a money-grubbing bullshit artist whose posts, including his comments about women and feminists, are actually designed to increase advertising revenue. His posts are consistent mostly for their lack of originality, and I’ll bet he paraphrased most of them from somewhere else online. The sheer triviality of most of his subject matter would bore anyone except far-far-right nutcases. As for his comments about women and feminists, Vox probably doesn’t actually believe any of it, but his misogyny is so predictable and un-nuanced that it’s probably invented to generate advertising revenue as well. Nobody should be bothered by this guy. Here I thought he was a bona fide nutcase, and he’s probably just faking it in order to rake in money. And to think that I wasted all that sympathetic analysis. 🙂
What can I fake to rake in cash?
This idea will haunt me now…
One both fears and hopes for his daughter.
“What can I fake to rake in cash?”
Convert to Islam, de-convert a little while later and write a scathing tell all about how awful Muslims are from your unique, insider’s perspective.
Belated, but…
No, Carolyn Kaufman would definitely not be interested in dating a Vox. His arguments don’t hang together and his assumptions have the feel of left field. I rather prefer someone with wit and intellect behind his arguments.
Cheers to you all for YOUR wit and intellect! 🙂
Thank you, Carolyn. You rock. 😀