I'm Sorry I Didn't Marry the Flooring Guy From Iowa: In Defense of Women Who Bet on Themselves
A few months ago a Christian homeschooling mom penned an essay deriding women who have jobs, live in major cities and failed to find a “good man” they will let “lead.”
According to her, these women live in rent-controlled apartments with dental hygienists who have bad lip injections. And if they would just find the RIGHT flooring guy from Iowa, he would solve all their problems—from tax and business planning to a lifetime of happiness and Great Wolf Lodge vacations.
First, if you are someone who moves back to your hometown, doesn’t have a job, is involved in church—great! As I say, let 1,000 flowers bloom.
But her essay is indicative or a broader trend I see on the right, especially among Christian conservatives, of deriding single women, “girl bosses”, or any woman who has the audacity to live in a major city or have a job.
I recall one conversation with a man who went to Hillsdale, got married at like 23 offering the suggestion that DINKs should pay more in taxes—as if a Puritan-coded punishment for their failure to be fruitful and multiply is solid public policy.
If you want to live in Iowa and eat at Olive Garden, that is wonderful. I am happy for the families in my hometown. And I am happy for the women I know who fully embraced stay at home motherhood. I grew up in “flyover country” and spend a great deal of time standing up for this ilk when IQ 90s in Paris and New York who graduated from Syracuse insult them.
It is curious at best that they cannot offer others the same generosity.
What if, and hear me out here, conservatives and those in and of the values voters milieu stopped insulting people they know nothing about?
What if they don’t know what it’s like to make a bet on yourself and build something on your own? Or, in some cases, with a spouse who is actively harmful? (I know of at least two conservative women who built successful businesses while married to an addict and an abuser, respectively.)
What if some of us had the strength and believed in ourselves enough to create something in competitive (and expensive!!!) environments?
Maybe these women went to good schools, made big career pivots, took enormous risks, and did it with little to no help.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.
Like, sometimes it big time doesn’t work (I would know).
Sure, you can blame women like me. We are stupid, materialistic, cat ladies who deserve it. We’re insecure. We just didn’t let a man “lead.” We deserve whatever difficulties we encounter because we didn’t make the exact same choices you made.
And yet, even with all of this…maybe we don’t want your life?
Perhaps the investigative journalist at The Washington Post, the dermatologist doing her fellowship in Boston, or the SCOTUS clerk in DC…like who they are and proud of themselves.
That’s a-okay! Nay, good.
You can love your hometown, your husband, your children, your church, and your life. You can think it’s the best possible life for you. Wonderful! I mean that.
But what is NOT okay is making and mocking caricatures of women who made different choices, faced different circumstances, or wanted different things.
Sneering at these women comes across as jealous and a bit ignorant of earth works. Sad!
Because at the end of the day, these women did something some of you didn’t. And perhaps even something you can’t.
They took a chance on themselves. They built careers, businesses, and lives. They ventured into competitive environments where nobody handed them anything. They risked failure, financial insecurity, and perhaps the most painful of all…heartbreak.
Some succeeded. Others are still trying.
But they had the courage to try— something a lot of people never do. And they keep trying and trying and trying, even when it gets really tough, and they eventually make it work.
I, for one, won’t insult them for that.
