In a Washington Post piece titled "grappling with a wealth of guilt," we learn about the particular burdens of reluctant noblesse oblige, or at least the Adams-Morgan version thereof.

They are young people who have inherited or stand to inherit big money, and they are spending their post-college years living modestly and working to address the needs of the poor, hungry and politically disadvantaged. But the privilege they grew up with and the money coming their way nag at them in ways few people not in their position can fathom.

Now, it's easy to be snide about this sort of thing - dismiss it as a sort of earnest, modern-day Petit Trianon - which the article is quick to address. The meeting the author describes was, he says,

a rare chance for members of the Resource Generation, a nonprofit group whose 35-and-younger members devote themselves to philanthropic work for social justice, to talk about their guilt and their views on social inequalities without fear of eye-rolling from people who might view them as spoiled rich kids playing at helping the downtrodden.

Later he adds, "The young wealthy are keenly aware that there is little public sympathy for the moral doubts they struggle with. In a harsh economy, few people worry about the insecurities of heirs in their 20s and 30s who choose to work in social change philanthropy."

And yes, everyone in the piece does good work: they give to charity; one is a teacher; several work for non-profits. And they, too, have health and family problems. Nevertheless, parts of the article still read like parody, and the D.C. Young People with whom I spoke were not amused by what was perceived as a "seriously doubtful" "non-phenomenon" and unsuccessful attempt to be "edgy and contrarian." (Hey, Zagat is onto something!) Said one denizen sourly, "All I know is, when I used to work in a high-end hat boutique for a bit during college breaks, I can assure you that none of the moneyed youths to whom I sold $75 silk headbands appeared to have any serious qualms about the issue." (Different crowd, I guess.) Another queried, "in that picture why does the guy look like he's not standing on anything?" Perhaps the last word goes to the Logan Circle resident who wrote me, "yeah, there are rich people here, but if anything this feels like less of an issue in this economy...because so many of us are relatively lucky, just to be employed, fed, well, and dealing with a "survivor's guilt" that didn't exist a few years ago."

Because, here's the thing: there's a presumption here that the rest of the world is judging people...for being rich and living normally? For giving away money? For being conflicted? And, the thing is, we don't care. Most of us don't mind. Nice person who came into money and does good work? Great. We might envy the security, but I don't think we resent it. One guy in the piece says, "I definitely feel like I am at war between my desires instilled in me to eat out at nice restaurants and my better sense and principles," and I wanted to shout, "it doesn't help anyone if you don't go to a restaurant! Do it! If I had money, I would!" Like D.C., New York is full of rich people, many of them young. Some of them are, like these people, conscientious and civic-minded. Others, in Born Rich. Most of us are aware of this and aren't thinking about or resenting them nearly as much as they seem to imagine.

Here's what I do resent: when people pretend they can afford SoHo lofts on their artist incomes; when they're scrupulous about never paying a cent more than they owe at dinner because they think people are using them; when they complain about having to go on extravagant family vacations; and, most of all, when they talk about buying brownstones in "marginal neighborhoods." That's what we resent: not people having money, not their giving it to charity. I can even understand needing to vent about the guilt - although, don't you kind of get that off your chest? How often do you need to wallow in it? - and it's not their fault that someone wanted to profile them and left them open to cheap cracks from raging creative underclassers like me who, relative to much of the world, is still in a pretty well-fed percentile. It's all degrees of guilt and narcissism and analysis that, ironically, separates us further and further from any of the actual issues we're discussing.

The other evening, my grandfather, born very poor, reflected on feeling guilty "as a former Communist" for now living in such a swank area code. "I really feel like it's a sin," he said. "But at least there are like-minded people in the building." Then the doorman brought up some takeout.

Grappling With A Wealth Of Guilt [Washington Post]

The change started gradually. After all, the last decade has been all about prosperity-related excess. The remaining dreariness of the recession-tinged early 90s was drowned out by the sparkly pop saturated landscape where the women were doing it for themselves. At first, women were still adjusting to our increased financial power. We had little money, but it was still easier if we had someone else footing the bill - or at least paying back what they owed.

Then came the early 00s, with women expecting to be high earners. "The Opt-Out Revolution" was published in 2003, chronicling the lives of women who had so much money, they had started to turn away from the workforce. While most of us weren't in that position, times were still good enough to start declaring financial independence from that guy (or special lady, for the lezebels in the house) we asked to pay the bills in the first place.

Then came Recession 2.0, launching an all out assault on our jobs and lines of credit. Unemployment began to hit record highs, with many states hovering close to the 10% unemployment mark. In the midst of this chaos, some interesting statistics began to emerge, around wages and compensation:

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the wages of the median woman — at the statistical middle — rose 3.2 percent when adjusted for inflation, while the wages of the median man rose only 2 percent, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

The Journal noted that the typical full-time female worker earned $657 a week in the third quarter, while the typical man earned $812 a week. However, men are still more likely to be unemployed — the BLS data showed that male jobless rate is 11 percent while for women it was 8.4 percent.

"This is a situation where everyone's losing but men are losing more, and that's not really a victory for women," Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute told the newspaper.

However, the "everyone's losing" idea is a bit misleading. One, since women's salaries are historically lower than men's salaries, our small net gains aren't much to celebrate. Two, income disparities follow both racial and gender lines, and having those breakdowns paint a more dramatic picture of what is being lost and gained:

Asian men fared worse than other men, but the median weekly wage for Asian men and women was $877 in the third quarter — higher than any other ethnic group. Whites were next at $753, then blacks at $607 and Hispanics at $527. The median pay of Asian men declined 4.1% between the third quarter of 2007, just before the recession began, and the third quarter of 2009. The typical black man saw his wages fall 2.8%.

The recession began in December 2007 and most economists believe it ended this past summer. Women's wages have long lagged behind men's, but minority women did much better than their male counterparts during the recession.

Over the past two years, the wages of the typical black male full-time worker fell, but wages rose 7.3% for black women. Among Hispanics, the median male wage rose 0.4% over the past two years, but the median female wage rose 5.5%.

Wages of white and Asian women didn't rise as much as those of other women; the median increased 2.4% and 1.8%, respectively, over the past two years. White males were slightly better off: Their wages rose 2.8%. It was the only ethnic group in which men's wages rose more during the recession than women's; white women's wages rose 2.4%.

And, once again, an increase is beneficial, but starts to feel futile when one looks at the starting points.

Still, the revelation that many women have assumed the role of breadwinner, or are out-earning their male counterparts, has resulted in a lot of speculation about the impacts of economic realities on gender roles. Much of the focus has resulted in looking at how women and men are coping to major lifestyle changes:

Beth Klingensmith, who lives in Colorado Springs, Colo., said it was hard enough to have to alter their financial plans after her husband lost her job. Now she worries about losing her own job because of the nation's economic woes. Already, she's been asked to take some furlough days as the state copes with budget constraints.

"We're doing OK, but there's absolutely no safety net,'" she said. "If something happens to my job, I cannot imagine."

Her husband, Jim, 49, is hopeful that his custom-made golf club business will take off soon, allowing him to contribute more toward the couple's bills. He said that in many ways he likes his new career more than the physically taxing work of running a printing press, but he admits he's struggled somewhat with the changed circumstances.

"We're Christians, so for me to not be the breadwinner … it's not the easiest thing," he said.

With all the upheaval with the recession and with housing, is it any wonder that people are spending their days applying for jobs, managing budgets, and nursing wounded egos?

The Opt-Out Revolution [NY Times]
State Unemployment Keeps Rising; Three Hit Record Highs [CNBC]
Women's wages rising faster than men's [UPI]
Women's Wages Outpaced Men's During Recession [WSJ]
The Wage Gap, by Gender and Race [Infoplease]
Rising number of women earn more than mates [MSNBC]

I'm starting to fly into a rage whenever I read some lifestyle piece based on the recession. (This is different from the rage I feel when I read an investigative or financial piece.) My latest bout of hatred was brought on by an Elle article written by Laura Hollinger called "My Year of Living Frugally."

Yes, I should have known better. But I read it anyway, wanting to holler in frustration. Some assorted sentences:

"Over the years, I've cultivated a look that says rich, even though I'm not – my six-figure salary allows me to live well in New York but hardly extravagantly [...]"

"Gaining entree to the social elite pays for itself with invitations to places and experiences way out of financial reach. Why not have as much four-star fun as possible?"

"A bad day at work would send me to Bergdorf's shoe department, or to Henri Bendel to drop $300 on makeup I'd never wear. Now I found new pleasure in resourcefulness. I took my favorite boots to the shoe repair guy, and had dresses and jackets tailored to this years' shapes. Financial responsibility was empowering, and, in its way, more addictive than shopping had ever been."

I read through the whole piece giggling at first - I thought it was a cute tongue-in-cheek piece about those are faring just fine in the recession suddenly doing silly things like hiding their purchases in brown paper bags. The part about scamming a Vail trip was pretty amusing:

"Through a vast network of friends-of-friends, we arranged dinners and party invitations for each night, meaning we'd only need to spring for one meal a day (and a couple of nights we made do on WheatThins).

"When the famous heiress next to me rolled her eyes and groaned about missing "wheels up," I nodded in a way that said, "I hear you, sister."

But the idea that this was a comedic piece didn't last. Hollinger returns to NYC, but loses her will to save when catching sight of store markdowns. She explains:

I vowed to hunt for value, investing in pieces that would last for years and seeking out those few wardrobe additions (the perfect date dress, the best fitting long sleeve T-shirts to layer with anything) that would carry me from season to season. I did fall off the wagon just once last spring at the sight of $800 Lanvin silk sandals at Jeffrey, but paid for my sin when it rained for the next three months and they stayed in the box. [...]

Today, I maintain my expensive highlights and haircuts but spend less on blow outs and hair products (drugstore brands really do measure up. ) I take the bus to work instead of a taxi, and then I don't blink at dinner out with friends. Then I put every single expense, from groceries to doctor appointment on my AmEx card to earn points, which so far I've used toward a vacation and a new stereo system. In one year, I've saved roughly $6,000 - almost enough to buy that new Cartier watch I have my eye on...or to feed my savings account.

Huh? Now, this is not a simple case of sour grapes on my part. After all, if Hollinger has the money to play, it's her life. But I am really confused at why so many women fueling these trend pieces are creaming themselves over pretend frugality?

Especially when they don't have to?

Being financially savvy as a woman is an important and powerful thing. Understanding money, making it work to your advantage, and not being afraid of its possibilities are common themes that most people struggle with through the course of their lives.

But, if you are one of the lucky ones who managed to get through this recession with only minor tweaks to your lifestyle, then why are you doing a part-time game of make believe about coming hard times?

Over at my home blog, Racialicious, we were really feeling the recession. Four of us out of nine got a pink slip (or had the axe hanging over our heads) and most of us couldn't find work for months there after. Some of us have not found a steady paying gig yet.

Looking at my increasingly dire (as in, have to go round to the rental office to explain why rent will be ten days late this month dire) situation, I toyed with the idea of penning my own Recessionista-like tale to sell to the glossies:

"Upon realizing that my cheap ass fast fashion clothes wouldn't survive the withering gaze (let alone the needle) of a tailor, I tried to cobble together an interview outfit knowing damn well I was about to choose between repairing my one suit jacket and buying a day or so worth of groceries..."

"Making my way to the check cashing spot since my accounts were frozen from identity theft..."

"As I listened in disbelief, my editor explained she was pushing back my article for a third time, delaying yet again the $300 payment that I sorely needed before they cut off my cable again..."

"I smiled at the client, using $35 of the last $50 on my credit card to settle the tab, smiling harder as he apologized for forgetting his wallet back at the office..."

"I crossed my fingers and promised T-mobile another $100 on Friday, knowing damn well my next payment wouldn't drop for a couple of weeks..."

On second thought, I realize now why they publish these flights of financial fancy. Our lives are fucking grim. Hollinger is writing about her broke ass trip to Vail, I write about my broke ass trip to Safeway.

No matter what anyone is saying, broke is not the new sexy. Or the new rich. RICH is the new rich.

Can I sign up for Laura Hollinger's recession?

Official Site [Elle Magazine]

Earlier:

"Frugalistas" Must Cease And Desist
"Investing" In Your Closet Not Recommended By Actual Investment Experts

She's a copywriter, but she gets paid much less than the other copywriters, all of whom happen to be male. And so she invokes the recently passed Equal Pay Act. "It's a law now," she says. "Equal pay for equal work." Don looks at her as though she's speaking another language. "Peggy, it's not a good time," he tells her. Then he asks her if she wants a drink.

When Peggy confronts Don, it's 1963, and the median annual income for women was around 60 percent of men's. Today, it's around 77 percent—a gain, to be sure, but hardly anything to be thrilled about. While some of the so-called gender gap can be explained by the fact that women tend to work in lower-paying fields—such as education and child care (I'm going to bracket the debate about whether these deserve to be lower-paying fields at all)—there's still a five percent wage gap for male and female college graduates, even after controlling for things like age, race and ethnicity, region, marital status, children, occupation, industry, and hours worked, according to testimony given in April to the United States Joint Economic Committee. The conclusion? "It is reasonable to assume that this difference is the product of discrimination."

But it's slightly more complicated, I think, and it raises uncomfortable questions about the differences between men and women—whether they're socially determined or not. A couple years ago, there was another study that focused on men vs. women in negotiations; men, it showed, will take the initiative and ask for things like more money or a promotion, while women will wait to be asked. And this can have major repercussions:

If a 22-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman are offered $25,000 for their first job, for example, and one of them negotiates the amount up to $30,000, then over the next 28 years, the negotiator would make $361,171 more, assuming they both got 3 percent raises each year. And this is without taking into account the fact that the negotiators don't just get better starting pay; they also win bigger raises over the course of their careers.

It's hard not to look at these studies and think about anecdotal evidence from my own life. At my first job out of college, I was offered just that salary: $25,000 a year. I didn't even think about negotiating. Sure, you could argue that I wasn't exactly coming from a position of strength, as a 22-year-old college graduate with little experience who was desperate for a job. But over the years, I saw how certain people—and nearly all of them were men—were able to ask for things that I wouldn't even have thought of to ask for: Extra vacation days. Bonuses. When I was in graduate school, better teaching schedules (and better professor assignments). A few years later, I was offered another job at what I now considered a laughable salary, $35,000 a year. I countered at $65,000. We settled on $57,000, with a guaranteed raise to $60,000 after three months. And I came up with a new motto: "You don't ask, you don't get."

I bring specific salary numbers in part because women, it seems to me, are generally less comfortable discussing money than men—which also leaves us in a position of weakness. At yet another job I had (salary: $38,000), the founders of the company told us, with straight faces, that one of the bad things about unions were that everyone knew what everyone else was making. The employees all nodded solemnly, like, OMG, wow, what a horrible thing to know. Talking about money is taboo, of course! It was only later that I realized, duh! Of course they wouldn't want everyone to know what everyone else is making, because then everyone would ask for more money.

These days, when people are desperate for work and employers admittedly have the upper hand, it can seem as though we're all Peggys in a Don Draper world. But Peggy, I suspect, just might have the last word.

The Gender Wage Gap 2008 [Institute for Women's Policy Research]
Equal Pay for Equal Work? New Evidence on the Persistence of the Gender Pay Gap [AAUW]
Salary, Gender and the Social Cost of Haggling [Washington Post]

Annie Leibovitz has taken some of the most famous images of our time, and her name is still a byword for prestige photography, both glam and artistically credible. As the longtime partner of Susan Sontag, she occupied the rareified echelon of "respectable supercouple." As the in-depth story by New York magazine's Andrew Goldman tells it, she was generally thought to pull down astronomical fees for Vanity Fair and Vogue and be well-set with royalties, to say nothing of her successes in NYC real estate. In short, in a lot of ways she seemed like a definition of modern success.

It's always confusing when people who are really rich - or could be - go bankrupt. How do they manage it? We think. Sure, it's well known that Leibovitz struggled with addiction for years - being Rolling Stone's head photographer in its heyday couldn't have helped - and she's also a notorious perfectionist, whose shoots are legendarily expensive. But still, she wasn't someone purely at the mercy of the market's vagaries, but someone talented, and with her drug habit licked and what seemed like a stable family life, this level of excess just feels...confusing. Well, as the article details, she was just a bad businesswoman: extravagant, imprudent, generous, stubborn, alternately greedy and unworldly, and bad about getting maximum money from her achievements. She was also one of many who lived on credit and didn't expect it all to come crashing down. Says Goldman,

It's impossible to account for all of Leibovitz's line-item expenses, but as surprising as it may be to outsiders, she was clearly spending beyond her means. One close associate of Leibovitz's theorizes that she identified too much with her subjects. "Photographers aren't professional athletes, recording artists, or supermodels," the source says. "Compared to 99 percent of the world, she makes a vast fortune. The problem occurs when a person becomes so famous that they start feeling that they're more in line financially with Oprah or Madonna."

Um, okay, but to the rest of us, that hardly cuts it. She still had much, much more money than even the average celebrity photographer. And $24 million in debt is hard to rack up. So there's the usual incredulity that accompanies these stories of excess. But in this case, maybe there's more: there's a disappointment that's actually quite unfair and has nothing to do with Annie Leibovitz the actual person. I would never have realized it before all this, but Leibovitz was someone whose life I sort of looked up to. Not just for the work, but because, if I'd stopped to analyze it, she seemed to have it figured out. Even in the tragic aftermath of losing her partner, she seemed like a definition of true success, someone who seemed to have the magic combo of artistic and financial symbiosis. And I'm sure, in some way, her sex and her sexuality played into this: she was someone who'd earned the right to live as she wanted, and as such she was an inspiration and a pioneer. That's unfair of course, as all such un-asked-for pressures are: Leibovitz was, I guess, allowed to be as bad with money and extravagant and cut off from normal concerns as any rich person. I know this, and yet I feel an extra disappointment: another one bites the dust. Another person whom we didn't know, but whom we decided to project onto as a sign that it could be done, is fallible in the same way so many people are. And money's no security from anything.

How Could This Happen to Annie Leibovitz? [New York]

Catherine Rampell of the New York Times explores this phenomenon, noting that misers and free-spenders may take a liking to one another because "what we hate in ourselves, we also hate in other people. And the more we hate that quality in ourselves, the more we avoid it." In other words, if you're terribly cheap, and embarrassed about it, you're more likely to seek out a big spender who seems to be comfortable dropping some serious cash.

But after the initial thrill of living vicariously through one's partner is erased, the realities of marriage begin to set in: anyone who has ever gone out to dinner with a couple who cant stop fighting about money knows how awkward and intense it can be: money can turn a beautiful romance into a truly ugly partnership in the time it takes the waiter to bring the bill to the table.

Rampell notes that this is a phenomenon that can be applied to many aspects of dating: we often seek out someone who will "erase" the things we dislike about ourselves, but in the long run, we find that we'd be happier with someone who sees the world the way we do: "just like the proverbial woman who says she wants a nice guy but really goes for the bad boys," Rampell writes, "people are also just plain bad at predicting what they want in love and marriage."

I have seen this phenomenon work both ways: I've seen couples completely deteriorate due solely to money issues: "He's so selfish!" "She's so greedy" and so on and so forth, but I've also seen opposite spenders find a way to make it work: my mother likes to spend, and my father likes to save, and they've been together for over 35 years. (Although in fairness I think it's more like "My mother likes to shop, my father would wear the same jeans from 1984 if his wife and daughters didn't bother him about it.")

So what say you, commenters? Do you find yourself attracted to people with similar spending habits? Or do you prefer to seek out your opposite? And if so, how has it worked for you thus far?

I Say Spend. You Say No. We're In Love. [NYTimes]

In her essay on Double X, author Sarah Bliston says, "like many American businesses, chick-lit must reinvent itself - fast - if it's going to survive." And in a way it's doing so. In a slightly annoying article ("contrition is the new black") for the Times, Ruth La Ferla describes new books like The Penny Pinchers Club, in which a woman resorts to dumpster-diving when she fears her husband is about to divorce her, and The Summer Kitchen, whose heroine goes back to work after her husband's arrest. And in Publisher's Weekly, Doree Shafrir mentions Mercury in Retrograde, which features a character forced to fend for herself after a lifetime of relying on her parents.

On the one hand, these books would seem to champion a new self-reliance not present in more traditional, catch-the-man novels. Shafrir quotes Greer Hendricks, editor of Mercury in Retrograde, who says,

These women were really getting a life. It's really about friendship and self-acceptance and getting your act together. It's about the life, not the guy.

These tales of women overcoming obstacles to live independently of men and their bank accounts certainly sound inspiring — except that the obstacles aren't really that big. In fact, it seems that divorce and financial devastation usually cause the heroines to do something fun and hip that they really wanted to do anyway. When her parents take away her credit cards, Mercury in Retrograde's Lena "Lipstick" Lippencrass "discovers a talent for fashion design" — that noted path to financial security. The heroine of The Summer Kitchen is "forced to open a bakery," also usually a capital-intensive and uncertain enterprise, at least in the real world. And Jill Kargman's The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund, has its heroine, post-divorce, "picking up the threads of a career built on her first love, rock 'n' roll." These women don't have to scrimp and save in menial jobs — instead, they embark on glamorous careers, with the implication that their lives are now more fulfilling than they were in the days of easy marital money.

This idea of salvation through reduced circumstances — the concept that having less disposable income will help us focus on what's really important and perhaps even become better people — has been around since at least the beginning of the recession, and probably long before. But the key word is disposable. Describing the post-recession edits she made to her book Sleepless Nights, Bliston says,

Whereas before, if I'm going to be completely honest, my characters' motivations to change were somewhat murky and self-centered, now they have a splash of excitement and energy about them. Somehow, the changes I'd made to try to keep up with the changing economy had actually made the novel better.

And author Sarah Strohmeyer tells the Times about curbing her own overspending. "I mean," she says, "how many more napkin rings can you buy?" The new, recession-era chick lit may tell the stories of women who pare away the fat in their lives to find true happiness, but this is a lot easier if there's some fat to begin with. Broadsheet's Amy Benfer writes that the heroines' newer, leaner lives still "reflect the kinds of decisions that those of us who spent the boom years wondering if we could ever afford a mortgage on an average professional salary before our 65th birthdays might still find a bit out of touch with reality." After all, "one can lose the home in Aspen and the five-tiered cakes and still be a good long way from foreclosure on one's primary residence and clipping coupons for Kraft macaroni and cheese."

And while "losing a home in Aspen" might indeed force someone to focus on what's truly valuable in life, getting laid off and losing health insurance don't usually give people "a splash of excitement and energy." For women outside the hedge fund set, especially those who've been out of the workforce for a while, divorce can mean a plunge into poverty, not a launch into a new and exciting career. Benfer writes that chick lit about wealthy women might "appeal to the aspirational fantasies" of readers (that word again), and that these fantasies may have helped get us into this financial mess in the first place. And Amy Sohn, author of the new novel Prospect Park West, says, "The book is really about the perils of aspiration," and of a life that is "always about the next thing, trading up." Not every woman is able to trade up, but chick lit may be, in part, about wanting to, and this may not be such a good thing.

The chick lit genre doesn't deserve across-the-board opprobrium — at their best, these novels can be witty and wise, and their popularity supports many a female writer. But chick lit writers may be unconsciously buying into women's magazine culture, with its idea that reading should inspire desire — for more stuff, or, in the new, recession-era formulation, for a life that is glamorous even in fallback mode. It's neither realistic nor necessary to ask that writers produce only what Benfer calls "Great and Difficult works of art," or that all chick lit novels be about unmitigated pain and suffering. But, as author Gigi Levangie Grazer says, "the idea that having the right bag buys you happiness-now that's dark." And there's something dark, too, about the notion that even in a recession, heroines need to be better off than their readers. Do chick lit consumers want to read about working-class families dealing with layoffs, or women who find fulfillment in jobs that aren't traditionally "cool"? We don't know, because those books aren't being written — yet.

More Gumption, Less Gucci [New York Times]
Chick-literati [Financial Times]
Women's Lit: Chick Lit Gets An Update [Publishers Weekly]
The Death Of Chick Lit [Double X]
The Devil Wears Old Navy [Broadsheet]

According to a story by Katie Thomas in today's Times, families are more likely to travel with their daughters to sporting events than with their sons. "There are far more people who will travel with 12-year-old girls than even 12-year-old boys," explains Don Schumacher, executive director of the National Association of Sports Commissions, "And vastly more people will travel with 12-year-old girls than 18-year-old boys." This may have to do with families being more protective of girls, or with moms being more likely to attend girls' events.

Whatever the cause, the phenomenon translates into money. Families who travel with their kids stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, and buy things. Mika Ryan, president of a sporting commission in New Jersey, says she considers the often more lucrative nature of girls' sports when booking events. And now that it has built a new softball complex, the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee is enjoying a boost in revenue from girls and their families. At least one naysayer doubts that girl athletes buy more than boys. Bobby Dodd, president of the Amateur Athletic Union, says, "I have three granddaughters. They love to shop. But I can tell you my boys darn near love to shop as much as the girls." Dodd's words notwithstanding, it's clear that girls' sports are getting attention from families and businesses alike.

Though it's a little sad that families feel they have to "protect" their girl athletes more than their boys, it's nice to hear that the days of ignoring girls' sports are over. Not so, however, for women's sports. On NPR, Frank Deford examines the financial difficulties of many women's pro leagues. The Women's United Soccer Association folded in 2003, the WNBA's Houston Comets are the only major sports team so far to go out of business in the recession, and the LPGA recently fired its commissioner amid a loss of sponsorship contracts. According to Deford, women just don't want to pay to watch women's games.

The solution: sex! Reacting to a Wimbledon official's comment that it's often the hottest female players who are chosen to play on show courts, Deford writes,

Everybody was aghast at such overt chauvinism, only the harsh reality is that until women start stepping up and buying tickets for women's games, then - like it or not - sex may simply be good box office.

Ten years later, what do most people remember about the 1999 World Cup - that Brandi Chastain scored the winning goal? No, that Brandi Chastain took her shirt off.

But apparently teams think only the "right" kind of sex sells tickets. According to Mike Wise of the Washington Post, the WNBA's Washington Mystics don't have a kiss-cam at their games because they're worried about displaying lesbian fans kissing. Lindsey Harding, the team's point guard (pictured, right), says, "We wouldn't broadcast on our Jumbotron about abortion issues because of the religious and political conflicts it would cause. It's a similar, sensitive subject. We don't want to put anything out there to turn down certain fans." A lesbian kiss similar to abortion? Apparently, if all you're thinking about is the box office, yes. Wise writes,

This is a seminal, scary time for women's professional sports. Ten years after Brandi Chastain's ab-crunching moment in the women's World Cup ushered in a new era of empowerment, less than half of the LPGA Tour's 29 events have secured sponsorship for next year. Though attendance numbers are up in Washington, the league can barely pull in an average of 8,000 people per game and many of its arenas hold 20,000.

In a time when TV networks stay silent about male athletes' rape allegations, how come women's teams have to curry favor with bigoted fans? Is it really true that women don't want to pay to watch women play? Or are women's professional sports just too new — and as yet too under-marketed — to capture the kind of audience that men's sports have? Just because we live in a culture where women are more often celebrated for their looks than their athletic prowess doesn't mean all women athletes have to take off their shirts. It just means we need to train audiences to follow women's sports with the same rabid passion they've long had for the Dodgers or the Lakers. And given the fact that families seem to turn out in droves to watch their girls compete, that shouldn't be so hard to do.

Girls' Sports Pack Economic Punch [NYT]
Deford: 'That's No Lady, That's An Athlete!' [NPR]
Mystics Give Big Issue The Kiss-Off [Washington Post, via Pandagon]

Witcher explains that both she and James were able to live so lavishly because their apartment was cheap, neither had children or a mortgage, and they simply used "disposable income" to enjoy themselves whenever possible. Of course, there's no such thing as "disposable income" for many of us these days, Witcher included: when the economy began to sour, so did her relationship.

"I worried about where my next job was coming from, while James witnessed endless redundancies at work and had to live with the constant possibility that he might be next," Witcher writes, "We had often talked about the future, but now our dreams of moving out of London and starting a family seemed ludicrously far-fetched. As we worried about work, and spent less time having fun together, our relationship turned into a vicious circle of anxiety and grumpiness."

The sudden change in Witcher's lifestyle threw her relationship into chaos; the home that the couple had treated as an afterthought to their luxurious trips and nights out had now become a prison of sorts, and they began drifting apart, feeling trapped and bored and unable to recapture the excitement that the freedom of having more financial security gave them. Apparently, Rosamund and James aren't alone: as Gary Nickelson of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers tells the Associated Press "I don't know that I would say that finances are the number one cause of divorce, but they're right up there with the top causes." An inability to discuss money problems openly and to prepare for the emotional strains that sudden changes in fortune—such as a recession or a job loss—may bring, can be disastrous for a couple.

So how can you avoid a recession breakup? "Experts say couples that deal openly and honestly with money issues early on have tackled one of the toughest topics in a relationship," writes Eileen Aj Connelly of the Associated Press. Connelly recommends keeping track of spending, discussing the possibility of separate accounts, and speaking to a financial counselor: the more open you are, and the more you work together to get your financial situation stabilized, the better off you'll be.

But perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that things didn't work out for Witcher and her boyfriend; in the end, if you can't feel happy with your partner simply because the money isn't there, were you ever really happy at all? Witcher doesn't seem too sure, herself: "If there is an upside to this recession, it's surely that people will begin to realise what's really important in life, and it isn't the availability of a good wine list." I suppose sometimes, when the big things are taken away, you find out that the little things are the things that mean the most. And if they aren't worth anything anymore, either, it might not be the recession alone that's tearing you apart.

The Recession Tore Us Apart [DailyMail]
Tackling Money Early Can Save Relationships [Boston Globe]

The poll, taken by an organization called BrainJuicer, determined the monetary value of certain phrases by first asking Brits to discuss "the happiness inspired by 'significant life events'" and then comparing the happiness attached to said events with the levels of happiness connected to recent lottery winners. It all sounds...a bit shady. But there are a few interesting results: saying "I Love You" is worth significantly more, monetarily at least, than "making love" (£105,210) and "going on holiday" (£91,759), and is even worth more than "being in a stable relationship" (£154,849). So perhaps we'd rather hear "I love you" than go on a romantic whirlwind vacation with a significant other, or some such.

So what say you, commenters? Do you think a price can be attached to a phrase? And do you think you could come up with a few phrase appraisals of your own?

The study divided 2,407 overweight and obese people into three groups: one got $60 if they maintained a 5% weight loss for a year, another paid $100 but got it back if they kept off the 5%, and a third got $20 for staying in the program, regardless of weight loss. Losing weight is hard: the $20 group lost an average of just 1.8 pounds, while the $50 group dropped 1.4, and the $100 people 3.6. And 76.4% of participants dropped out by the end of the year.

The study authors say that people willing to risk $100 were likely motivated to lose weight no matter what, and that in general the monetary incentives were ineffective. But is the sheer difficulty of weight loss the only factor here? Perhaps money just isn't as strong a motivator as other concerns, like health, the social stigma of being overweight, a culture of dieting, et cetera. Perhaps monetary rewards aren't as effective as, say, an exercise program or nutritional counseling. Or perhaps some participants came to feel insulted by being paid to lose weight.

An interesting parallel is a North Carolina program that pays teen girls not to get pregnant. To enroll, the girls must meet requirements including having a sister who got pregnant as a teen. Once in the program, they get $7 deposited in a college fund for every week they don't conceive. The program also teaches about abstinence and contraception. Of 125 girls who have stayed in the program for six months or more, director Hazel Brown says only six have gotten pregnant or dropped out for other reasons.

In both cases, the monetary aspect is kind of strange — especially paying such a small amount to potentially underprivileged teenage girls seems somewhat condescending. It seems possible that the sex education is what really keeps the girls from getting pregnant, and that the money is just an incentive to get them to show up for the program. It makes a certain amount of sense that teenagers, whose decision-making skills aren't necessarily well-formed yet, would be swayed such basic incentives as $7 a week. But for adults, the social pressures against being overweight are already so intense that a little money may not make a difference. And for some, the ability to lose weight and keep it off may have more to do with biological and sociological luck than with motivation. One of the study authors tells the Times that, "there is surely some amount of money that would persuade most people to lose weight." But successful weight loss may be less about "persuasion," and more about learning the right techniques — and being fortunate enough to have these techniques succeed.

Behavior: Money Not A Motivator In Losing Weight [NYT]
North Carolina Program Pays Girls A Dollar A Day Not To Get Pregnant [FOX News]

As Julie Bosman writes for the New York Times, the teens on the show talk freely about money, status and dating:

All of which contradicted an unspoken rule at many private schools: to be showy or prideful is not only culturally inappropriate, but also in supremely bad taste. To be showy or prideful on reality television appears to be even worse. As a measure of how strongly private schools discourage students and families from drawing attention to themselves, none of the more than a dozen parents contacted for this article would consent to be identified. Several said they feared the wrath of administrators.

But none of that matters, as long as you're making good TV, right? As New York magazine's Vanessa Grigoriadis points out, though NYC Prep is supposed to be a real life Gossip Girl, it's actually The Real Kids of New York City, modeled after the Real Housewives franchise. Writes Grigoriadis: "The Housewives series, of course, is a freak show."

It's clear that producers of NYC Prep cast breakout star PC because of his personality and ability to effortlessly utter sound-bites (Examples: "Money flows like the wind." "It's who you know and how much money you have." "People want to strive to act like an asshole.") Which isn't to say he's not rich: His grandfather is a self-made billionaire; his family may be, Grigoriadis claims, "the richest to ever be featured on reality TV." But newsflash: Not all rich kids talk like PC. If you're watching this show to find out what private school students in New York are really like, you're not getting the full picture (much like Real Housewives doesn't show "real" "housewives.") This is according to parents:

"These producers completely manipulated these kids, feeding them lines and telling them to insult each other," says one. "This is going to hurt these kids emotionally, because they are saying that they are something they are not. It's a terrible lie."

Since I grew up in New York and attended a couple of private schools — albeit briefly — I definitely agree that the truly rich and truly "elite" are not the spotlight-seekers. Usually the wannabes were flashy and bragged about cash and status. But most reality show audiences don't expect to see "reality," anyway. One thing is for sure: The show has brought out New York City's finest snobbery. Victoria Goldman, the author of The Manhattan Guide to Private Schools and Selective Public Schools tells the Times: "The schools on this show are all at the bottom. There would never be a Brearley girl* on this show."

The NYC Reality Freak Show [NY Mag]
Who's Afraid of ‘NYC Prep'? [NY Times]

*Brearley is an Upper East Side all-girls school that Caroline Kennedy attended.

One study looked at women who were stably married, stably single, or gained or lost a partner during an eight-year period. The always-married women had the best sleep, followed by those who gained a partner. Those who lost a partner had the worst sleep. Another study found that while 26% of those earning $10,000 a year or less had sleep problems, only 8% of those earning more than $75,000 did. A study author speculated that poor sleep among lower income people might have to do with "illness, fewer support systems, depression, anxiety, dissatisfaction, lower quality of life," as well as "external factors" like "demanding work schedules, rotating shifts, family demands, limited access to healthcare, and unemployment."

A third study found that poor relationship quality resulted in worse sleep, and vice versa. A study author said,

When we look at the data on a day-by-day basis, there seems to be a vicious cycle in which sleep affects next day relationship functioning, and relationship functioning affects the subsequent night's sleep. In this cycle, conflict with one's partner during the day leads to worse sleep that night, which leads to more conflict the following day. [...] the woman's perception of the relationship seems particularly important, as it impacts both her own and her partner's subjective sleep quality that night.

The study author recommends never going to bed mad, or, you know, just having huge amounts of money.

Stable Marriage Is Linked With Better Sleep In Women [EurekAlert]
Socioeconomic Status, Gender And Marital Status Influence Sleep Disturbances [EurekAlert]
Poor Sleep Is Associated With Lower Relationship Satisfaction In Both Women And Men [EurekAlert]

Sustainable Youth — which makes capsules did the study in conjunction with Kelton Research and found that "one in two (44%) women ages 25-44 would give up one tenth of their savings to look a decade younger forever, compared to 26 percent of those 45 and older."

Do you understand this data at all? It means if you are 25, and you have $500 saved, you'd spend $50 to "look" 15.

Or maybe you're a $35-year-old spending, say, $200 to "look" 25. We live in a world where that happens. Especially with ads like this in magazines:

I keep posting this one because it is so infuriating. The ability to halt time has not been "discovered" in a lab.

Other statistics from the study:

Over two in five (41%) women with a household income of $40,000 or more would give up 10 percent of their savings if it meant they'd look 10 years younger, compared to less than three in ten (26%) who earn less.
More mothers than women without children would give up 10 percent of their savings in order to eternally look a decade younger.

All of this is supposed to support Sustainable Youth's "value-priced" products, but what it actually does is highlight how sad it is that women chase the "anti-aging" dream.

When I posted some of the worst anti-aging ads in existence, one commenter admitted:

"I worked in this industry for 2 years as a copy writer. I was told to lie, lie and lie some more. Anything to get women to buy our products. I hated it..."

Another wrote:

"The sad thing about all these creams and lotions is that they do 'work' - for the companies and manufacturers. They sell billions of $/€'s this stuff every year. Next year and for many years to come there will be 'better', 'improved' versions that will sell very well too."

And yet, there were many comments on the post What If Women Weren't Afraid To Grow Old? in which women admitted to being afraid of growing old, of looking old. "I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting to look your best," wrote one woman. Another said, "I just had botox for the first time and I love it. I did it for myself, nobody else."

Botox doesn't last forever; looking your best doesn't have to mean spending a lot on "anti-aging" potions. But why would some women rather have the "youth" than the cash?

One-Third of American Women Choose Youth Over Savings [Breitbart]
Earlier: Sick & Twisted: "Anti-Aging" & "Cosmeceutical" Ads
What If Women Weren't Afraid To Grow Old?
Related: Sustainable Youth

Aminpour, of Kew Gardens, Queens, NY, is a dentist. While she and husband David Shamash have a joint account with Chase, she never informed him of her own personal account. Here's what happened: A bank employee cold-called Shamash, suggesting he take "his" money out of that account and invest it in other ways. Naturally, he started "harassing" his wife for money, asking for funds to invest in the stock market. According to the law suit, he "alienat[ed]" Aminipour until she gave him $155,000 "to save her marriage and restore order in the marital home."

So many questions here, the first of which is this: Is it cool to keep a "secret" account your husband knows nothing about? On the one hand, if you've pledged to be with this person until death, surely you trust them enough to say, hey, listen, I have another cash stash? On the other hand, obviously this woman knew her husband very well: Keeping her finances hush-hush was wise, considering the minute he found out about the cash, he started "harassing" her. Who knows? Maybe she was saving to buy them both a house or vacation and knew he'd be risky and irresponsible with the money. Then again, as the famous quote goes, "Secrets are made to be found out with time."

In general, nothing comes between people like money woes. But is it better to be honest, no matter what? Or is it okay to hide a "secret" bank account from your husband (or wife)? And what is up with Chase spilling the beans in a cold call?!?!

Woman Sues Chase For Telling Hubby About Secret Cash [Gothamist]

Apparently silver and china are going the way of the Christmas bonus as openly acquisitive young marrieds ask their guests to cut the crap, make with the cash. Or, as the Wall Street Journal puts it, "new economic realities are now further shaping couples' priorities." Online registries have taken some of the gaucherie out of this approach; people were eased into the "cash" idea by making monetary contributions to the couple's honeymoons and paintings. Obviously, mortgages and 401Ks weren't far behind.Says one groomski,

"What the hell are we going to do with a $400 stand-up mixer?" he asks. Because the couple lives in a small one-bedroom apartment in New York, "everything we get for our wedding is doomed to spend at least three years in her parents' garage," he says.

Okay, spoken like a man who's never tried to make an angle food the old-fashioned way and so doesn't appreciate a KitchenAid (and apparently one with splatter guard, custom color and other bells for that price) but yes, nowadays couples tend to have tiny places and, more to the point, since we're marrying later, have been living alone long enough to have most of the basics.

The thing is, the happy couple aren't the only ones feeling the pinch anymore, and lots of guests would rather give a modest gift with some emotional significance than the equivalent, unimpressive amount in cash. Then too, to some this kind of open discussion of moolah is just plain distasteful. According to the piece, a lot of this comes down to geography: while the vulgarians in "New York and Los Angeles " might find it a pleasure doing business with you, Georgia traditionalists and those of "another generation" may balk. In any event, they advise discretion, sensitivity, tact and putting the dosh towards some tangible goal, so as not to give the impression that one is merely rolling around in money like a low-rent cartoon Midas.

If the suggestion that people contribute towards a car or a house reno is too romantic, check this out:

Scores of banks offer bridal savings accounts, which collect contributions toward dream homes — or other dreams. Some banks restrict the use of funds to down payments on a house as a way to bring in business to their mortgage arms. But institutions as wide-ranging as SunTrust Banks Inc., Bank of Utah, Community Financial Services Bank in Kentucky and Mercantile Bank in Illinois, Indiana and Missouri place no restrictions on how the funds can be used. Most charge no fees. Bank of Utah charges a $10 fee to open a bridal account, but it also offers matching funds of up to $300 for each account if the money is used for a house down payment...Another option: At least 19 credit unions currently offer accounts for accepting cash wedding gifts, according to the Filene Research Institute, a Madison, Wis.-based researcher of consumer-finance issues and the credit-union industry. These institutions market their service as MatriMoney, a name licensed by North Island Credit Union in San Diego. The credit-union accounts typically offer an annual interest rate and have no fees.

The philosophical questions can't help but intrude: are we getting more materialistic, or less? Is this the end of the "bridezilla" era, or just a craven permutation? A lot of people think of registries as a way of building a new life together, after all, acquiring future heirlooms, and there's a lot to be said for tradition in its place. But, really, maybe the gifts thing needs to be re-thought. After all, why should your guests have to finance your life? The wedding gift is really just a leftover from the days of dowries, except now your guests are expected to furnish your house and like it. Like so many wedding customs it's a relatively recent "tradition" that's come to be seen as inviolate. Sure, the altruistic among us might ask for a donation to a good cause, but the message is still clear: you will pay to attend our marriage, and you are not getting off cheap. If money's a measure of time, and economists tell me it is, we want to make people trade for the time we've invested, and this is philosophically dicey. Speaking as a guest, yes, I would resent giving a check, even as I'd understand the cut-the-pork practicalities behind it. And as a bride, I will be thrilled to get money. Which is a good argument against gifts. All this reminds me of the time my brother was doing volunteer work with some first-graders, each of whom was asked to write a poem about something he loved. Wrote my brother's assigned kid:

"I like money.
Money is green.
I can buy a machine.
I like money."

Nuff said.

Something Borrowed, Something Green [WSJ]

The Science Of When To Get Married [Daily Beast]
Two Months' Salary [Lee Gainer]