Aim for the stars
February 22nd, 2010Lori Gottlieb caused a bit of a storm back in 2007 with her article suggesting that women should settle for a man who is ‘good enough’ rather than holding out for Mr Perfect who may never show up. Not content with this she is now publishing a book which she says will back up her ideas.
Whilst I sympathise to a certain extent with her views, I do have problems with some of the statistics she quotes. She claims that “less than half of women over 40 will ever marry.” Conveniently she makes no mention of how many of these women actually want to get married, she simply uses this statistic to scare women into thinking they are a lost cause. Incidentally, The Times, commenting on figures published by the Office for National Statistics for England and Wales, makes a similar error. Proudly proclaiming that women are going to be overwhelmed by offers as there are now more single men than women in every age group except the over 75’s. Again they do not consider how many actually want to get married. The definition of single as “never married, divorced or widowed” is also a problem. How many are in happy, stable long term relationships? The old adage ‘Lies, dammed Lies and Statistics’ springs to mind. Numbers are great when trying to understand trends but you have to be very careful how you use them.
Back to Lori Gottlieb, she puts forward the view that feminism has encouraged women to think that they can have it all – the perfect man, lifestyle, family and career. In some ways she is right about this. There is not really a whole lot wrong with setting yourself high goals and aspirations. However you do need to be able to be flexible whilst trying to attain them.
Remember to give yourself a good pat on the back when you land on the moon even if you were aiming for the stars.