April 20, 2015 • 42 mins
Do beautiful women marry for money? Cristen and Caroline unpack the gender- and race-loaded stereotype of the Trophy Wife and investigate whether she really exists.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from House top
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And this week we are talking
about wives in the sense of divorces and life after marriage.
(00:25):
And this episode we're going to focus in on a
more maligned character, often a second or third or even
fourth wife, called the trophy wife. Yeah. There's definitely not
many good stereotypes or images surrounding this trophy wife figure.
We usually think of her as a blonde bimbo. She's
(00:48):
probably had all sorts of plastic surgery to alter or
enhance her appearance. She's probably not very smart, she might
not have gone to college. She really just probably walked
out of whatever club she was working at to get
herself a rich husband. Yeah, and he's probably super old,
possibly on the brink of death. And we assume that
(01:10):
she's just in it for the money. And this has
been a really fascinating character to unpack and someone who
we've been talking about a lot lately. There was actually
a now canceled show on ABC called Trophy Wife. And
even though it was a pretty delightful show created by
(01:30):
Sarah haskins Um, who if any of you have seen
current TVs Target Women. She was the hilarious host of that,
and a lot of TV critics said, hey, it's a
decent show, but it was probably canceled because people didn't
want to watch a show called trophy wife. Yeah, because
you assume that's going to be a show like, oh, great, well,
I've got to watch for half an hour some blonde
(01:51):
woman like take over a man's life and take all
of his money. But you know, it was really more
about the family dynamic. Was so much less about the old,
tired trope of the trophy wife and so much more
about women kind of getting on in the world with
their kind of new family. Yeah. But of course we
(02:12):
do see lots of those trophy wife stereotypes perpetuated, especially
on reality television, on shows like Millionaire Matchmaker, The Real
Housewife Franchise, and also Basketball Wives. So we want to know, though,
off TV, to what extent do these women exist, Where
(02:33):
did the stereotype come from? And more recently a question
that's been popping up, do trophy husbands exist? Well? Stereotypically
in our culture, before you can have a trophy wife,
you have to have the gold digging girlfriend or mistress
who comes along. Uh. And this woman supposedly has the
(02:56):
goal of becoming a trophy wife eventually, so she's secure
in her retire plan you know, otherwise known as her
husband's money. But stereotypically in our culture, before you can
get to the trophy wife, you have to have the
gold digging girlfriend or mistress whose goal it is to
get all of this man's money and his wealth and
(03:17):
live in the lap of luxury for the rest of
her life. And so where does the gold digger stereotype
come from? And what role does race and socioeconomics play
in it? Yeah, so it first comes love, then comes marriage,
first comes gold digging, then comes trophy wife. Ng. And
I mean this very concept though, of women marrying rich,
(03:38):
marrying up however you want to phrase it, isn't new
because we need to keep in mind that the institution
of marriage was founded as an economic arrangement. Women very
figuratively speaking, have been marrying for money since the get go.
But this whole gold digger stereotype is especially pernicious, even
(04:01):
more so, I think than the trophy wife. Um. But
in real life, it's hard to pin down how many
gold digging women there really are, how how real the
protagonist in Kanye's gold Digger hit is um. In two
thousand and fourteen, for instance, Heidi Stevens with a Chicago
(04:24):
Tribune interviewed a Chicago based matchmaker, Bella Gandhi, who claimed
that very few women come to her directly seeking out
rich men, which is kind of the opposite of what
you see with Patti Stinger on Bravo with Millionaire Matchmaker,
where I mean lines of women are out the door
auditioning for a chance to possibly go on a date
(04:47):
with a guy who has millions, millions and millions and millions.
Didn't this matchmaker also say that these women are looking
for really tall men. Yeah, like height was a big Yeah,
it was a big thing. But you know that we
we see the stereotype applying to women. It's not like
we see, though, rich men going to matchmakers saying I
(05:09):
want an incredibly wealthy woman to carry me through the
rest of my days. We don't have the sugar mama,
yeah matchmaker happening um now. Of course, though, speaking of matchmaking,
there are sites like seeking Arrangements dot Com, which claims
to have over three point six million members. Caroline that
(05:32):
is specifically geared toward wealthy men and women seeking wealthy men,
and it's all framed in sugar daddy kinds of language.
It's mostly sugar daddies and women seeking sugar daddies. And
according to a Vanity Fair piece about seeking arrangements in
which the author went on and went on a bunch
(05:53):
of dates with really rich guys and concluded that, well,
I guess this isn't for me so much. Sugar Mama
is only make up about one percent of this population.
And it's interesting to read about the pursuit of wealthy
men in different cultures too. We read an excerpt of
Peter Pomeranza's new book Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible,
(06:15):
The Surreal Heart of the New Russia, that basically details
the millionaire baiting academies that some young Russian women will
pay to attend to learn the fine art of gold digging.
And oh my god, that was fascinating, just learning about
the cultural nuances of what women expect of themselves and
(06:40):
of men and vice versa. They're one of the academy's
teachers even tells Peter, uh, you know this is look
at what feminism has done. Feminism is all wrong feminism
has for some reason been filling our heads with the
idea that women need to work seven in an office
or a factory, and that's ridiculous working hard as a
man's job. It's a woman's job to look pretty and
(07:01):
be at home. So it's that's that's a more ingrained
cultural broad idea that a woman should just be living
off of some wealthy fat cats money. But it takes
a lot of work. According to that article, I mean,
these women were I mean they're going to academies in
quotes there, having to pay a lot of attention to
(07:23):
their to the physical appearance. I mean, it takes it
takes work to to try to bait a rich husband
as well. But here's the thing. This is where the
gold digger thing, I mean, the gold digger stereotype is
ugly to begin with because it assumes that women want
nothing more than men for their money and their status
(07:45):
and their power. But when it comes to our pop
cultural depictions and stereotypes of gold digger, like the Kanye
West song gold Digger, there is very much a racial
aspect to this because Black women are plagued by this stereotype.
(08:05):
There was a two thousand thirteen survey conducted by Essence
Magazine among Black women, which found the seven percent of
those women I did gold digger as one of the
most common media stereotypes they see firsthand of black women. Yeah.
One of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, Porshea Stewart, was
(08:26):
cited as being very proud of her brief stint as
a trophy wife. She ended up getting hand at her
divorce papers, so she's no longer trophy wife. She's a
triphy divorce. Trophy divorce. Well in Porsche, Stewart being proud
of her trophy wife status is sort of a standout
example because, as sharing Bell writes over at Madame Noir,
(08:48):
yes we are constantly cast as gold diggers, but rarely
seen as a trophy wife. Because that's the difference between
a gold digger and a trophy wife. A old digger
inherently as someone independent who's like out on their own,
trying to, you know, use their feminine wiles to ensnare
a rich man. But trophy wife is at least seen
(09:11):
as some kind of prize. She's almost socially safer. Well,
she's safer to society at large because she's within a marriage.
The gold digger is almost like she's a shark in
the water. Yeah. Well, the implication is that while the
gold digger is out seeking herself a husband to ensnare,
the trophy wife is the one being sought after and
(09:31):
sharing ball rights that Madame Noir about how being a
trophy wife is quote a white woman's only club, and
she goes on to talk about even when it comes
to really successful, wealthy black men, they often marry women
who are not black. She says, sure, some I'm married
(09:52):
for love. However, there are some men who marry for status,
and she says, by obtaining a white trophy partner, these
men can feel themselves closer to endowing a status which
would enable him to acquire all the privileges that come
with whiteness in American society. Yeah. She cites people like
Michael Jordan's Tiger Woods and Kanye West that once they
(10:14):
hit the big time, rarely do you see a woman
who looks like them, so to speak, on their arm.
They tend to have what, whether she's white or just
lighter skinned, a woman going with them to events, going
with them to parties. Um. One thing that really struck
me as weird though about her trophy wife column is
that she sharing Ball frames all of this as very unfortunate,
(10:38):
not that one has to be a trophy wife or
a gold digger, but that black women are relegated to
gold diggers and don't get the opportunity to be trophy wives,
which she frames a sort of a viable way to
get by. She says that, hey, we're using our economic capital,
our version of economic capital too. If we are going
to be a trophy wife, Um, we're getting something for
(11:00):
our femininity or our beauty. But you know, when she
says that it's a white woman's only game, she does
frame that as an unfortunate thing. Yeah, And on the
one hand, I am hesitant to agree that, like, yes,
equal opportunity trophy wifedom for all, but I think she
is absolutely right in her observation that of how this
(11:24):
reflects perhaps what she calls Eurocentric standards of beauty. And
this very much relates to the podcast we did a
while back on the exoticistizing of women of color and
this issue within the black community. Two of black women
talking about how like even just the different shades of
(11:45):
their skin has a status as well, that women with
darker skin are often seen as just kind of regular,
whereas lighter skinned women are seen as, oh, they're exotic,
they're the prizes. Yeah, but if we're still speaking about
issues of race and class, on the other end of
the spectrum, you have Asian women who there was a
(12:08):
trend piece in Marie Claire in two thousand nine talking
about Asian women being the new consummate trophy wife. Yeah.
Here's the thing. This article was kind of awful, I
will say in its tone, but it was written by
Shanghai Borne ying Chu, who is trying to put together
(12:30):
the puzzle pieces of why she has seen so many
Asian trophy wives essentially, so her examples that she offers
include Woody Allen and Sunny Preven, which to me, we're
not even in trophy wife territory at that point. That's
a whole another ball of wax to talk about. Um.
But then also Rupert Murdoch and Wendy Dang, Bruce Wasserstein
(12:52):
and Angela Chow, George Soros and Jennifer Chun and on
and on and on, and so she's wondering why would
these smart, accomplished Asian women want to marry these guys,
Because in a lot of these cases, these women are
successful in their own right, and they have economic power
(13:13):
in their own right. And the conclusions that she draws
are made me a little uncomfortable, to be completely honest,
but maybe that's just like me wallowing in my whiteness. Yeah.
She basically says that these older, more portly rich gentlemen
make amazing renegade suitors because they're an attempt at rebellion
(13:38):
on the part of these otherwise very accomplished and amazing
Asian women, and that these women are looking for a
father figure. Yikes, which just makes me want to sing
that song, but I won't. Yeah. So, And I was
asking Caroline before we record this podcast whether this kind
of quote unquote tren piece would even fly today, because
(14:00):
I mean, it certainly pointed out, though importantly, the fetishization
of Asian women as being perhaps the perfect trophy wife,
because they're fetishized as being very docile and submissive and
also very exotic in their beauty. And there was also
sort of a point in there that echo Sharing Ball's
column in terms of saying, we're just trading on our
(14:23):
economic capital. You know, if you want someone who appears
like she might be submissive, fine, and and who's younger. Fine,
but I also have, you know, a great education. Maybe
I'm an m B A, I make a lot of money,
maybe I have my own company. And that's what's so
interesting and what we'll get into in this episode about
the evolution of where the trophy wife came from, where
(14:46):
we get these stereotypes, and how our image of the
trophy wife has really evolved. And even at this point,
I think it's pretty clear that the stereotype isn't so
simple as it might seem on the outside, because there
is a lot packed into that trophy in terms of
what we do deem worthy. And then on the flip
(15:09):
side too, with the whole the gold digger opposite side
of that corn coin where she is nothing but seen
as rather worthless. Um. But when it comes to this
term trophy wife, where did it come from? So? Over
the Wall Street Journal language columnist Ben Zimmer sites Phillips
(15:29):
E Rosen tours The Single Woman, published in nineteen sixty one,
which defines the trophy wife as quote the woman who
was hard to get because of birth or wealth or
beauty to be kept on exhibition, like a mammoth tusk
or prime picasso. But it seems like the term trophy
(15:50):
wife really entered our lexicon. Yeah. In Julie Connolly uses
the term trophy wife in a Fortune magazine of her
story headlined at the CEO's second Wife. But in her
use of the term, these women aren't exactly bimbos. They
are ambitious and accomplished, just like their husbands are. Yeah,
(16:12):
she writes in that column, powerful men are beginning to
demand trophy wives. But she goes on to say that
the trophy wife quote doesn't hang on the wall like
a moose head because she typically has her own business,
though not so large as to overshadow her husband. And
she talks about how these trophy wives serve the purpose
(16:35):
of quote, dispelling the notion that men peak sexually at
age eighteen. So they're very much a status symbol. But
really importantly, they have success in their own rights. So
they're beautiful and they're successful. They're the whole package. And
the cover model for the article was Caroline Rohne, who
was address designer with a ten million dollar business who
(16:59):
married and and richer financier Henry Kravis. And now, of
course this couple has since divorced, but she was the
you know the model trophy wife. Yeah. But okay, so
we've mentioned money. She's got money, and she's got beauty,
but what about the brains. She's got brains too. I mean,
if you're going to build a ten million dollar business,
(17:21):
you've got a Yeah, this is not someone who is
our cultural stereotype of just the blonde, big boob bimbo.
Not that there's anything wrong with having big boobs or
being blonde, it's just that the trophy wife, when we
start to unpack her, there's a lot more to her. Yeah,
And so there have been a lot of trend pieces
in the past couple of years about this so called
(17:42):
new trophy wife, even though she's really the original trophy wife,
as we just described from that article. And the wedding
that really kicked a lot of this off too was
George Clooney marrying ox Or educated human rights lawyer am
all Ala Mouden, And we'll talk more about that relationship later,
(18:04):
because not only have people called her an incredible trophy
wife for him, people have also said, well, look at
what she's done, he's the trophy husband for her. Yeah,
because he's he's a glamorous actor, a Hollywood actor, So
Kristin Hufton over at Huffington's Post writes that the woman
who got ahead on her looks by marrying a sugar
(18:26):
daddy is now being replaced by the woman who is
equal to her man in earning power and career position.
And that is sexy. And so it's almost like removing
past the whole trophy wife thing or the trophy husband
thing and into the power couple. The the ideal of
the power couple to people who are both beautiful, successful,
(18:46):
wealthy and smart. Yeah, and side note though, why is
it such a revelation that a woman can be beautiful
and smart at the same time? What kind of odd um? So?
The New York Post, though a laudable public asian As,
always trotted out a series of new trophy wives. I
believe it was in two thousand and fourteen that included
(19:09):
George Soros, who's in his eighties married to Tamiko Bolton
who's in her forties. Also Harvey Weinstein, who is twenty
four years older than his gorgeous wife and designer Georgina Chapman,
and then also former financier Susanne Ersha, who was twenty
years younger than billionaire Woody Johnson. So in all of
(19:32):
these cases, these women are successful, they have their own careers,
they're very you know, they have their own money, they
don't necessarily need to marry a richer guy. And they're
also super hot and show the reporter for the New
York Post rights designer labels, bespoke beauty treatments and extravagant
holidays are still part of the package. But so are
(19:53):
advanced degrees and business startups. So yeah, okay, so now
we're celebrating you know, beauty, full successful, wealthy people. Good
job women, you've gotten a degree, and you're hot still
and you're hot, and it's super important. Uh. But Gretchen
Sisson over a bitch is like, wait, wait a second, wait,
(20:13):
she writes, when a Richmond marries a woman with her
own slew of degrees and accomplishments and perhaps even her
own wealth, he's not marrying a trophy. He's marrying a peer.
When you label somebody a trophy wife, that turns even
the most ambitious and accomplished of American women into objects
merely by virtue of becoming a wife. And so even
though you had Julie Connelly in Fortune Magazine, saying, no,
(20:36):
she's she's not a moose head on the wall. Gretchen
Sison is saying, no, you guys, the way that you're
talking about these women is very much so that they
are still moose heads on the wall. Yeah. But if
we move away though, from trend pieces and think pieces,
Caroline and look at sociological data, more pieces pieces, data pieces,
(20:59):
our favorite lines of pieces. Do these kinds of heteronormative
beauty status exchanges really exist? We're gonna answer that question
when we come right back from a quick break. Well,
(21:23):
in the first half of the podcast, we we painted.
We painted a few very interesting portraits for you that
involved moose heads. Uh. It evolved wealthy women, both those
with higher education and those without, those running the world
with their high powered businesses, and those not um and
you know, the older gentlemen that they were marrying. Um.
(21:46):
But as Kristen and I hinted at, let's let's get
into some of the data pieces about what's really going
on there socially and culturally. Yeah, are there so many
women who are trading in their beauty in exchange for
economic status? Well, some research suggests yeah, totally. A two
(22:08):
thousand seven study in the journal Human Nature on engagement
ring costs and Men and Women's Income found that men
marrying younger women spent more on rings, and they also
highlighted a negative correlation between a bride's age and the
amount spent on a ring, to which I say, maybe
older brides just don't care as much about having a
(22:30):
giant rock. Um. But the researchers also found ring price
correlated with income, which makes sense. So I mean, yeah,
so there's it's mixed. Yeah. Well, the title of the
study did tie in the whole issue of mate quality,
and so age and income are being tied into the
(22:52):
size of the engagement ring the quality of the mate.
It's almost like they're insinuating that the quality of the
mate is reward did by a bigger ring. Yeah, look
at your beautiful face. Here's a diamond. Well, even more
pertinent to our purposes with this old trophy wife thing.
A two thousand thirteen study in the journal Letters on
(23:13):
Evolutionary Behavioral Science looked at men from the richest four
hundred from the Forbes four hundred list and found, Yeah,
there seems to be a little bit of a possible
trophy wife effect. And Caroline, can you pretty share the title,
have to study because it's it's a good one. Yeah,
the Golden Years men from the Forbes four hundred have
(23:35):
much younger wives when remarrying than the general US population,
So kind of just like spoiler there, it's like, okay, yeah,
now they do have an average of a twenty two
year age gap when they remarry, but wealthy women do not.
It's not like when super wealthy high power women get
divorced and then remarried that they're marrying the twenty five
year old stead muffin. Yeah, they're not marrying the pool boy.
(23:57):
Chances are. But other research suggests that trophy wives are
very much an exception to the sociological rule that opposites
don't attract like attracts. Like, yeah, I thought this was
so interesting that our perception of like a Harvey Weinstein
(24:18):
with a Georgian Chapman, that let's just pretend that that
is a stereotypical trophy wife marriage for a second. Of
my apologies to the two people in question if they
listen to the podcast, Um, but that that stereotype and
that image is more the exception than the rule. And
speaking to NPR, Notre Dame sociologist Elizabeth McClintock calls trophy
(24:40):
wives a violation of the usual pattern that people select
somebody who's a whole lot like themselves, and she questions
earlier study finding saying that pretty women tend to marry
rich dudes in general because they failed to account for
her pre marital money and status. Maybe she had a
whole bunch of money before she married this guy, and
(25:02):
she's just pretty or beautiful or has great hair or
pretty nose or whatever because she has that money. And
people who have a lot of money and high socio
economic status can afford to invest in their appearance more. Yeah,
I mean, and even when it comes to like children,
I mean, wealth and attractiveness tend to go hand in
(25:24):
hand from birth thanks to just greater access to resources.
And mcclinic says that once you control for all of
those kinds of factors, trophy wives virtually disappear. And when
she was talking to Chakra Vedantam at NPR, she was like,
you know what this actually might be saying more about
(25:45):
us that we're actively looking for it, that we are
pinpointing a handful of couples so that we can create
galleries of the quote unquote new trophy wives. We're making
these trends, uh quote. People notice it when it happens,
and they don't notice it when it doesn't happen. Yeah.
(26:06):
And Eli Finkel, who's a psychologist at Northwestern University, told
New York Magazine that assuming that the importance of beauty
and status is gendered may cause researchers to overlook men's
attractiveness and women's says to economic resources. And he really
praised McClintock, and this is in the Atlantic, and he
said that women aren't really out for men with more
(26:29):
wealth than themselves, nor are men looking for women who
outshine them in beauty. Rather heartening lee, he says, people
really are looking for compatibility and companionship. That is the rule.
That is how life tends to go. The people who
are like those Russian women that we cited earlier in
the podcast who were taking classes to learn how to
(26:51):
snag a rich man, those are the exception. Yeah. And
it's also a vast oversimplification to just boil it down
to exchanging beauty for status, because mcclinic talks about how
like this data on beauty and status gets really messy,
really fast when you start to account for things like
(27:12):
women's beauty regiments. We are likelier to try to pay
more attention to our parents and make ourselves more beautiful
versus men. Also things like the gender wage gap. We
start out with a little bit of a power and
balance in the pocketbook to begin with. And then also
again how status endows attractiveness. We are likelier to find
(27:34):
people who are wealthier, who have more influence as being
more attractive. But you know what that made me think of,
especially when you mentioned women's beauty regimens and you know,
focus on appearance and stuff like that we haven't talked about.
And a lot of the data out there doesn't talk
about the concept of a trophy spouse or partner among
(27:56):
gay men or lesbian women. Um, And yet the trade
off there would be is a really handsome shiny man
going to look for an equally handsome shiny man if
they're both wealthy. You know what, how does that apply
to lesbians? Like, how do we extrapolate that data? Yeah,
it's a very heteronormative trope. And reading this did remind
(28:19):
me Caroline of Behind the Candelabra, the HBO film which
I highly recommend. It's incredibly entertaining. Um, it's sort of
a biopic on Liberaci played by Michael Douglas and this
much younger man played by Matt Damon who he takes
under his wing. And I mean, obviously this is a
(28:40):
while back, so they're you know, having to sort of
have a more of a closeted um gay relationship. But
it's very much like sort of a trophy trophy boy
in that sense. Yeah. I mean the reality of the
quote unquote trophy wife and the stereotype of the trophy wife,
they're very thick things. And I mean, I just I
(29:02):
would be interested to learn about though, the concept of
the trophy spouse, partner or just you know, hook up
partner um in in gay male culture or lesbian culture.
One thing though, pop culturally too that also just popped
into my head is how the trophy wife stereotype is
(29:24):
played with also on Modern Family, with Sophia Vergara's character,
where she always obviously intentionally upturns our assumption that she's
just with Ja for his money, and over and over
and over again it's reinforced that no, they really do
have this bond and she really does love him, and
(29:46):
he really does love her and Manny and their new son,
and they make it kind of a sweet thing and
that's so rare to see of like a humanized quote
unquote trophy wife. But that leads us though to the
newest trophy wife question that people are asking of whether
(30:06):
trophy husbands are the new trophy wives. Yeah, people, this
is kind of like stopped trying to make fetch happen.
People are really trying and have really been trying to
make trophy husband a thing, but nobody can really agree
on what what makes a trophy husband? Do you define
a trophy husband in light of what a trophy wife
(30:27):
stereotype is, so that he's handsome and and maybe a
little dumb and you know, a status symbol for the woman.
He's just something you hang on the wall next to
your sparkling necklaces, you know. Or is a trophy husband
being defined in light of what a woman might want?
So he he cooks and does all the chores while
(30:48):
you go off to your high powered job and make
all the money. So he his trophy husband in that sense.
Is a wife a housewife? Well let's back up for
a moment, because in terms of trying to make trophy
husband happen. In fact, Caroline in nine, when Fortune Magazine
editor Julie Connolly was busy coining trophy wife, she was like,
(31:12):
you know, let's let's investigate trophy husbands too, and it
was a total flop. She told William Sapphire at The
New York Times that there's a bimbo quality to trophy
and that doesn't translate into the male image. She says,
a trophy husband would be a CEO or really powerful guy,
not some stud muffin. Yeah. She writes that with the
(31:35):
with the description of a woman as being a trophy wife,
you know, bim bonic is implied, and the whole being
accomplished on her own thing is sort of secondary. It's
not even the main definition. But um, when you apply
a trophy in whatever since to a man, it's always complimentary. Yeah. So,
un Fortune Magazine has really been hitting this hard for
(31:57):
a while. They really seem to be the champions of
trying to make fetch slash trophy husband happen. Because in
two thousand two, Fortune Magazine is like, Okay, you know what,
let's let's try this trophy husband thing again. So they
write this huge feature piece about these really powerful women
in the corporate world who have what they call trophy husbands,
(32:21):
and the article states call him what you will, house husband,
stay at home dad, domestic engineer, but credit him was
setting aside his own career by dropping out, retiring early,
or going part time, so that his wife's career might
flourish and their family might thrive. Behind a great woman
at work, there's often a great man at home. He
is the new trophy husband. But is this really socially accepted.
(32:46):
I mean, we're still working on it. The article points
out that like, hey, five years ago, I couldn't get
anybody to talk to me about this, and now people
are coming out of the woodwork being like, yeah, that's
kind of a secret. If you're a high powered woman
and a high powered job and you have kids, you've
got somebody at home, you know, whether it's a partner
or a spouse who's taken care of stuff. But but
(33:07):
the big difference though, with trophy husband, he's usually not
the second or the third or the fourth spouse. He's
the guy who's always been there. Just at some point
in the relationship they were like, you know what, we
have all of these things, all these plates that were spending,
one of which is kids, and someone's got to take
care of the kids. And guess what, I'm the lady,
and I happened to be making bookoo bucks, so it
(33:32):
makes more sense for you to stay home, which just
sounds like a really wise, equitable set up. Yeah, it
just sounds like it's an evolved social and family structure,
and not that it's like, oh, somebody need we need
to give him a trophy for being a trophy husband. Yeah,
I mean trophy husbands in this sense at least, are
(33:54):
really just like good dudes who aren't scared of having
female bread winners exactly. But there was one observation too
in that feature piece that made me cringe and says
so much about how much gendered ideology is packed into
the stereotype, because they say, these women are not who
(34:16):
you think they are. Yes, they're tough and ambitious and competitive,
but they're not ball busters and their husbands aren't whimps
that they even have to make that point, Caroline, is
it says a lot. It says a lot. It says
a lot about where we are, which is not there yet.
Wherever there is, we haven't gotten there yet. Well, keep
(34:38):
in mind though this was just in two thousand two
because old fortune came a knock, and again this year
in twenty fifteen, they're like, hey, you know what, forget
what we said earlier. We got a new idea about
what trophy husbands really are. And it's has a lot
to do with George Clooney. Right. They say that trophy
husbands are important men in their own right, so very
(35:01):
like good for you attitude, who don't mind being eclipsed
on occasion. He's a multidimensional status symbol in a high
powered relationship between equals, so we're lifting him onto our
onto our shoulders and carrying him out into the street
for a ticker tape parade. Well notable too that they're equals,
(35:22):
but again going back to Gretchen's Siston's point, if they're equals,
then why do we need to make one or the
other this object? Yeah, and I mean it also goes
back to Elizabeth McClintock's research that like attracts like, and
it is normal. We just don't realize that it is
(35:42):
normal that two super rich people would get together. Too,
super smart or super funny or super attractive people would
end up together. But when to like Hottie mccotterson's are
walking down the street together. You're just like, yeah, whatever,
that's too hot people. You don't assume anything about them
just because they're too hot people. I mean, you might
assume a couple of things. But anyway, when you do
(36:03):
see that older man and the younger beautiful woman, that's
when you start to put all these assumptions together that
they are not equals, and you just start to assume
that the woman is some bimbo who's played her cards
right and landed herself a rich husband. Well, I think,
in general, and this also cuts across orientations, we have
mistrust for large age gaps in romantic relationships. There's usually
(36:28):
that that assumption that something is a miss somebody's lying
has issues. Um But I also thought it was kind
of funny that in that most recent Fortune magazine Trophy
husband feature that the examples offered were mostly actors. So
you have George Clooney, Joseph Gordon Levitt, who was married
(36:50):
to a woman in the tech industry, and Eddie Redman,
who recently won an Oscar for his portrayal of Stephen
Hawking in the Theory of Everything, who is married to
a super successful career woman as well. So I mean,
and the thing is, some of these trophy husband pieces
want to like celebrate it as a sign of like
(37:13):
feminist victory and equality, but it's not at all. That's
totally misinterpreting and mingling feminism. And again the question of
why does one one party have to be objectified? Why
can't they just be Oh, their power couple, they're equals,
they have their own things going on. Cool, you worked
(37:35):
it out, you found a person. Yeah, it's it is
way more of like a like a person to person
issues than a general society commentary on feminism. It's more like, yes, excellent,
good for you. You found someone who you can fit
together with like a puzzle piece, and your lives will
be hopefully harmonious. Congratulations more so than like ha victory
(37:57):
house husbands for everyone. Yes, house husbands have effectively closed
a gender wage gap. I mean, in that case, I
would give them a trophy. That's true. Um, well do
we want to hear from listeners now what kind of
questions do we have? Does anyone out there consider themselves
to be in a trophy type dynamic or have you
(38:19):
been accused of it? And what do you think though
about the idea of, perhaps in a more concerted kind
of way, attempting to trade looks for status, because I
know some women personally who see no problem without whatsoever
and try to cast it in a feminist light as well,
(38:40):
and other people obviously who think exactly the opposite, that
it's the worst possible thing that a woman in particular
could do. Let us know all of your thoughts. Mom
Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our email address,
and you can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast
or messages on Facebook. And we've got a couple of
messages to share with you right now. I have a
(39:06):
letter here from Haley about our art her story week
on the podcast. She says, Hey, ladies, you would not
believe how excited I was when I saw that you
guys were doing a podcast on the female nude. I'm
an anthropology and archaeology student with a minor engender and
women studies, and literally just finished writing a paper all
(39:28):
about the herculaneum women. Herculaneum women are a style of
sculpture which originated in Greece, but we're adopted by Roman
elite women and were used for about six hundred years
in complete contrast to what you guys were talking about.
This style shows women in the same pose, but with
a lot of clothing three layers to be exact. As
(39:50):
I found in my paper, the repetition of this style
reflects the limited roles which Roman women had in society,
while also expressing their wealthy status. A funny note, though,
is that despite all of their layers, you can still
see the outline of their bodies, kind of defeating the
purpose of all that fabric. And she attached some pictures
(40:11):
and I have to agree with her that, yeah, it
doesn't there's a lot of layers being draped and everything,
but it definitely looks pretty gauzy, like you can definitely
still see a belly button and I think there's a
nip over there, a nip um. But yeah, oh I
love it. I love hearing from our archaeology and art
minded people out there. Thank you, Haley Well. I have
(40:31):
a letter also from Jenny about art her story week,
and she said so much lovely information. I was lucky
enough to travel to Italy for the summer I turned
eighteen as part of my voice training at university. Some
of our fellow travelers were artists and they're awe and
joy at David and La Pieta and many other sculptures
encouraged me to learn more about them. The experience of
(40:54):
traveling to Europe at that age gave me great confidence
in what I can do as a single woman. I
later joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to San
Juan de Lea, May, Nicaragua. There's a sandstone quarry nearby
and nine to ten studios in town. It's still a
machismo culture and men were the main artists and create
the great concepts, but whole families do the rough, initial
(41:15):
chisel work. It was a great way for me to
connect with them and to be able to say that
I've seen David and they were amazed that he's fourteen
feet tall. Every day since then, I give thanks that
I was born in a time in place where I
have had the opportunity to pursue my dreams with such
fewer limits than American women before me, or than some
women in other cultures today. Have thanks again for your
(41:36):
great podcast to keep me thinking well. Thank you Jenny
for your letter, and thanks to everybody who's written to us.
Mom Stuff at house stuff works dot Com is our
email address. And for links to all of our social
media as well as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts,
including this one with more information on trophy wives so
you can follow along. Head on over to Stuff Mom
(41:59):
Never Told You dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how staff Works dot
com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from House top
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And this week we are talking
about wives in the sense of divorces and life after marriage.
(00:25):
And this episode we're going to focus in on a
more maligned character, often a second or third or even
fourth wife, called the trophy wife. Yeah. There's definitely not
many good stereotypes or images surrounding this trophy wife figure.
We usually think of her as a blonde bimbo. She's
(00:48):
probably had all sorts of plastic surgery to alter or
enhance her appearance. She's probably not very smart, she might
not have gone to college. She really just probably walked
out of whatever club she was working at to get
herself a rich husband. Yeah, and he's probably super old,
possibly on the brink of death. And we assume that
(01:10):
she's just in it for the money. And this has
been a really fascinating character to unpack and someone who
we've been talking about a lot lately. There was actually
a now canceled show on ABC called Trophy Wife. And
even though it was a pretty delightful show created by
(01:30):
Sarah haskins Um, who if any of you have seen
current TVs Target Women. She was the hilarious host of that,
and a lot of TV critics said, hey, it's a
decent show, but it was probably canceled because people didn't
want to watch a show called trophy wife. Yeah, because
you assume that's going to be a show like, oh, great, well,
I've got to watch for half an hour some blonde
(01:51):
woman like take over a man's life and take all
of his money. But you know, it was really more
about the family dynamic. Was so much less about the old,
tired trope of the trophy wife and so much more
about women kind of getting on in the world with
their kind of new family. Yeah. But of course we
(02:12):
do see lots of those trophy wife stereotypes perpetuated, especially
on reality television, on shows like Millionaire Matchmaker, The Real
Housewife Franchise, and also Basketball Wives. So we want to know, though,
off TV, to what extent do these women exist, Where
(02:33):
did the stereotype come from? And more recently a question
that's been popping up, do trophy husbands exist? Well? Stereotypically
in our culture, before you can have a trophy wife,
you have to have the gold digging girlfriend or mistress
who comes along. Uh. And this woman supposedly has the
(02:56):
goal of becoming a trophy wife eventually, so she's secure
in her retire plan you know, otherwise known as her
husband's money. But stereotypically in our culture, before you can
get to the trophy wife, you have to have the
gold digging girlfriend or mistress whose goal it is to
get all of this man's money and his wealth and
(03:17):
live in the lap of luxury for the rest of
her life. And so where does the gold digger stereotype
come from? And what role does race and socioeconomics play
in it? Yeah, so it first comes love, then comes marriage,
first comes gold digging, then comes trophy wife. Ng. And
I mean this very concept though, of women marrying rich,
(03:38):
marrying up however you want to phrase it, isn't new
because we need to keep in mind that the institution
of marriage was founded as an economic arrangement. Women very
figuratively speaking, have been marrying for money since the get go.
But this whole gold digger stereotype is especially pernicious, even
(04:01):
more so, I think than the trophy wife. Um. But
in real life, it's hard to pin down how many
gold digging women there really are, how how real the
protagonist in Kanye's gold Digger hit is um. In two
thousand and fourteen, for instance, Heidi Stevens with a Chicago
(04:24):
Tribune interviewed a Chicago based matchmaker, Bella Gandhi, who claimed
that very few women come to her directly seeking out
rich men, which is kind of the opposite of what
you see with Patti Stinger on Bravo with Millionaire Matchmaker,
where I mean lines of women are out the door
auditioning for a chance to possibly go on a date
(04:47):
with a guy who has millions, millions and millions and millions.
Didn't this matchmaker also say that these women are looking
for really tall men. Yeah, like height was a big Yeah,
it was a big thing. But you know that we
we see the stereotype applying to women. It's not like
we see, though, rich men going to matchmakers saying I
(05:09):
want an incredibly wealthy woman to carry me through the
rest of my days. We don't have the sugar mama,
yeah matchmaker happening um now. Of course, though, speaking of matchmaking,
there are sites like seeking Arrangements dot Com, which claims
to have over three point six million members. Caroline that
(05:32):
is specifically geared toward wealthy men and women seeking wealthy men,
and it's all framed in sugar daddy kinds of language.
It's mostly sugar daddies and women seeking sugar daddies. And
according to a Vanity Fair piece about seeking arrangements in
which the author went on and went on a bunch
(05:53):
of dates with really rich guys and concluded that, well,
I guess this isn't for me so much. Sugar Mama
is only make up about one percent of this population.
And it's interesting to read about the pursuit of wealthy
men in different cultures too. We read an excerpt of
Peter Pomeranza's new book Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible,
(06:15):
The Surreal Heart of the New Russia, that basically details
the millionaire baiting academies that some young Russian women will
pay to attend to learn the fine art of gold digging.
And oh my god, that was fascinating, just learning about
the cultural nuances of what women expect of themselves and
(06:40):
of men and vice versa. They're one of the academy's
teachers even tells Peter, uh, you know this is look
at what feminism has done. Feminism is all wrong feminism
has for some reason been filling our heads with the
idea that women need to work seven in an office
or a factory, and that's ridiculous working hard as a
man's job. It's a woman's job to look pretty and
(07:01):
be at home. So it's that's that's a more ingrained
cultural broad idea that a woman should just be living
off of some wealthy fat cats money. But it takes
a lot of work. According to that article, I mean,
these women were I mean they're going to academies in
quotes there, having to pay a lot of attention to
(07:23):
their to the physical appearance. I mean, it takes it
takes work to to try to bait a rich husband
as well. But here's the thing. This is where the
gold digger thing, I mean, the gold digger stereotype is
ugly to begin with because it assumes that women want
nothing more than men for their money and their status
(07:45):
and their power. But when it comes to our pop
cultural depictions and stereotypes of gold digger, like the Kanye
West song gold Digger, there is very much a racial
aspect to this because Black women are plagued by this stereotype.
(08:05):
There was a two thousand thirteen survey conducted by Essence
Magazine among Black women, which found the seven percent of
those women I did gold digger as one of the
most common media stereotypes they see firsthand of black women. Yeah.
One of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, Porshea Stewart, was
(08:26):
cited as being very proud of her brief stint as
a trophy wife. She ended up getting hand at her
divorce papers, so she's no longer trophy wife. She's a
triphy divorce. Trophy divorce. Well in Porsche, Stewart being proud
of her trophy wife status is sort of a standout
example because, as sharing Bell writes over at Madame Noir,
(08:48):
yes we are constantly cast as gold diggers, but rarely
seen as a trophy wife. Because that's the difference between
a gold digger and a trophy wife. A old digger
inherently as someone independent who's like out on their own,
trying to, you know, use their feminine wiles to ensnare
a rich man. But trophy wife is at least seen
(09:11):
as some kind of prize. She's almost socially safer. Well,
she's safer to society at large because she's within a marriage.
The gold digger is almost like she's a shark in
the water. Yeah. Well, the implication is that while the
gold digger is out seeking herself a husband to ensnare,
the trophy wife is the one being sought after and
(09:31):
sharing ball rights that Madame Noir about how being a
trophy wife is quote a white woman's only club, and
she goes on to talk about even when it comes
to really successful, wealthy black men, they often marry women
who are not black. She says, sure, some I'm married
(09:52):
for love. However, there are some men who marry for status,
and she says, by obtaining a white trophy partner, these
men can feel themselves closer to endowing a status which
would enable him to acquire all the privileges that come
with whiteness in American society. Yeah. She cites people like
Michael Jordan's Tiger Woods and Kanye West that once they
(10:14):
hit the big time, rarely do you see a woman
who looks like them, so to speak, on their arm.
They tend to have what, whether she's white or just
lighter skinned, a woman going with them to events, going
with them to parties. Um. One thing that really struck
me as weird though about her trophy wife column is
that she sharing Ball frames all of this as very unfortunate,
(10:38):
not that one has to be a trophy wife or
a gold digger, but that black women are relegated to
gold diggers and don't get the opportunity to be trophy wives,
which she frames a sort of a viable way to
get by. She says that, hey, we're using our economic capital,
our version of economic capital too. If we are going
to be a trophy wife, Um, we're getting something for
(11:00):
our femininity or our beauty. But you know, when she
says that it's a white woman's only game, she does
frame that as an unfortunate thing. Yeah, And on the
one hand, I am hesitant to agree that, like, yes,
equal opportunity trophy wifedom for all, but I think she
is absolutely right in her observation that of how this
(11:24):
reflects perhaps what she calls Eurocentric standards of beauty. And
this very much relates to the podcast we did a
while back on the exoticistizing of women of color and
this issue within the black community. Two of black women
talking about how like even just the different shades of
(11:45):
their skin has a status as well, that women with
darker skin are often seen as just kind of regular,
whereas lighter skinned women are seen as, oh, they're exotic,
they're the prizes. Yeah, but if we're still speaking about
issues of race and class, on the other end of
the spectrum, you have Asian women who there was a
(12:08):
trend piece in Marie Claire in two thousand nine talking
about Asian women being the new consummate trophy wife. Yeah.
Here's the thing. This article was kind of awful, I
will say in its tone, but it was written by
Shanghai Borne ying Chu, who is trying to put together
(12:30):
the puzzle pieces of why she has seen so many
Asian trophy wives essentially, so her examples that she offers
include Woody Allen and Sunny Preven, which to me, we're
not even in trophy wife territory at that point. That's
a whole another ball of wax to talk about. Um.
But then also Rupert Murdoch and Wendy Dang, Bruce Wasserstein
(12:52):
and Angela Chow, George Soros and Jennifer Chun and on
and on and on, and so she's wondering why would
these smart, accomplished Asian women want to marry these guys,
Because in a lot of these cases, these women are
successful in their own right, and they have economic power
(13:13):
in their own right. And the conclusions that she draws
are made me a little uncomfortable, to be completely honest,
but maybe that's just like me wallowing in my whiteness. Yeah.
She basically says that these older, more portly rich gentlemen
make amazing renegade suitors because they're an attempt at rebellion
(13:38):
on the part of these otherwise very accomplished and amazing
Asian women, and that these women are looking for a
father figure. Yikes, which just makes me want to sing
that song, but I won't. Yeah. So, And I was
asking Caroline before we record this podcast whether this kind
of quote unquote tren piece would even fly today, because
(14:00):
I mean, it certainly pointed out, though importantly, the fetishization
of Asian women as being perhaps the perfect trophy wife,
because they're fetishized as being very docile and submissive and
also very exotic in their beauty. And there was also
sort of a point in there that echo Sharing Ball's
column in terms of saying, we're just trading on our
(14:23):
economic capital. You know, if you want someone who appears
like she might be submissive, fine, and and who's younger. Fine,
but I also have, you know, a great education. Maybe
I'm an m B A, I make a lot of money,
maybe I have my own company. And that's what's so
interesting and what we'll get into in this episode about
the evolution of where the trophy wife came from, where
(14:46):
we get these stereotypes, and how our image of the
trophy wife has really evolved. And even at this point,
I think it's pretty clear that the stereotype isn't so
simple as it might seem on the outside, because there
is a lot packed into that trophy in terms of
what we do deem worthy. And then on the flip
(15:09):
side too, with the whole the gold digger opposite side
of that corn coin where she is nothing but seen
as rather worthless. Um. But when it comes to this
term trophy wife, where did it come from? So? Over
the Wall Street Journal language columnist Ben Zimmer sites Phillips
(15:29):
E Rosen tours The Single Woman, published in nineteen sixty one,
which defines the trophy wife as quote the woman who
was hard to get because of birth or wealth or
beauty to be kept on exhibition, like a mammoth tusk
or prime picasso. But it seems like the term trophy
(15:50):
wife really entered our lexicon. Yeah. In Julie Connolly uses
the term trophy wife in a Fortune magazine of her
story headlined at the CEO's second Wife. But in her
use of the term, these women aren't exactly bimbos. They
are ambitious and accomplished, just like their husbands are. Yeah,
(16:12):
she writes in that column, powerful men are beginning to
demand trophy wives. But she goes on to say that
the trophy wife quote doesn't hang on the wall like
a moose head because she typically has her own business,
though not so large as to overshadow her husband. And
she talks about how these trophy wives serve the purpose
(16:35):
of quote, dispelling the notion that men peak sexually at
age eighteen. So they're very much a status symbol. But
really importantly, they have success in their own rights. So
they're beautiful and they're successful. They're the whole package. And
the cover model for the article was Caroline Rohne, who
was address designer with a ten million dollar business who
(16:59):
married and and richer financier Henry Kravis. And now, of
course this couple has since divorced, but she was the
you know the model trophy wife. Yeah. But okay, so
we've mentioned money. She's got money, and she's got beauty,
but what about the brains. She's got brains too. I mean,
if you're going to build a ten million dollar business,
(17:21):
you've got a Yeah, this is not someone who is
our cultural stereotype of just the blonde, big boob bimbo.
Not that there's anything wrong with having big boobs or
being blonde, it's just that the trophy wife, when we
start to unpack her, there's a lot more to her. Yeah,
And so there have been a lot of trend pieces
in the past couple of years about this so called
(17:42):
new trophy wife, even though she's really the original trophy wife,
as we just described from that article. And the wedding
that really kicked a lot of this off too was
George Clooney marrying ox Or educated human rights lawyer am
all Ala Mouden, And we'll talk more about that relationship later,
(18:04):
because not only have people called her an incredible trophy
wife for him, people have also said, well, look at
what she's done, he's the trophy husband for her. Yeah,
because he's he's a glamorous actor, a Hollywood actor, So
Kristin Hufton over at Huffington's Post writes that the woman
who got ahead on her looks by marrying a sugar
(18:26):
daddy is now being replaced by the woman who is
equal to her man in earning power and career position.
And that is sexy. And so it's almost like removing
past the whole trophy wife thing or the trophy husband
thing and into the power couple. The the ideal of
the power couple to people who are both beautiful, successful,
(18:46):
wealthy and smart. Yeah, and side note though, why is
it such a revelation that a woman can be beautiful
and smart at the same time? What kind of odd um? So?
The New York Post, though a laudable public asian As,
always trotted out a series of new trophy wives. I
believe it was in two thousand and fourteen that included
(19:09):
George Soros, who's in his eighties married to Tamiko Bolton
who's in her forties. Also Harvey Weinstein, who is twenty
four years older than his gorgeous wife and designer Georgina Chapman,
and then also former financier Susanne Ersha, who was twenty
years younger than billionaire Woody Johnson. So in all of
(19:32):
these cases, these women are successful, they have their own careers,
they're very you know, they have their own money, they
don't necessarily need to marry a richer guy. And they're
also super hot and show the reporter for the New
York Post rights designer labels, bespoke beauty treatments and extravagant
holidays are still part of the package. But so are
(19:53):
advanced degrees and business startups. So yeah, okay, so now
we're celebrating you know, beauty, full successful, wealthy people. Good
job women, you've gotten a degree, and you're hot still
and you're hot, and it's super important. Uh. But Gretchen
Sisson over a bitch is like, wait, wait a second, wait,
(20:13):
she writes, when a Richmond marries a woman with her
own slew of degrees and accomplishments and perhaps even her
own wealth, he's not marrying a trophy. He's marrying a peer.
When you label somebody a trophy wife, that turns even
the most ambitious and accomplished of American women into objects
merely by virtue of becoming a wife. And so even
though you had Julie Connelly in Fortune Magazine, saying, no,
(20:36):
she's she's not a moose head on the wall. Gretchen
Sison is saying, no, you guys, the way that you're
talking about these women is very much so that they
are still moose heads on the wall. Yeah. But if
we move away though, from trend pieces and think pieces,
Caroline and look at sociological data, more pieces pieces, data pieces,
(20:59):
our favorite lines of pieces. Do these kinds of heteronormative
beauty status exchanges really exist? We're gonna answer that question
when we come right back from a quick break. Well,
(21:23):
in the first half of the podcast, we we painted.
We painted a few very interesting portraits for you that
involved moose heads. Uh. It evolved wealthy women, both those
with higher education and those without, those running the world
with their high powered businesses, and those not um and
you know, the older gentlemen that they were marrying. Um.
(21:46):
But as Kristen and I hinted at, let's let's get
into some of the data pieces about what's really going
on there socially and culturally. Yeah, are there so many
women who are trading in their beauty in exchange for
economic status? Well, some research suggests yeah, totally. A two
(22:08):
thousand seven study in the journal Human Nature on engagement
ring costs and Men and Women's Income found that men
marrying younger women spent more on rings, and they also
highlighted a negative correlation between a bride's age and the
amount spent on a ring, to which I say, maybe
older brides just don't care as much about having a
(22:30):
giant rock. Um. But the researchers also found ring price
correlated with income, which makes sense. So I mean, yeah,
so there's it's mixed. Yeah. Well, the title of the
study did tie in the whole issue of mate quality,
and so age and income are being tied into the
(22:52):
size of the engagement ring the quality of the mate.
It's almost like they're insinuating that the quality of the
mate is reward did by a bigger ring. Yeah, look
at your beautiful face. Here's a diamond. Well, even more
pertinent to our purposes with this old trophy wife thing.
A two thousand thirteen study in the journal Letters on
(23:13):
Evolutionary Behavioral Science looked at men from the richest four
hundred from the Forbes four hundred list and found, Yeah,
there seems to be a little bit of a possible
trophy wife effect. And Caroline, can you pretty share the title,
have to study because it's it's a good one. Yeah,
the Golden Years men from the Forbes four hundred have
(23:35):
much younger wives when remarrying than the general US population,
So kind of just like spoiler there, it's like, okay, yeah,
now they do have an average of a twenty two
year age gap when they remarry, but wealthy women do not.
It's not like when super wealthy high power women get
divorced and then remarried that they're marrying the twenty five
year old stead muffin. Yeah, they're not marrying the pool boy.
(23:57):
Chances are. But other research suggests that trophy wives are
very much an exception to the sociological rule that opposites
don't attract like attracts. Like, yeah, I thought this was
so interesting that our perception of like a Harvey Weinstein
(24:18):
with a Georgian Chapman, that let's just pretend that that
is a stereotypical trophy wife marriage for a second. Of
my apologies to the two people in question if they
listen to the podcast, Um, but that that stereotype and
that image is more the exception than the rule. And
speaking to NPR, Notre Dame sociologist Elizabeth McClintock calls trophy
(24:40):
wives a violation of the usual pattern that people select
somebody who's a whole lot like themselves, and she questions
earlier study finding saying that pretty women tend to marry
rich dudes in general because they failed to account for
her pre marital money and status. Maybe she had a
whole bunch of money before she married this guy, and
(25:02):
she's just pretty or beautiful or has great hair or
pretty nose or whatever because she has that money. And
people who have a lot of money and high socio
economic status can afford to invest in their appearance more. Yeah,
I mean, and even when it comes to like children,
I mean, wealth and attractiveness tend to go hand in
(25:24):
hand from birth thanks to just greater access to resources.
And mcclinic says that once you control for all of
those kinds of factors, trophy wives virtually disappear. And when
she was talking to Chakra Vedantam at NPR, she was like,
you know what this actually might be saying more about
(25:45):
us that we're actively looking for it, that we are
pinpointing a handful of couples so that we can create
galleries of the quote unquote new trophy wives. We're making
these trends, uh quote. People notice it when it happens,
and they don't notice it when it doesn't happen. Yeah.
(26:06):
And Eli Finkel, who's a psychologist at Northwestern University, told
New York Magazine that assuming that the importance of beauty
and status is gendered may cause researchers to overlook men's
attractiveness and women's says to economic resources. And he really
praised McClintock, and this is in the Atlantic, and he
said that women aren't really out for men with more
(26:29):
wealth than themselves, nor are men looking for women who
outshine them in beauty. Rather heartening lee, he says, people
really are looking for compatibility and companionship. That is the rule.
That is how life tends to go. The people who
are like those Russian women that we cited earlier in
the podcast who were taking classes to learn how to
(26:51):
snag a rich man, those are the exception. Yeah. And
it's also a vast oversimplification to just boil it down
to exchanging beauty for status, because mcclinic talks about how
like this data on beauty and status gets really messy,
really fast when you start to account for things like
(27:12):
women's beauty regiments. We are likelier to try to pay
more attention to our parents and make ourselves more beautiful
versus men. Also things like the gender wage gap. We
start out with a little bit of a power and
balance in the pocketbook to begin with. And then also
again how status endows attractiveness. We are likelier to find
(27:34):
people who are wealthier, who have more influence as being
more attractive. But you know what that made me think of,
especially when you mentioned women's beauty regimens and you know,
focus on appearance and stuff like that we haven't talked about.
And a lot of the data out there doesn't talk
about the concept of a trophy spouse or partner among
(27:56):
gay men or lesbian women. Um, And yet the trade
off there would be is a really handsome shiny man
going to look for an equally handsome shiny man if
they're both wealthy. You know what, how does that apply
to lesbians? Like, how do we extrapolate that data? Yeah,
it's a very heteronormative trope. And reading this did remind
(28:19):
me Caroline of Behind the Candelabra, the HBO film which
I highly recommend. It's incredibly entertaining. Um, it's sort of
a biopic on Liberaci played by Michael Douglas and this
much younger man played by Matt Damon who he takes
under his wing. And I mean, obviously this is a
(28:40):
while back, so they're you know, having to sort of
have a more of a closeted um gay relationship. But
it's very much like sort of a trophy trophy boy
in that sense. Yeah. I mean the reality of the
quote unquote trophy wife and the stereotype of the trophy wife,
they're very thick things. And I mean, I just I
(29:02):
would be interested to learn about though, the concept of
the trophy spouse, partner or just you know, hook up
partner um in in gay male culture or lesbian culture.
One thing though, pop culturally too that also just popped
into my head is how the trophy wife stereotype is
(29:24):
played with also on Modern Family, with Sophia Vergara's character,
where she always obviously intentionally upturns our assumption that she's
just with Ja for his money, and over and over
and over again it's reinforced that no, they really do
have this bond and she really does love him, and
(29:46):
he really does love her and Manny and their new son,
and they make it kind of a sweet thing and
that's so rare to see of like a humanized quote
unquote trophy wife. But that leads us though to the
newest trophy wife question that people are asking of whether
(30:06):
trophy husbands are the new trophy wives. Yeah, people, this
is kind of like stopped trying to make fetch happen.
People are really trying and have really been trying to
make trophy husband a thing, but nobody can really agree
on what what makes a trophy husband? Do you define
a trophy husband in light of what a trophy wife
(30:27):
stereotype is, so that he's handsome and and maybe a
little dumb and you know, a status symbol for the woman.
He's just something you hang on the wall next to
your sparkling necklaces, you know. Or is a trophy husband
being defined in light of what a woman might want?
So he he cooks and does all the chores while
(30:48):
you go off to your high powered job and make
all the money. So he his trophy husband in that sense.
Is a wife a housewife? Well let's back up for
a moment, because in terms of trying to make trophy
husband happen. In fact, Caroline in nine, when Fortune Magazine
editor Julie Connolly was busy coining trophy wife, she was like,
(31:12):
you know, let's let's investigate trophy husbands too, and it
was a total flop. She told William Sapphire at The
New York Times that there's a bimbo quality to trophy
and that doesn't translate into the male image. She says,
a trophy husband would be a CEO or really powerful guy,
not some stud muffin. Yeah. She writes that with the
(31:35):
with the description of a woman as being a trophy wife,
you know, bim bonic is implied, and the whole being
accomplished on her own thing is sort of secondary. It's
not even the main definition. But um, when you apply
a trophy in whatever since to a man, it's always complimentary. Yeah. So,
un Fortune Magazine has really been hitting this hard for
(31:57):
a while. They really seem to be the champions of
trying to make fetch slash trophy husband happen. Because in
two thousand two, Fortune Magazine is like, Okay, you know what,
let's let's try this trophy husband thing again. So they
write this huge feature piece about these really powerful women
in the corporate world who have what they call trophy husbands,
(32:21):
and the article states call him what you will, house husband,
stay at home dad, domestic engineer, but credit him was
setting aside his own career by dropping out, retiring early,
or going part time, so that his wife's career might
flourish and their family might thrive. Behind a great woman
at work, there's often a great man at home. He
is the new trophy husband. But is this really socially accepted.
(32:46):
I mean, we're still working on it. The article points
out that like, hey, five years ago, I couldn't get
anybody to talk to me about this, and now people
are coming out of the woodwork being like, yeah, that's
kind of a secret. If you're a high powered woman
and a high powered job and you have kids, you've
got somebody at home, you know, whether it's a partner
or a spouse who's taken care of stuff. But but
(33:07):
the big difference though, with trophy husband, he's usually not
the second or the third or the fourth spouse. He's
the guy who's always been there. Just at some point
in the relationship they were like, you know what, we
have all of these things, all these plates that were spending,
one of which is kids, and someone's got to take
care of the kids. And guess what, I'm the lady,
and I happened to be making bookoo bucks, so it
(33:32):
makes more sense for you to stay home, which just
sounds like a really wise, equitable set up. Yeah, it
just sounds like it's an evolved social and family structure,
and not that it's like, oh, somebody need we need
to give him a trophy for being a trophy husband. Yeah,
I mean trophy husbands in this sense at least, are
(33:54):
really just like good dudes who aren't scared of having
female bread winners exactly. But there was one observation too
in that feature piece that made me cringe and says
so much about how much gendered ideology is packed into
the stereotype, because they say, these women are not who
(34:16):
you think they are. Yes, they're tough and ambitious and competitive,
but they're not ball busters and their husbands aren't whimps
that they even have to make that point, Caroline, is
it says a lot. It says a lot. It says
a lot about where we are, which is not there yet.
Wherever there is, we haven't gotten there yet. Well, keep
(34:38):
in mind though this was just in two thousand two
because old fortune came a knock, and again this year
in twenty fifteen, they're like, hey, you know what, forget
what we said earlier. We got a new idea about
what trophy husbands really are. And it's has a lot
to do with George Clooney. Right. They say that trophy
husbands are important men in their own right, so very
(35:01):
like good for you attitude, who don't mind being eclipsed
on occasion. He's a multidimensional status symbol in a high
powered relationship between equals, so we're lifting him onto our
onto our shoulders and carrying him out into the street
for a ticker tape parade. Well notable too that they're equals,
(35:22):
but again going back to Gretchen's Siston's point, if they're equals,
then why do we need to make one or the
other this object? Yeah, and I mean it also goes
back to Elizabeth McClintock's research that like attracts like, and
it is normal. We just don't realize that it is
(35:42):
normal that two super rich people would get together. Too,
super smart or super funny or super attractive people would
end up together. But when to like Hottie mccotterson's are
walking down the street together. You're just like, yeah, whatever,
that's too hot people. You don't assume anything about them
just because they're too hot people. I mean, you might
assume a couple of things. But anyway, when you do
(36:03):
see that older man and the younger beautiful woman, that's
when you start to put all these assumptions together that
they are not equals, and you just start to assume
that the woman is some bimbo who's played her cards
right and landed herself a rich husband. Well, I think,
in general, and this also cuts across orientations, we have
mistrust for large age gaps in romantic relationships. There's usually
(36:28):
that that assumption that something is a miss somebody's lying
has issues. Um But I also thought it was kind
of funny that in that most recent Fortune magazine Trophy
husband feature that the examples offered were mostly actors. So
you have George Clooney, Joseph Gordon Levitt, who was married
(36:50):
to a woman in the tech industry, and Eddie Redman,
who recently won an Oscar for his portrayal of Stephen
Hawking in the Theory of Everything, who is married to
a super successful career woman as well. So I mean,
and the thing is, some of these trophy husband pieces
want to like celebrate it as a sign of like
(37:13):
feminist victory and equality, but it's not at all. That's
totally misinterpreting and mingling feminism. And again the question of
why does one one party have to be objectified? Why
can't they just be Oh, their power couple, they're equals,
they have their own things going on. Cool, you worked
(37:35):
it out, you found a person. Yeah, it's it is
way more of like a like a person to person
issues than a general society commentary on feminism. It's more like, yes, excellent,
good for you. You found someone who you can fit
together with like a puzzle piece, and your lives will
be hopefully harmonious. Congratulations more so than like ha victory
(37:57):
house husbands for everyone. Yes, house husbands have effectively closed
a gender wage gap. I mean, in that case, I
would give them a trophy. That's true. Um, well do
we want to hear from listeners now what kind of
questions do we have? Does anyone out there consider themselves
to be in a trophy type dynamic or have you
(38:19):
been accused of it? And what do you think though
about the idea of, perhaps in a more concerted kind
of way, attempting to trade looks for status, because I
know some women personally who see no problem without whatsoever
and try to cast it in a feminist light as well,
(38:40):
and other people obviously who think exactly the opposite, that
it's the worst possible thing that a woman in particular
could do. Let us know all of your thoughts. Mom
Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our email address,
and you can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast
or messages on Facebook. And we've got a couple of
messages to share with you right now. I have a
(39:06):
letter here from Haley about our art her story week
on the podcast. She says, Hey, ladies, you would not
believe how excited I was when I saw that you
guys were doing a podcast on the female nude. I'm
an anthropology and archaeology student with a minor engender and
women studies, and literally just finished writing a paper all
(39:28):
about the herculaneum women. Herculaneum women are a style of
sculpture which originated in Greece, but we're adopted by Roman
elite women and were used for about six hundred years
in complete contrast to what you guys were talking about.
This style shows women in the same pose, but with
a lot of clothing three layers to be exact. As
(39:50):
I found in my paper, the repetition of this style
reflects the limited roles which Roman women had in society,
while also expressing their wealthy status. A funny note, though,
is that despite all of their layers, you can still
see the outline of their bodies, kind of defeating the
purpose of all that fabric. And she attached some pictures
(40:11):
and I have to agree with her that, yeah, it
doesn't there's a lot of layers being draped and everything,
but it definitely looks pretty gauzy, like you can definitely
still see a belly button and I think there's a
nip over there, a nip um. But yeah, oh I
love it. I love hearing from our archaeology and art
minded people out there. Thank you, Haley Well. I have
(40:31):
a letter also from Jenny about art her story week,
and she said so much lovely information. I was lucky
enough to travel to Italy for the summer I turned
eighteen as part of my voice training at university. Some
of our fellow travelers were artists and they're awe and
joy at David and La Pieta and many other sculptures
encouraged me to learn more about them. The experience of
(40:54):
traveling to Europe at that age gave me great confidence
in what I can do as a single woman. I
later joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to San
Juan de Lea, May, Nicaragua. There's a sandstone quarry nearby
and nine to ten studios in town. It's still a
machismo culture and men were the main artists and create
the great concepts, but whole families do the rough, initial
(41:15):
chisel work. It was a great way for me to
connect with them and to be able to say that
I've seen David and they were amazed that he's fourteen
feet tall. Every day since then, I give thanks that
I was born in a time in place where I
have had the opportunity to pursue my dreams with such
fewer limits than American women before me, or than some
women in other cultures today. Have thanks again for your
(41:36):
great podcast to keep me thinking well. Thank you Jenny
for your letter, and thanks to everybody who's written to us.
Mom Stuff at house stuff works dot Com is our
email address. And for links to all of our social
media as well as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts,
including this one with more information on trophy wives so
you can follow along. Head on over to Stuff Mom
(41:59):
Never Told You dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how staff Works dot
com
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