Totally agree.

i hope respondent molly’s impressions of the church were not gleaned from the same places as mine were, because my social experience growing up LDS in los angeles were very different! i think the edit is well advised, though.

there is another phenomenon going on with the girls dating in the singles wards in LA, at least one that i felt, with reference to the feminist movement and financial responsibility: the girls not only need to be ‘perfect’ in every traditional respect (looks, sparkling personality, RS presidency, what have you) but they should also have a promising job so as not to be a financial drain on their potential husbands. if husband is in school, she shall put him through school until he is done. there will then be the luxury of two incomes until kids.

some guys are intimidated by a career girl, certainly, but at the same time i don’t think any guy anymore fantasizes about calling home to say he’s bringing home a waitress to meet the folks for thanksgiving. i certainly hated telling people what i did when i had a crappy job.

this isn’t exclusively a factor of the economy, the expense of living in LA, or any other such financial restraint in my opinion. i think it’s an urban social phenomenon more than anything else. i would be interested to know how much this is going on outside of metropolitan areas, where there are fewer professional opportunities in general and by extension fewer for women.

i attended a fireside (YW?) once where the speaker said that 90% of women now, at some point in their lives, will have to provide for their own living or will be required by financial restraints to contribute to their household income at least temporarily. with that in mind i think it’s brilliant that the church encourages women as well as men to be educated get the best work possible.

what freaks me out is that sometimes when i was single it felt like the career girls were being evaluated based on earning potential. that is a heinous double standard on my part, because i know men are evaluated on the basis of earning potential all the time, but it kills me because it’s just one more thing to add to the list of pressures on the women. more than once i’ve heard girls say something like, “i don’t know what he wants! i look like —, i’m only — years old, i’ve got this great job…”

it also seems twisted because as soon as kids come into the picture she’ll have to leave her great job. so much for the lifestyle that you married her for. or, alternatively, she can pay somebody else to be a great mom. neither sounds appealing.

another turn on the issue at hand is that because i was not a professional girl when i was single i did not feel i was necessarily ‘in league’ with the professional men. that might have been stupid, but the fact is they apparently concurred with me because i didn’t date any professional men and i didn’t marry one. last laugh’s on them, though, because my husband’s a gem and i’m going to be a doctor. ha and ha.

in sum, i posit: in the big bad city some of the girls have good jobs and make good money. they live more independently, get married a little older. the boys expect financial independence on the part of the girls as a given, where in other places (like the Y, where kids are still getting married at 20 without ever having had a full-time job) this would not be the case. because financial viability has become a variable in the Attractiveness Profile boys use when evaluating girls, it is just that much more annoying to be a girl these days than it used to be.

if you don’t think this is true, consider whom you find more fascinating: the girl who attends relief society knitting night, or the girl who makes time for knitting night while getting her MBA?