Here are a few points I wish to make: first of all, how about hiring someone competent, with good reviews of any gender, rather than stick to one gender just because. Second observation, the intuition comment was as sexist or gender stereotype reinforcing as it gets. What if someone said that a woman cannot be a pilot because men have better spacial skills or something like that, there would be an uproar. That is how it sounds when you say a woman just as a better intuition, better as opposed to what? And the last point I want to make is that weddings in general are extremely expensive and if you really wanna be progressive, tell me, why is a woman “required” to wear a $5000 dress that she spends months finding, getting it fitted, and wearing it once, while a man can wear the same tuxedo to his prom, wedding, someone else’s wedding, and nobody will blink twice or notice?
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No amount of PC buzzwords can hide this vapid enterprise steeped in consumerism, narcissism and banality.
And finally, hiring women to organize a wedding is as ground-breaking as hiring men to be coal miners.
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Uh, as far as I remember, weddings were always women-powered.
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The fact that weddings are still so popular is mind boggling to me....
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When were weddings anything other than woman-powered?
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Wanting to support local businesses is not analogous to hiring only women.
It occurs to me that refusing to hire women vendors is called, uh, what’s the word—discrimination. or sexism.
But refusing to hire male vendors is…progressive, awesome, bravo!
“This intuition, I want to believe it comes more naturally to a woman.” She said shamelessly—and shamefully.
Is it possible to say that sentence with the word “man” instead, in relation to any possible topic, and still have that idea promoted/applauded in the NYT?
No, you’d be shamed on social media, with people organizing a boycott against you by end of day.
Imagine proudly proclaiming your company only hires male DJs. That would be a lawsuit. And business suicide. But not if you only hire women. That’s a laudable business model!
News for everyone who wants to show their young daughters they can do anything—they already know that. Mine does, and she won’t thank you for hiring someone else because I’m a man.
Fact: more girls than boys finish high school. and college. and grad school. Except for the lingering pay gap, women outperform men in almost every metric. This has already been true for decades.
https://ed.lehigh.edu/theory-to-practice/2013/the-reverse-gender-gap
Yet we constantly hear how it's so urgent that we help girls succeed.
For boys it’s crickets, but maybe that’s because they’re “winning” in other categories—like failing school, suicide and prison.
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@josh Josh, the article to which you refer deals with the higher educational achievement of women and despite that fact the pay gap remains and is narrowing at a very slow rate. Women's ability to reach upper management also lags behind men's and in my country the average income of men goes up post family dissolution while the average income of women, who predominantly have custody for children, goes down. When women equal men in respect of all the important economic metrics as well as education I would agree that there would be no need to target them with business opportunities but we aren't there yet. And the decision to make use of a diverse work and service force in order to help people who are more likely to be economically disadvantaged extends far beyond weddings.
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Enlisting woman to help plan your patriarchal ceremony is not "empowering women" as buzzy as that sounds. It's tilting at windmills.
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This isn’t news. Weddings have been dominated by women since the earth cooled. The whole article was silly and not print worthy.
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Further adventures of the elite. A "wedding team"? Once you say wedding the price of anything goes up at least 30%.
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“We can look at the bride at the table and tell right then how she is feeling, if she’s antsy, if she’s ready to start dancing, what she needs,” she said. “This intuition, I want to believe it comes more naturally to a woman.”
Can I specify that my car is serviced in male-owned auto shops because, this affinity for machinery, I want to believe it comes more naturally to a guy? Will there be an article in the NYT about it?
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@Ian you're missing the point. When it comes to hiring vendors for something as intimate as a wedding, many women would feel safer and more comfortable working with an unknown woman than an unknown man.
If I still had a car I would definitely take my car to a female mechanic if there happened to be one nearby. When I did have a car, (male) mechanics would overcharge me for repairs, and they almost always talked down to me and/or referred to me as "sweetheart" or "dear." You cannot understand how icky that feeling is when you're a woman in your twenties dealing with a man in his 40s-60s trying to hit on you or make you feel stupid (or often both!)
Any female mechanic has undoubtedly faced all kinds of sexism in the workplace. The one time a woman did change the oil in my car? I remember it clearly because it was so strange: no upselling, no pet names, just plain old respect. Imagine that!
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@Molly
Do you also accept the idea that movie studios feel "safer and more comfortable" working with male directors?
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@Molly
Unlike you, I would take my car to the best mechanic I could find. I wouldn’t care if the mechanic was a man, woman, trans, or eunuch.
Are you saying if the wedding vendor was a woman and bad at what she does, you would still higher her, rather than a very competent man? You are sexist.
By the way, my primary care doctor is a woman and she is one of the best doctors I’ve ever had. Again, she is my doctor because of merit, not gender. One more thing. She is Chinese. What does that have to do with medicine? Nothing.
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Oh, the sheer irony, eh? Using terms of 'social consumerism', empowerment of women, blah blah. All great buzzwords, and if you happen to be in the 'industry', terms that it would behoove you to use in your social media, to attract clients from the P-C crowd.
Women-powered weddings? And which still include the usual cliche talk about 'rings', women getting 'lash extensions', etc.? Oye, some women sure are still very much confused creatures.
You know what I'd consider a woman-powered wedding? A wedding where the woman (or the more 'female' of the two) isn't fussing over the day like it's 'the most important' moment of her life. Wanna get married to someone? Just do it, and be done with it. Far too many women, even in the year 2020, still buying into the whole fairy tale. What a waste of time, energy and money. A City Hall wedding and dinner at a restaurant is the way to go.
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@Lisa live and let live. I don't understand your hate here. How do you define someone as being "more female?" Going by your words, you equate femininity with fussiness... a tired cliche at best.
Don't want a big wedding? Cool, don't have one. I'm having my big feminist fairy tale wedding this summer and I cannot WAIT for it. Maybe I'll even get lash extensions! Why not?
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@Lisa preach sister! The ring, the engagement party, the wedding. Yuck!
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Hmmm. Mom making the wedding dress, neighbor making and decorating a cake, Aunt growing and bringing the flowers. Cousin playing the organ and sister singing a song. Seems like women have a history or managing weddings just fine.
Is there more joy in the lavish over the top destinations? Considering the joy of a new couple setting out together in love..spending money seems irrelevant.
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All I've ever understood about the ritual suggests that the bride (in a bride and groom scenario) is generally in the driver's seat. If that is the case, you'd think part of the story would be to wonder why this was not previously a trend. A dearth of options?
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