Saturday, June 1, 2024

Does divorce make women hotter?

Wow, browsing the Internet this evening I ran across two really depressing articles.

The first is from The Free Press. It's an article by Kat Rosenfield that asks women, "Does Divorce Make You Hotter?" And apparently there is a whole theme in our culture today dedicated to the proposition that divorce is empowering and "badass". Not some divorces, mind you. Not divorces from abusive bums who put their wives' lives at risk. But all divorces, divorces in general, Divorce as such. And it is empowering because once divorced, a woman can attend costume parties in her lingerie, drink Jell-O shots, and look for handsome young men to fuck. I guess this is what empowerment looks like.

To be fair, the author of the article doesn't buy this definition of empowerment, and recognizes that divorce can come with a lot of anguish and regret as well. Some of the comments on the article seem to assume that she is endorsing the opinions she describes, but honestly she makes it obvious that she is merely diagnosing.

For my part, I can't imagine why anyone would find divorce exciting or empowering. It might be necessary—I still believe that my own separation from Wife was necessary—but it is always a kind of failure. It is true that I have written about the virtue of normalizing failure (see here, for example), and at a philosophical level I still think that kind of detachment can help. But that is a far cry from glamorizing or celebrating the thing.

Maybe I don't have a lot to say that the author hasn't already said, or at least implied. But I find it depressing that this attitude exists in the world for her to write about.    

          

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