The GDP of Love

If Love was an economy, we would be in a full-scale depression.

A friend recently posted a statement that got me thinking about how America treats relationships and it occurred to me that we have a dilemma related to the behavioral economics notion of choice.

Because we are a capitalist nation, we view relationships in terms of ownership and that forms the basis for our problems. We qualify looks and quantify sex and reduce one another into product that can be bought, sold and marketed. But this economy is failing.

The basic relationship between men and women has changed in the last century and like it or not, it is not going backwards. We have decided that within our species, the males and female are of equal value, at least that is the prevailing view.

Unfortunately, most people do not believe this is true. We say it, but in practice, if not in belief, men are still more valuable than women and as that idea crumbles, the heavens fall.

The American relationship economy is faltering as we move through the transition from patriarchy to a societal system based on something other than gender.

Women who have decided to embrace the new equality and pursue an education and career before a family are finding that the years spent in that endeavor are in a sense wasted when it comes to finding a mate. While you are grinding, men are uninterested and even repelled by your assertiveness and when you stop and begin to look around, you find all the marriageable men are looking at women younger than you or have so much baggage, that the airline fees would bankrupt them. And if a woman curtails those years spent on an education and a career, then she has given up on herself and made the attainment of a man her life's occupation which eventually fosters unhappiness and resentment.

So how do we change this? Listen carefully for this is wisdom: Equality of the sexes is not women emulating men or vice versa. It is accepting an equal societal value for all things intrinsically male and female.

But men and women must let go of ideas and beliefs made from the previous, flawed society and that will be painful and repugnant for some and require that many of us let go of the selfish and shallow commodification of the opposite sex in the old economy. Only in this way, will we attain a true equality, topple the one-sided value system and revive the relationship economy.

How you ask?

Lets go back to our example. A woman deciding that her career has to take precedence over a family is bullshit and is the choice given by a once male-dominated society which has built in penalties for either choice and thereby mind-fucked women from the start by giving them no clear and fair alternative. A woman like this should seek instead a man who is not on the same educational or economic footing, but somewhere else. If you think of this as settling or marrying down, just know that: 1. Those are creations of the patriarchy you have escaped, and 2. You don't get it.

Women must also get over the notion that beauty and attractiveness are earned and have great value in a relationship commensurate with wealth, intellect and other earned commodities. Again, this was the assigned value of women from the old world and it is a fallacy that bore vanity and created women as a depreciating product. As a woman once said "pretty don't spend."

And for men, this will be disassociating ourselves from the idea that every man must rule a personal kingdom with a woman as his vassal. It means not associating shame or ignominy with being chosen by a more successful female and turning our backs on the violence and abuse associated with that mentality. And it means above all, revering children and the process by which they are made.

If this sounds crazy to you, then you are getting it, because as of right now, it is crazy. And I know some of you ladies will read this and see some wisdom in it, but you will not be able to stop the feeling that your man should at once be older, taller, wiser and richer but somehow nonetheless equal to you by some nature you cannot describe. That is just your ambition talking.

I know some men will read this and think it is an abomination and an affront to God Almighty to elevate women with men in a way that gives equal power to choose and dominate men. To you I say the God is the old one who was made by men to subjugate women, in an equal society, no one dominates, they balance, and that is just your fear talking.

All of this is wild speculation, of course. I have no idea where all of this is going but we should all be excited that we are moving, albeit slowly, to a new paradigm, a new economy of the heart.

I just hope there's full employment there.


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