The ‘Stay-at-Home-Girlfriend’ trend is bad for women
ꦓ“I believe it’s a slippery slope into dangerous territory because it has the po༒tential to derail the importance of financial independence for women.”
That was Laura Henshaw, the founder of an online fitness company, about her reaction to the “Stay at Home Girlfriend” (SAHG) trend.
Hav♚en’t heard of it? SAHGs are women with no children who keep house and let their boyfriends support them instead of focusing on theiꦦr careers.
But Henshaw’s war꧋nings, along with je♍ers from many other women, have done little to stem the popularity of these SAHGs on social media.
In many ways the idea 🏅is not new, but its popularity provides some important lessons about the state of modern coupling and why the choices women make in this era of feminist enlightenment are often worse than ever before.
A recent explains that being a “S♈AHG” is all about supporting your boy💎friend with tasks like cooking and housework, plus a rigorous self-care regimen to keep up appearances.”
The article not🥀es that this reflects “a Gen Z move away from mid-2000s ‘girlboss’ hustle culture and towꦑard aspirations of a softer life.”
This life includes baking cookies and going to Pi🍷lates classes.
“We u♊sed to have several not-nice names for girls like these,” jokes Kay Hymowitz, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. “But that was way before Onlyfans and Tik Tok.”
Seriously, she 🍌notes, “there have always been beautiful women ‘kept’ by rich men.”
These ladies also did light housework and engaged in shopping and beauty rou🌟🍃tines.
But the expectation was that they would be mꦅarried to these men and eventually produce children.
All of which meant that they had a claim✅ on the man’s resources — alimony, child support, etc. — even if the cad decided to le☂ave her for a newer model.
While the arrangement of the Stay at Home Girlfriend has yet to become the no💯rm, the impulse of womꦫen wanting a breadwinner is not, explains Brad Wilcox.
“Women are happier when their husbands are employed full time,” says Wilcox, author of t🌺he forthcoming book,
Women are also more satisfied with their marriag😼es when “they give their husband high ratings for being a good provider,” he adds.
It’s not that other things don’t matter, too — being emotionally engaged 🦋is also impo♍rtant according to Wilcox’s research.
Interestingly, it is women in the upper classes who like to talk about splitti♌ng everything down the middle — all the housework and the money earning—but who are most likely to benefit from💖 being coupled with a big breadwinner.
The problem, of course, is that these Stay at Home Girlfriends are “looking for a simulacra of the 1950s model of partnership minus the marriage,” ꦦobserves Wilcox.
In other word𒀰s, they’re giving away the milk without making the men buy the cow.
It’s🃏 not just that men are getting sex without commitment, ๊which is pretty common these days.
They’re getting all🉐 the benefits of regular companionship and homemaking without having to put a ring on it.
This will le♕ave women not only single (when they are older and it’s harder to find a mate) as well as childless, but also drained.
Increased premarital seᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚx and co-habitation also 🌜 according to the Institute for Family Studies.
The reactioღn from women like Henshaw to SAHGs has been to decry their lack of career development and financial independence more than their focus on aesthetics and appearances.
But marriages that prioritize mutual sacrifice — and a view that the partners are no longer just looking out for themselves — can provide women with the kind of security (financial and emo😼tional) that they are seeking, even if they are not pursuing financial independence.
Wilcox, poi꧃nts to the “we before me” marriage as the kind that is mos♒t likely to result in long term happiness and stability.
“The sense that you are on the same team generates positive outcomes꧙,” he says.
There has never been a🦄 wider variety of arrangements for partnershꦡip and sex and romance available to young people.
But of all the ways that women can build a fu🌼ture for themselves, the SAHG model seems like the one that will result in the least life satisfac🦄tion.
Skin care routine aside, of course.
