To say you don’t become a powerful woman by slacking off, you do it by working hard or marrying rich… or both?

[GritOrGold]

I’m so tired of the pearl-clutching when it comes to how women arrive. Truth is, some of us build, some of us align strategically and some of us do both. And both are valid.

There’s this unspoken rule that if a woman marries into wealth or influence, she must have “sold out” or didn’t “earn” it. But if she grinds her way there, she’s accused of being too cold or too ambitious.

Can we stop acting like there’s only one respectable path to power?
Some of us worked hard. Some of us married smart. Some of us did both.

AIBU to think the outcome matters more than the route?

I think it starts with going to a decent school. A lot is down to your expectations of life and resilience you have in the early work years. For me, it was a lot of hard work and learning curves with true power being in the peri menopause years when I learned who I am and how not to worry. Its a very attractive trait and makes people want you around them.

You forgot about women who already come from money.

I know a few women who married “smart”, it doesn’t guarantee happiness though.

I don't think theres much respect for women who simply 'marry smart' , why would there be. It's not achieving on your own merits. So I think the route matters a lot more than the outcome.

Are you ok? Why is this even a thread? Who thinks like this?

Hi are you Meghan, Duchess of Sussex posting this? Or maybe Mrs Bennett or better still my mother.

She is still disappointed I didn’t marry well. Unlike some relatives she boosts about who and I quote “well she did marry well” “not like my stupid daughter”

So don’t worry if you got money through marriage good for you. Some people will admire you for it some not. Same as if you inherited wealth or status. Get over yourself and just enjoy what you have however you got it work, marriage or inheritance. Just please don’t try to lord it over the rest f us.

I run a successful business, I also married a man with a very good job.

I’m under no illusion that if I’d married an average/low earner I wouldn’t have been able to quit my job and start the company—we would have been dependent on my salaried income.

I’m a very driven person and probably would have started up the company anyway. But alongside another job, so dealing with less time, non-competes, lower ability to take risks. So it would have been much harder work and slower progress.

I think acknowledging how you got there and any privilege/foot-up you had a long the way is important.

But what I do think is wrong is people that say ‘you’re ONLY successful because your husband earns well’… I was well into my career, working hard to building up rapport and industry contacts before we met, with the goal always being to use these to start my own company. The availability of money just made it significantly easier for me.

Prostitution Gold digging doesn't make you powerful.

"Power" is relative, isn't it? Some people see power as having enough money to do things at will, or afford to change something, or use their money for influence. I'm looking at you, millionaire MPs & Lords.

Power can be gained by whom you know rather than accumulating it yourself.

Some people have power without earning much at all. Political or environmental activism doesn't pay money, for example. But you can be media- or internet-famous and become powerful in that way.

I don’t see women who married a rich husband as powerful.

The AI OP's goady threads in that unmistakeable writing style are becoming increasingly batshit and nonsensical.

Have a day off of strategically aligning. The office is closed.

A powerful woman is one who has the ability to shape her world in accordance with her will. She may be of modest means heading a family who adores her, in a mid range job where she has great influence due to the respect in which she's held.
Equally, a woman can be powerless in a senior position where the demands are so great she has little real autonomy, or in a 'strategic' marriage where her lifestyle depends on a man's continued interest in her.
True power comes from autonomy, to know you have the ability to steer your own ship; and influence, to know that you have a crew willing to sail in the direction you choose.
Any woman who has this has it due to a combination of personality traits and good luck.

Marrying a wealthy man while having no career of your own doesn’t make you powerful, it makes you dependent and vulnerable.

I can’t even work out what your first sentence means. But unless you are a government minister or a ceo of a large company do you actually have ‘power’? Otherwise you are just talking about power to spend money on stuff which isn’t that impressive really.

First post nailed it ..

This!

I spend half my life hiding these threads OP prolifically posts on aibu.

I loathe the term ‘Pearl clutching’. It implies a Hyacinth Bouquet persona and as such their opinion should be dismissed as irrelevant. In reality, it says more about the person using the term than it does about the ‘Pearl clutcher’.

Having also, presumably, asked ChatGPT to suggest appropriately themed usernames. Grow up, @GritOrGold.

IMHO the route matters very much. A former business partner of my Dads got rich through conning many people out of their savings, including my Dad (although he eventually got it back), his wife was swanning around in fancy designer clothes and their children in private schools, until it all eventually imploded and he went to prison for extensive fraud etc

I wonder what the OP or MN get out of these tedious AI generated bullshit posts. Instantly identifiable, always vaguely/overtly anti feminist, always a specially designed name.

OP rarely comes back and when they do it's feinting and word salad.

It's so tedious. What the fuck is it all about?

I don’t know anyone who thinks you become a powerful woman by “slacking off”.

Call me a gold digger but when I was in my 20s, salary was an important factor in dating for me (and I advised my friends the same). I am a bit of a cynic and don’t believe in true love or soul mates, so an important check box for me was that they had a good career and money. I also earn well and have a successful business, so I admire these traits.

My husband earns £200k+ and his lifestyle and commitment to his career and being a high flyer is one of my major attractions to him. He’s also very attracted to me because of the successful business I have built. I met him when I was 28 and he was 42.

Many of my friends who married men on low-to-middle wages are envious of my lifestyle and constantly complain about having no money, holidays etc.

I married ‘well’ to a man with vast family wealth. I was financially dependent on him and his slide into addiction and abuse left me anything but powerful.

Walking away from it all was powerful although it didn’t feel it at the time. Qualifying in a new career (not hugely well paying but important) and raising my children alone with no family support, healing their traumas, whilst healing my own is powerful. Power is the choice to shape your own life, as PP says, and to live it well and be happy. It doesn’t come from money, things or connections.

£200k is great but not earth shattering wealth with the cost of living - meaning you are all presumably dependant on his job. What if he lost it? Would you abandon him for someone else?

I think acknowledging how you got there and any privilege/foot-up you had a long the way is important.

Agree, pretty much everything DH & I have is because of our parents.