The most ironic part about Black women being called Gold Diggers is that if that's the truth, then we aren't doing a very good job at it. Either we don't know how to dig for this gold or we've confused fool's gold for the real thing.
Despite leading the way in advanced degrees, college-educated Black women still make less money than other groups, including college-educated Black men, suffer from having disproportionate rates of poverty, access to quality healthcare, sexual assault, and sexually transmitted diseases (even though Black women are NOT any more likely to be promiscuous than any other woman).
So where is this pot of gold that we seem to be digging for?
A woman's desire to seek out the best provider for herself and her offspring is deeply embedded in our genetic coding. It is our feminine instinct to want a man with resources. It's one of the things that makes us feel secure in a relationship. However, Black women are continuously told that seeking out such a man makes her a despicable user.
Truthfully, most educated Black women do marry men less educated than them (mostly because the pool of college-educated Black men is small), and many of these marriages end in divorce.
"Degree-holding Black wives put their education to use. In Black families, college-educated wives often assume the conventional economic role of the husband. According to one study, married, college-educated Black women earn more than 60 percent of their household income, approximately the same percentage earned by the average White husband. College-educated Black women are sometimes the sole earners in their family, as more than one out of ten married, college-educated Black women have a husband who is unemployed." (Is Marriage for White People? Ralph Richard Banks, pg.85).
So, again I ask, where is this pot of gold we are supposedly digging from?
The Black community has done a good job at gaslighting Black women into going against their own feminine instincts by encouraging them to carry on the legacy of helping Black men out to fight against White "Supremacy," as though Black men are so impotent that they cannot do what men from other communities have done and are doing for their women, and that is BUILD! Building sustainable communities in which women and children can truly thrive.
The other irony is that nearly every other group of women on our planet practices hypergamy (the practice of marrying up to improve one's financial and/or social status) in some way, shape, or form, but simultaneously look to Black women to be the poster children for the "Strong Independent" woman who doesn't need a man to accomplish anything in life. These women will "Go Girl" you into making relationship choices they themselves would never make or encourage their daughters to make.
Related: Why Are Women Accepting Bare Minimum As Bae Material?
Take Peggy Drexler for example, who recently wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal entitled "Single Ladies, It's Time to Pony Up When the Check Comes" encouraging women to split and pay for the check on dates. After some digging, I found out that Peggy Drexler was married (last time I checked) to a man worth over two hundred million dollars. She is a NYC Research Psychologist, and I highly suspect she doesn't foot half the bills for her current lifestyle, but she wants you to.
What Peggy Drexler, and many other men and women, fail to understand is that the entire purpose for a man paying for dates on most of the dates during the courtship period is to demonstrate that he is both willing and capable of financially providing for a woman and any children should the courtship lead to marriage. So, men who cannot meet the bare minimum of affording dates (and they needn't be very expensive dates) should be eliminated from the pool of potential suitors altogether.
I strongly encourage Black women to raise the bar for overall standard of treatment in both courtship/dating and marriage and require men to build a table for you to bring something to.
Related: I Have A Perfect Response To "What Do You Bring To The Table?"
Men will live up to the standards we set. The same man who will bash women about being gold diggers, split bills on dates, and present himself as a mediocre package, will get himself together for the woman whose culture requires him to man up and be at a certain level to marry her. It's mating psychology, and our hardwired genetic mating psychology doesn't care about the latest new age dating trends.
Before I close, I'll leave you with a word about men and potentiality. There is nothing wrong with being with a man who is going places and has the potential to be very successful in the future.
The difference between a man with potential and a pipe dreamer is that a man with potential will be actively making moves to realize his set goals. He will also NOT require you to foot the bills for him to reach his goals during this time.
Black women desiring a man that will help her financially is a natural one (even if you can make your own money), and Black women wanting to practice hypergamy shouldn't feel ashamed.
Wanting a partner who can elevate your life in every possible way is so important, and it's not Gold Digging when the woman in question is kind, loving, nurturing, intelligent, and focused on building a family legacy.
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