Quote:
Originally Posted by InternationalVillager
So you're saying that in your experience, women and men are equally gold diggers?
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But this is a huge part of the problem, and a contributing factor to why it is so derogatory...
First, take a look at the etymology of the term provided by Jason14h:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason14h
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_digger
Etymology and usage
The Gold Digger (Judge, 24 Jul 1920)
The term gold-digger was a slang term that has its roots among chorus girls and sex workers in the early 20th century. In print, the term can be found in Rex Beach's 1911 book, The Ne'er-Do-Well, and in the 1915 memoir My Battles with Vice by Virginia Brooks.[2] The Oxford Dictionary[clarification needed] and Random House's Dictionary of Historical Slang state the term is distinct for women because they were much more likely to need to marry a wealthy man in order to achieve or maintain a level of socioeconomic status.
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So, the reason this may be the case is part of the socioeconomic history of men and women in the workplace, and the gender wage-gap this history has unfairly produced. There is really nothing different between pointing to the majority of "gold-diggers" who are women as proof of the stereotype, and pointing to US prison populations comprised of a majority of black men to then suggest crime is a racial problem.
Second, you are again missing the crucial point that the term—applied almost universally to women—is used with substantial frequency superficially, and it also functions implicitly to absolve the responsibility of men in a relationship. Labeling a woman as a "gold-digger" victimises the man, which is absurd given the power-imbalance in these relationships.