D-I-V-O-R-C-E

You may not know who Tammy Wynette is, the lady that made this song famous. I saw her perform this song live during the Stockville County Fair in Stockville, Nebraska (population 57). I was a twitter-paited hormonal boy who thought he was in love with this super star country singer and beauty. I wanted her to divorce her then alcoholic and abusive husband, George Jones, another country singing legend, and marry 11 year old me right then and there. Oh, if she could only be mine.

C’mon. Stop laughing. I will take Tammy Wynette over the Tiger Beat or People magazine ding-dong you swooned over any day.

But this post has nothing to do with the break-up of joint ventures gone bad in China, but a lot to do with marital divorces.

Check out this April 1, 2008 WSJ article, Women MBAs More Likely to Divorce Than Men (same for women with law and medical degrees).

Gents and Ladies, what say you? Fact or fiction?

Are you immune from these statistical probabilities? If so, how do you know that will be the case? How are you planning for this, today, to minimize the chances of this happening to good ol’ you?

How will you lead and manage employees, which statistically will be half of them, that go will go through this type of a life changing experience, so that they can continue to be as effective for you/the firm as possible while and as they heal?

And fellas, let me really open a can of worms here and ask you this — are we a major part of the problem for such a trend? Our manhood aside, are men threatened by intelligent, driven, confident, successful, take-no-prisoners women? Do men unconsciously put pressure on the women they love? E.g., men expect them to look like a supermodel 24/7, stay forever young, work and help the clan make a high income, raise the kids, let them watch our Monday night football and March Madness with the boys while the doting wife serves drinks, pizza and cleans the house, etc. Be honest. If you are the man foolish enough to go down in writing here and argue, “Well, I would never do that, as I am one of those enlightened, sensitive men,” which of your female colleagues and classmates do you think will jump out of her chair next to you in class and strangle you for arguing that you are different than the other bizillion cave men that came before you (and me)?

Wait. I just realized there really is a China connection here. The Chinese have a saying: “Women hold up half the sky.” True or false? And what does this mean? Maybe you can ask some of the women in China you will meet what this means to them.

14 comments April 23rd, 2008