Mackenzie Scott could have been THE feminist icon… instead she wasted the opportunity
The third richest woman on the planet could have invested her power and connections into changing the political, social and humanitarian spectrum of the current world and show that if you have 50 billions of dollars, you don’t need anyone’s approval. Instead, she remarried to a person that vowed “give all his wife’s money away” (isn’t that kind of him.)
Although happily married for a decade, I am generally prone to see marriage as mostly a backwards trap that forces women into making the wrong choices in order to meet someone else’s expectations. This is pretty typical for children who come from bad marriages so kindly don’t blame me.
When Jeff Bezos started an affair with a silicon-filled NFL groupie and left his wife of 25 years, I was her biggest fan. She vowed to donate the outrageous amount of money she got in the divorce to good causes, and she did indeed donate to a lot of worthy causes (kudos to her for this.)
I also expected her to be aware enough of her own power and fairly unique position (the jilted loyal wife abandoned by a white male at the peak of midlife crisis) to use it to advance important causes including gender-based violence, female genital mutilation, marital rape, forced marriage and child brides. Also, I expected her to change the pattern how many divorced women are viewed (a failure, damaged goods… and many other toxic notions).
Who else is better positioned to talk about public health issues pertaining to he concept of marriage than one of the richest women on the planet who just got divorced?
As a person with a public health degree and focused on gender-based violence, I can talk to you for hours about these issues, but in reality most people will not give a burp about what I have to tell you: I can show you data, graphs, results of logistic regression with massive p-values, yet still nobody will care much what I have to say on this subject. White college chicks will still be chasing a dude that will put a ring on it instead of their own achievements, because a cheap diamond dug out from earth by non-white people without access to healthcare so every Mindy Jones can feel validated is obviously important.
I shamelessly spit on the US and by extension western culture of diamond engagement rings that costs 3–5 monthly salaries the people who get dig those will never see a fraction of, and the circus during which you show off you status to everyone you know called “the wedding”. I loathe the way weddings are engrained in the American culture, the way marriage is viewed as a way for a person with a penis to “honor a woman” (blergh) and it’s unenforcible promise of ‘ever after’.
Life is not Disney, and all those Jennies, Mindies and Allies are no Disney princesses; they are perfectly ordinary chicks with internalized misogyny craving the completely wrong thing because someone else told them they should.
There is nothing wrong with wanting a partner, a commitment and security, but a piece of carbon and a circus with tasteless cake will not guarantee any of that.
It’s time we normalize being single, being divorced and perfectly happy!
You are not damaged goods if you are divorced, and you are not weird or have something wrong with you if you currently don’t have a partner.
If I had 50 billions of dollars, I’d be building children hospitals around the world, sending talented people from developing countries to good schools so I can help workforce development and using my influence to dismantle toxic patriarchy around the globe. And maybe I’d be enjoying the company of a man who is financially my match if I were interested in one at all; just like everyone called Scott’s ex-husband’s mistress a gold-digger, the exact same applies to her current beau, sorry, husband (a high school teacher.) Just because he doesn’t have silicon boobs doesn’t mean he is not after the money, in spite of an iron-clad prenup. Men are gold-diggers too, we should not deprive them of this title just because they have a penis.
So instead of showing the world how it’s done when you are powerful, rich and independent woman, and trailblazing new paths for women in social situations that often come with stigma and grief, because pretty much nobody else can, instead, Mackenzie Scott decided to “win the divorce” by marrying within a year to the first dude who was willing to put a ring on it (and is broke like a church mouse compared to her.)
I am beyond disappointed.
Don’t tell me anything about love; love does not need a stupid ceremony or rings or prenups. If it were love, they could happily keep dating privately. It’s all about status and validation, “my ex left me for a younger piece, but look, I can get a new husband within a year, yey me.”
Of course you can, you have 50 billion US dollars.
Not many other divorced women that are often shaded and frowned upon in their respective societies do, and you could have been their champion. Yet you totally blew it. Sure, third richest woman on the planed definitely needed a husband, it’s not like she doesn’t have access to a team of people who can fill any of those tasks of fixing the dishwasher or changing the lightbulbs.
In spite of the power, money and donations, Mackenzie Scott is nothing but a white woman maximizing her privilege for her own gain.
