IN defence OF THE GOLD DIGGER

‘To pass judgment on gold diggers as morally bankrupt while ignoring the systematically broken society in which they exist puts an entire gender in a no-win situation’

IShe take my money when I’m in need Yea she’s a triflin friend indeed Oh she’s a gold digger way over town That digs on me — Kanye West

t’s a tale as old as time: young, beautiful woman meets wealthy, older man. While the couple insists their love is genuine – “the real deal,” they assure any who will listen – it’s impossible to escape the expressive glances and whispered accusations that suggest something more sinister is at play; that the woman in this scenario has her sights set on more than mere romance.

For many, such a relationship is likely to elicit a derogatory term: gold digger. The pejorative is used to describe an unestablished woman with an established male partner. It likens the female to something like a truffle pig. It attributes to her a sixth sense for identifying and extracting wads of cash, luxury real estate and designer gifts from her mate.

Women of all stripes have been accused of being shameless opportunists, from Jackie Onassis to Heather Mills, Kimora Lee Simmons, Anna Nicole Smith, Melania Trump and anyone who has ever dated Hugh Hefner. The casts of reality television programming like WAGS, Real Housewives and Hockey Wives are often stuck with the label, as are socialites and Instagram ‘models.’

For many men, the mere mention of a gold digger is enough to prompt a litany of unsupported and borderline misogynist propaganda to spew from their mouths. Their fear of having fortunes stolen out from underneath them by attractive women is so intense that upscale dating agencies offer services designed specifically to weed out potential leeches. Notable NYC matchmaker Janis Spindel’s Club J-Love charges men between $50,000 and $250,000 to pre-screen for “riff raff and gold diggers.”

The New York Post recently reported on wealthy bachelors clamouring for vasectomies ahead of Hamptons high season to avoid being trapped financially by any post-coital surprises. The NFL and NBA run seminars to educate rookies on how to avoid succumbing to the inevitable gold diggers they’ll meet. Former NFL pro Irving Fryar infamously instructed a room of young players, “The C.I.A. has nothing on a woman with a plan.” Meanwhile, NBA star Anthony Davis says the best advice he ever got from LeBron James was, “Watch your money, and watch out for women.”

The negative reputation associated with gold diggers is well-established, but is it well-deserved? While the idea of love-based partnerships might have been expressed in plays and poems, such relationships were far from common. It wasn’t really until the Victorian era that love became a generally accepted reason for marriage. Prior to the 19th century, marriage was mostly treated as a transactional business arrangement.

Even though in today’s world gold digger is a term most often associated with women, it was traditionally men who sought plentiful dowries upon marriage. This saw groups of men targeting daughters of wealthy families to increase their standing. Female gold diggers didn’t take centre stage until The Great Depression. Women who weren’t married were in a precarious position: there was no work to be found, and many still lived at home and were burdens on their parents.

And so, romance took a backseat to survival instincts, as young women began working in burlesque clubs as a way to meet men with means. If a man could afford to be hanging around such an establishment in the 1930s, chances were he was wealthy. Many of these women used their newfound riches to support basic needs rather than buy themselves expensive jewellery or furs. The gold diggers of the 1930s weren’t driven by greed or vanity, but rather the need for food, shelter and security.

As a result, the gold digger became a sympathetic character known for her street smarts and willingness to make the most out of what she was given. The classic films Gold Diggers of 1933 and 42nd Street centred around such characters and were eventually selected for preservation in the United States Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

In The Gold Digger as Icon: Exposing Inequity in the Great Depression, Clarence R. Stevens writes that gold diggers “also pushed forward inequities between men and women in an economic situation that only allowed limited job access to women… exposing flaws in a system that forces her to circumvent acceptable avenues in order to survive.” In this sense, Depression-era gold diggers can be seen as torchbearers for feminism, pushing issues of class, gender and morality forward. The rise of the street-smart gold digger directly correlated with a decline in favourable attitudes towards society women and industry titans. They were the era’s Robin Hoods, redistributing income and bridging inequality.

Of course, rich men and their families didn’t have much of an interest in seeing their wealth spread down the social ladder. By the late 1930s, several movements were launched to curb the power of gold diggers. Most notably, states began to enact “heart balm” statutes restricting women’s right to sue for seduction, breach of marriage promise and alienation of affection. In 1939, California passed a law allowing men to recover gifts from women they didn’t end up marrying. There were also campaigns to prohibit alimony in childless divorces.

In response to Hollywood’s positive portrayals of gold diggers, the National Legion of Decency popped up and gained considerable influence. The Legion combatted any content in motion pictures considered objectionable to the Catholic Church and reviewed all films before they were distributed to the general public. If the legion condemned a film, Catholics were essentially forbidden from seeing it. With over 20 million Catholics in America, movie studios didn’t want to risk the Legion’s wrath and gold diggers began to lose their positive depictions and iconic status.

Thus began gold diggers’ decline into being perceived as con artists, extortionists, self-interested sinners and brainless bimbos who can’t make it on their own. In the next few decades, gold diggers were no longer pop culture heroines, they were husband killers (Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Fatal Attraction), cautionary tales (The Eagles’ Lyin Eyes, Breakfast at Tiffany’s) and sex objects (Some Like It Hot, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How to Marry a Millionaire). Interestingly, the men who court and marry gold diggers were never villainized.

Which brings us to today: in an era where economic insecurity is rampant, divorce rates still hover around 40 per cent and between 30 and 60 per cent of all married individuals will cheat at least once, the idea that relationships should be solely based on lasting love and soulmates is quaint, if not naive. So, why would seeking out a partner with wealth, status and power be deserving of such disdain? What’s wrong with marrying someone who can provide a certain level of comfort and stability not just for yourself, but also for your children?

The concept seems more pragmatic than it does evil; even more so when we consider that social mobility remains significantly less attainable for women than men. While the gender pay gap is tightening overall, it’s actually getting wider among the ultra-wealthy. In 2016 only 11.9 per cent of billionaires were women, down from the previous year. The millionaire gender gap is also widening with 14 times more men than women earning seven-figure salaries in 2016, compared to 10 times more in 2015. All the leaning in and hard work in the world won’t change the fact that, even today, a self-made wealthy woman is a statistical unicorn. The World Economic Forum says it could take at least 170 years to put women and men on an even economic playing field.

In the meantime, young women are increasingly making their romantic decisions a matter of economics. In 2015, more than a quarter million American students signed up on SeekingArrangement. com to become “sugar babies” – the new, trendier term for gold diggers. Membership has been increasing about 30 per cent year-over-year since 2013. The site connects these young women with “sugar daddies” who give them access to a better lifestyle and often pay their tuition in exchange for the perks of a relationship.

While some will no doubt liken these arrangements to a form of prostitution, the relationships being formed are much like those of the original gold diggers: more about survival and social mobility than fancy purchases. According to the American Association of University Women, the wage gap means it takes females significantly longer to pay off their student debts. Additionally, a whopping 53 per cent of women (compared to 39 per cent of men) are paying more in student loan payments than they can reasonably afford. This issue compounds itself, making it harder for women to change careers, take jobs for love over money or start their own ventures.

Perhaps, rather than demonize a new generation of gold diggers, we should take a cue from the past and acknowledge their role as front liners in the fight for class, economic and gender equality. To pass judgment on gold diggers as morally bankrupt while ignoring the systematically broken society in which they exist puts an entire gender in a no-win situation.

Today’s woman: damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t; criticized for being flighty and prone to romantic attachments or condemned for being pragmatic, realistic and calculating.