Posted by sophia gates on March 14, 1999 at 14:01:32:
In Reply to: Re: The wife-factor or family ties posted by Erol Abit on March 14, 1999 at 12:14:08:
: Dear Marvin and Steve,
You bet I consult my mate, Warren, on rug decisions. After all, he has to live with them too! I think his sense of graphic design is excellent; he is a designer by profession. On the other hand, I think he is marginally less sensitive to color than I am, and also possibly less sentimental. In other words, his emotional responses to certain rugs, such as my beloved chicken rugs, he does not necessarily share. I love those rugs because of what they have to say, what they suggest about the women who made them. For Warren, the overriding factor is simply beauty - age or classification or rarity or content of design are not so important. Fortunately, we usually agree! - although he's always bugging me to sell stuff I can't bear to part with.
Erol, as far as why there aren't more women collectors, I think that must be at least partially economic. Most of us, feminism to the contrary notwithstanding, still don't make nearly as much money as men - last I heard the ratio was something like 69% - i.e., women on average earn slightly more than 2/3 of what men earn. Additionally, women are frequently responsible for their children; whether they are married or not they may as a group regard expensive hobbies like rug collecting to be frivolous wastes of money. I'm sure my mother would have! For myself, I am anything but rich, and often think I am nuts to be a rug collector.
On the other hand, they make me SO HAPPY. I don't have kids, alas, so what the heck. Life is short!
Take care, Sophia