an excerpt from how to lose friends and alienate people by toby young:

the willingness of new york women to enter what is essentially a nineteenth-century marriage market is surprising. after all, the cause of women’s emancipation is more advanced in manhattan than in any other city in the world. they might not describe themselves as “feminists,” but if these women experience any form of discrimination they’re straight on the phone to their attorneys. they’re more ambitious, better educated and less oppressed than any previous generation of women and yet they’re prepared to go to any lengths, however demeaning, to secure a husband. why? … the short answer is in order to impress other women.