Dissing The Gotham Gal

The Gotham Gal came home yesterday with a bunch of Hamptons Magazines in hand. One of them had a list of the top 10 real estate deals in NYC/Hamptons this year. Right near the top at number two was a picture of yours truly. The sale of our NY townhouse earlier this year still seems to be making news. We learned our lesson. We won't be buying homes in our own names anymore.

But that's not what bothers me. The short blurb was all about me, not a word about the Gotham Gal. If our life together was a venture partnership, Flatiron and Union Square Ventures would be my deals and the real estate would be hers. She's the one who bought that house, fixed it up, and ultimately sold it. But just because she's a woman and I am the "man of the house", I get the credit.

It's not right. The world we live in is still way too sexist for my taste.

Comments

[Dimitar Vesselinov]

"We won't be buying homes in our own names anymore."

Fred, I suppose you and the Gotham Gal could follow some of Robert Kiyosaki's advices on real estate:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_dad
http://www.richerdads.com/
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=DarthSeif

[Dawn]

What do either of you expect when she goes by "The Gotham Gal." Geez!

[curmudgeonly troll]

it's also about brand... if a faceless real estate investor had done the same deal it might not have got the press, a price you pay for money and celebrity...if Kevin Federline sneezes it's not news, and if the late Susan Buffett or Melinda Gates had any successful financial transactions they didn't get a lot of credit either.

In snarky and curmudgeonly tradition, how many female entrepreneurs or organizations have you backed recently?

[Jill]

Fact is, stay at home moms are invisible in our society. Our 'services' are undefined in monetary terms- which equates to being valueless!

[peter]

Good man for correcting the "credit". This type of thing happens a lot and my version of "Gotham Gal" also gets robbed all the time ... although perhaps not on the same scale as this real estate deal :-)
-p

[Emil Sotirov]

Perhaps it's not about the "man in the house"... but about the "money maker in the house"... If "Gotham Gal" was the money maker, she would have been in the magazine probably...

[Leigh]

I think the sad fact is that probably less than 5% of all people who do successful real estate deals who walk through the magazines doors are wives of VCs. With the kind of numbers they probably operate on, that's going to lead to very few realizing that the wives are in fact, the one's behind the deals. They'd have to report at least 20 VC owned real estate deals, on average, to.......

you get the idea :-)

[Jennifer]

First, I think it odd that the sale of a townhouse is "news" but there are magazines dedicated to it ... seems a waste of a tree or two to me?

Second, all you can do is work to change it.

[Andy Swan]

I don't know about pinning it on sexism...I would probably guess it has more to do with notariety than gender.

I assume if it was Judge Judy's house the article would be about her and not her husband.

Also its possible that the writer sees your Wife reffered to with a Ghost name on your blog and is respectfully trying to maintain that veil??

[ellen]

I am sure the Gotham girl worked very diligently to make your house a home with much financial value. Of more importance she made your house a loving family home. If she had used her own money or mortgaged the property in her own name to build and then resold it, she would have gotten full credit, but everyone feels your venture deals propelled the building and maintenance of the home so you got the credit.

We have a few female builders in our area and they get full credit because they, alone, take all the risks involved with building and reselling. Because you guys lived in the house as a family home the story seems different. It is not a pure real estate deal.

[SJ]

Hey Fred - get a clue! While you whine about getting outed once again as one of New York's financial elites - the horror! - the rest of us shlubs trudge back to our 400 square foot, fourth floor walk-ups with no air conditioning for which we have the privilege of paying $1,000 a month. I'd give anything to have your so-called problems. Jeez!

[Ordinary Joe]

Getting divorced and deprived of contact with your children because family courts are grossly anti-male: that's high-value sexism.

Having the "child support" Gestapo liquidate your business and take away half your income because you have no choice in situation of unplanned parenthood: that's big-money sexism.

BTW, have you read the book by a leading NYT columnist entitled, Are Women Necessary? Have you thought about how major media have reported the Duke Rape Hoax?

If you are really concerned about this way too sexist world, you're missing some very big deals.

[BTD]

Might want to tell Gotham Gal that part of buying property under a different name is not telling people where it's located on your blog, 5 minutes of searching revealed the name of the LLC