Gold digger
Gold digger is a term for a person, typically a woman, who engages in a type of transactional sexual relationship for money rather than love.[1] If it turns into marriage, it is a type of marriage of convenience.
Etymology and usage
The term "gold digger" is a slang term that has its roots among chorus girls and sex workers in the early 20th century. In print, the term can be found in Rex Beach's 1911 book, The Ne'er-Do-Well, and in the 1915 memoir My Battles with Vice by Virginia Brooks.[2] The Oxford Dictionary[clarification needed] and Random House's Dictionary of Historical Slang state the term is distinct for women because they were much more likely to need to marry a wealthy man in order to achieve or maintain a level of socioeconomic status.[2][3]
The term rose in usage after the popularity of
Society and culture
General
There exist several cases where female public figures have been perceived as exemplars of the gold digger stereotype by the public. The best-known gold digger of the early 20th century was
Law
The recurring image of the gold digger in Western popular media throughout the 1920s and 1930s developed into an important symbol of a moral panic surrounding frivolous lawsuits. Sharon Thompson's research has demonstrated how public perception of the prevalence of gold digging has created disadvantages for female spouses without their own source of income in the negotiation of
Popular culture
Film
The gold digger emerged as a dominant trope in American popular culture beginning in the 1920s. Stephen Sharot stated that the gold digger supplanted the popularity of the vamp in 1920s cinema.[12]: 143–144
By the 1930s, the term "gold digger" had reached the United Kingdom through a British remake of The Gold Diggers. While the film received negative critical reception, several sequels with the same title have been produced.[3]
In the 1930s, the gold digger trope was used in a number of popular American films, most notably Gold Diggers of 1933, Gold Diggers of 1935, Baby Face, Red-Headed Woman, Dinner at Eight, and Havana Widows. Film historian Roger Dooley notes that the gold digger is one of the most common of the “stock company of stereotypes that continually reappear in the films of the 1930s.”[13] Gold diggers in 1930s cinema were often portrayed in positive, sometimes heroic, ways.[14][15] The character has featured in many films since the 1930s such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), both starring Marilyn Monroe, or as a villainous foil, as in both versions of Disney's film The Parent Trap.
Music
The gold digger image or trope appears in several popular songs, including "
See also
- Age disparity in sexual relationships
- Hypergamy
- Mistress (lover)
- Prostitution
- Separate property systems
- Sugar baby
- Social stigma
- Transactional sex
- Treating (dating)
- Trophy wife
References
- OCLC 896840085.
- ^ a b "Entry from October 25, 2009: Gold-digger". October 25, 2009.
- ^ a b c Thompson, Sharon. "In Defence of the 'Gold Digger'". Onati Socio-Legal Series.
- ISBN 0472109634.
- ISBN 978-1469660288.
- ISBN 978-1469660288.
- OCLC 919319036.
- ISBN 978-1469660288.
- ISBN 978-1469660288.
- S2CID 221538502.
- ^ "PERKINS 'SNUB' HIT BY MRS. ROOSEVELT; First Lady Defends Labor Secretary Against Letter of Miss Martha Ijams. - The New York Times". The New York Times. 1935-03-26. Archived from the original on 19 September 2020. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
...endorsed New York's new anti-heart-balm law...
- OCLC 1049600007.
- ISBN 0151337896.
- JSTOR 23416172.
- ISBN 0520207904.
- S2CID 143036176.