Kim Kardashian and Kanye West: The Inequalities that Come with Divorce
By: Claire Weiser
This past March 8th was Women's Day, a day to not only reflect on the accomplishments of women but also focus on the improvements that still need to be made. In honor of Women's Day, Kanye West continued his onslaught of threats, abuse, and manipulation towards his (former) wife, Kim Kardashian.
The divorce of Kim and Kanye has been developing over the past year. Kim filed for divorce on February 19th, 2021, yet little has happened (legally) in this ongoing battle. To expedite the process, in December of 2021, Kim filed to legally change her marital status to recover her last name and be deemed legally single (eventually accepted on March 2, 2022).
Soon after, Kanye responded with attacks of harassment via various social media channels. This included, among other things, attacking and threatening Kim’s current partner, releasing private text messages, and threatening Kim herself. This eventually led to a temporary Instagram ban.
Seeing this struggle evolve online has made me reflect on the status of women during a divorce. We often associate these struggles of divorce with ‘normal women’. 65% of ‘normal women’ report that financial matters cause them the most stress. It was found that “financial security is one of the biggest considerations that factor in when deciding whether to stay in an unhappy marriage or divorce” . However, Kim is far from normal in many ways, especially financially. Kim is arguably one of the richest and most influential women in the world, yet is still threatened by the manipulative assaults from her divorce. However, does her status enable her to be protected from the financial woes that ‘normal women’ usually face?
Many scholars often find women on the losing end of divorce. Anders Hald, a professor at the University of Denmark discovered that, psychologically, “women who were recently divorced had [...] worse general health, lower vitality, lower social functioning, worse mental health and decreased emotional capacity” . Economically, the situation is similar. Whisk concluded that divorce resulted in a decrease in per capita income for women and children yet an increase for men. This was subsequently echoed by Jankins who found that women who worked before, during, or after their marriages see a 20 percent decline in income when their marriages end. It is clear that in both a financial and psychological sense, divorce burdens women more than men.
With a combined net worth of $2.1 billion , will the distributive results of the divorce reflect prior studies? On one hand, the couple likely has a prenup. It is also notable that in the prenuptial, Kim will get $6m and one one of their mansions. Individually, each has a separate business, their main stream of income. However, there are also jointly owned assets. For example, their property including their Calabasas mansion. While Kim may seemingly be on the ‘winning end’ of the divorce, or at least protected from the financial woes of divorce, as per previous studies, this is likely to not be the case.
We have already seen in this divorce that Kims status does not protect her. As the divorce evolves, we will soon see if powerful women are protected from the monetary gender disparities that come with divorce.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/13/money-stress-traps-many-women-into-stayi ng-in-unhappy-marriages.html
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.578083/full )
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25739418.pdf?casa_token=U8mhL130Q00A
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2021/01/06/heres-how-much-money -is-at-stake-in-a-kim-kardashian-kanye-west-divorce/