The Gender Bend: Mommy Warbucks

It’s no secret that women have received lower pay than men since, oh well, let’s see, the beginning of time. But recently, we’ve been catching up. According to a survey by Queens College professor Andrew Beveridge, women ages twenty-one to thirty are earning more than their male counterpart—in cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Boston, anyway. Other studies show that almost a third of working women nationwide now out-earn their husbands.

This should be cause for a month-long celebratory dance party, right? But you know what they say: “Mo money, mo problems.” Now that every city is flooded with a large population of beautiful, successful women, some of us seem to be suffering for our accomplishments. 

“I’ve only dated guys who make less than me,” says Anna, a thirty-year-old researcher. “My female friends are much more financially ambitious than my male friends. They tend to support their boyfriends.”

I have been guilty of that. A few years ago, I got a promotion, which landed me in the six-figure category. Suddenly, I didn’t have to avoid “Ted from Citibank Student Loans” on the phone anymore. I was eager to share my wealth with my boyfriend, a struggling artist. We could finally afford to eat in chi-chi restaurants, I thought. But sadly, my success scared the bejesus out of him. I knew things wouldn’t last when one night he attributed my hard won success to “luck.” It wasn’t until later that he admitted that in some ways, he was just plain resentful.

But maybe it’s not so much envy as the famously-fragile male ego at play. Think about it: Just as we struggle with old-fashioned notions involving fairy princesses and “domestic bliss,” men have their own archaic social demons. Does financial failure challenge femininity the same way it does masculinity? Maybe. Maybe not. But as University of Chicago sociologist Barbara Risman recently pointed out in the New York Times, “Men have a sense of identity that comes with being the provider. Women don’t get the same benefit. There’s a sense that one has a double burden.”

So what about guys who make no attempt at being “the breadwinner”: the artistic ones. Hell, successful women are drawn to them like junkies to heroin. They allow us to exercise our maternal instincts and indulge our inner cheerleader, and we don’t give a hoot how little cash they have because we’re financially independent. They’re the male version of the trophy wife, racy and exciting.

Still, even those qualities get old. Cathy, a thirty-year-old book editor, sums it up. “It’s hard to date artists or guys in bands, because there’s this feeling that they’re not ‘working’ as hard as I am. It seems like a glorified hobby,” she says. “Around the three-month mark, I lose my patience. I resent that my money goes to support our mutual pleasure, where his goes to his singular passion.”