The Dating Challenges Facing Awesome Women
Reflections on how female success affects intimate relationships
It is the question “where are all the good men?”. It is the search for a man who lives up to expectations. In an era where women increasingly earn enough money to support themselves, are more social than men and show higher levels of emotional maturity.
Hypergamy is the tendency of women to be attracted to men who surpass them. In short, women are generally more attracted to men who are older, stronger, taller, wealthier, smarter or higher status. Men on the other hand, seem to be less focused on such criteria than women, but can become insecure if the woman surpass him.
In today’s society with a more egalitarian view on relationships. Hypergamy might not be as strong a factor. This study from 2016 showed that in the 1960s and 1970s risk of divorce increased significantly when a woman out earned her husband. However, for couples married in the 90s this has not been the case.
Furthermore, when it comes to education we have seen that the trend has reversed. The following quote is from a 2017 study showing that women are now so much more educated than men around the world that it will become the norm for women to be more educated than their partner. “In 2010, the proportion of women aged 25–29 with a college education was higher than that of men in more than 139 countries which altogether represent 86% of the world’s population.”
There is thus some indication that women out earning their men and being more educated than their men will is likely to become the norm. Furthermore, the results from the marriage paper indicates that marriages might function even if the woman wears the pants so to say in the relationship.
However, the video bellow gives an indication of the frustration a woman might feel if she is a killer within some area of life and finds her man fall short, or even simply not live up to surpassing her.
However, in most cases my feeling is that a woman feel the worst if the man is either, (1) not supportive of her success or (2) if the man is starting to show a lot of insecurity as a result of her success. If the man is comfortable in his own skin and happy for his woman it is likely mostly a positive thing for the relationship.
If you enjoyed this article I would suggest that you follow my publication “Gender Analyis” where I publish articles on the topics of gender, sexuality, identity and associated topics. Trying to have an open scientific perspective to the discussion.
Furthermore, I would be happy to hear what you think on this topic. I consider myself as curious, but not an expert on the topic so please share your thoughts in the comment section.
Sincerely,
Bright Blue Dot
