As women start earning more than men, how does traditional gender role reversal work out at home?
It’s a brave new world — and it has been for awhile. It’s not only the age of the working woman, but the working woman who is more successful than her male counterpart– for the first time in history. While it hasn’t been an easy ride to get there, women’s presence in the traditional workplace has been law and intertwined in culture for generations now. An interesting phenomenon has come out of this: the alpha female.
And she’s on the rise. The leading ladies lead a new social movement in which women are doing it better. It’s not the stereotypical CEO with the smartphone glued to her ear at all times pioneering the trend, but every sort of real working woman in all manner of careers who are bringing in the bigger bucks.
And now, decades after women became free to step into the workplace, new gender roles are evolving at home as well as the office: alpha at work can mean alpha at home, when the woman is the main breadwinner. The working woman isn’t just the single mom. A 2008 study showed that there was no difference between young men and women with or without children when it came to wanting more job responsibility.
More research is showing that, in the US, 22 per cent of women aged 30-44 were making more than their male spouses by the end of the last decade. And the global financial crises seems, say statistics, to be lessening employment for men more than women. Logic dictates, then, that women are becoming more and more likely to hook up with men who are earning less than them.
Busy working women who have less breadwinning fellows at home are on the rise fast — modernizing their home lives just like they’ve modernized their climb to business success. The woman who jets off following her career who can return at the end of the day to her husband, who stayed home taking care of house and home. Certainly, there are men out there who are comfortable with this seemingly reversed standard. The corporate Mad Men-esque dad stereotype gives way to loving househusband. Social conditioning toward male and female gender roles is still pervasive in our culture — it’s everywhere — but it’s definitely looser, allowing the woman to be the breadwinner and be accepted for it. Mostly.
There are a few factors when it comes to couples deciding what family set-up is the best for them. Deciding that the household income will come from only one source can be fearful regardless of the gender of the main worker in the family. It’s about the couple deciding mutually that the most important thing is a happy, functional family — figure that out, and they’ve got it made. But what makes a happy family when the woman helms the income and family time is cut back by work hours?
Earlier this year, a group of women were interviewed and explained that their spouses’ lack of desire to work fulltime is a bonus for them, because it boosts their own careers, but it’s not the same for everyone. There are women who, while they might like the idea of being able to follow their career, are only the main breadwinner for the sheer fact that they earn more. It only makes sense to rely on the spouse that can support the family the most — for now, says one such woman, it’s worth it.
Money matters. However much we may want to say it doesn’t, the person earning the most plays a role in the power balance of a relationship when those earnings are used to support a home. In a way, they’re in charge — of the bills, the food, the mortgage … and the luxuries. One interviewed woman said that while she loves being greeted by her husband when she comes in from work, she can’t help but cringe when she sees him splurging on non-essential items or ordering takeaway more than twice a week. That’s her money! Therein lies the sense of entitlement that can crop up in one-earner-households, paired with the sometimes touchy subject of reverse gender politics.
The subordination of having an alpha female for a wife, while the man– well, mans– the domestic aspects can make him feel like he’s lost some manliness points. “Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths,” said Lois Wyse, author and advertising executive. Breaking out of what society taught us — women committing to being in-charge of their careers and finances, and man embracing a domestic paternal role — places spouses in a dance of power and gender roles. If the woman rules the money while the man rules the home, what does that mean for their relationship?
Too much feeling of entitlement can lead the woman to dominate, which can lead her husband to feel controlled and belittled — the same thing would happen in reverse. “I bite my tongue because I don’t want him to feel castrated, and I don’t want to grow balls. I love the gender roles and still want to sleep with a man’s man, be kissed, cuddled and looked after, which he loves to do,” says one interviewee. So, it seems, it’s best to keep the money-is-power standpoint out of the bedroom.
As alpha females step up, the goal for a happy family life is to remember that everyone is an equal partner in their own right, and everyone is successful — whether at work or at home. It’s finding balance. And alpha females aren’t showing signs of slowing down any time soon!
