I thought that maybe my friends were the only women emasculating their boyfriends and husbands. Then I did some digging and learned that this has actually turning into the new normal.
Young single women are clocking guys when it comes to how much they get paid. In 98 percent of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8 percent higher than those of men.
But it’s not just single women; tons of married women out earn their husbands. You know who you are.
There are a few reasons for this shift:
You get paid more if you have a college degree, and for every two men who graduate from college, three women graduate. This wasn’t the case 30 years ago, around the time we were born. Boys are now falling behind girls in school.
Over the last 30 years, there’s been a gradual shift to a knowledge-based economy from a manufacturing and construction-based economy. Girls can compete more in a knowledge-based economy because being able to lift stuff is no longer a criteria for success. Brains have replaced pure brute. And, the ‘mancession’ that started in 2007 was just the icing on the cake for this shift; knowledge based jobs didn’t fall off the cliff like manufacturing jobs did.
The birth of the birth control pill made it so women no longer have to choose between having a career and having sex. It’s possible to do both and not get pregnant (for most people). Thirty years ago, if you got pregnant, you stopped working.
With those three things in mind, it’s not surprising that a lot of women are in relationships where they’re lapping their significant other in salary.
This will continue to be the case if women continue to do better in school, if right-brained knowledge-based industries continue to flourish (think technology, internet, web design) and if birth control continues to flow.
So then, why are guys still being raised to be the breadwinners, if their traditional role as the breadwinner is becoming less relevant?
This explains why half of the men that women go out with are morons. But it’s not their fault because they’re continuously getting bagged on for not manning up when outdated “breadwinner rules” are becoming less and less important to women who earn their own.
So what are the new rules?
The modern man needs to know how to land a girl who makes more money than he does. Period. The 10-point list on how to land a sugar mama:
Have conviction.
If you make less money than she does, or no money at all because you’re saving dolphins or something, that’s fine, as long as you have conviction with what you’re doing. A girl who out earns you likes to see fire in your belly because she has it (obviously, that’s why she rakes in the dough). If you get home from work and have nothing interesting to say, she’s out the door because you’re not engaging, considering that you’re progressively moving forward with your life.
Have potential.
If you make less money than she does, she’s focused on your potential. That doesn’t mean the potential for you to out earn her, it means that if the sh*t hit the fan and she had to stop working for some reason, could you put food on the table and cover basic needs without the help of her salary. If you can’t do that, you have a problem. She needs a moocher just about as much as Mel Gibson needs another mug shot.
Don’t be a hater.
She hears every little snide comment you make. If you make snide comments or try to go head-to-head with her, she knows immediately that she’s too much for you and she’s out.
Handle it.
Girls who clock guys in salary “handle it” on a daily basis at work, which is why they clock the guys they work with; they get it done better and faster. If something goes wrong when you’re hanging out, figure out how to handle the situation before she has to think about it. If you go to a restaurant and the reservation is messed up, deal with it so she doesn’t have to. Don’t assume she prefers to handle every situation. Just because she’s capable of it doesn’t mean she wants to.
Pay.
She likes it when you pay for her in the beginning. It tells her that you’re not on the verge of filing for bankruptcy. After she’s reassured, you can stop paying all the time and both pull your weight. Don’t just assume that she should be paying all the time because she makes more money than you do.
Don’t lie about your career.
If you’re unemployed, don’t talk about your old job as if it’s your current job; you’re lying because you don’t technically have a job. If you used to work in real estate, but now you’re unemployed, don’t say you work in real estate when someone asks you, because you don’t. You don’t have a job. Maybe say you used to work in real estate, and you’re looking to get back into the industry; she respects that answer more because it shows that you’re self-aware. A guy who isn’t self-aware is a turnoff, which leads me to the next point….
Have confidence.
Girls who are earners care more about confidence than what you do for a living. She’s probably pretty confident, so dealing with a guy who is less confident than she is becomes a burden because then she has to worry about not bruising his ego, and that’s fun for about negative one second.
Know how to chat her up.
Again, if she’s lapping you in salary, she probably has a strong personality. If she has to keep the conversation going when she’s with you, she’s working harder than you are, and that’s annoying.
Own what you can.
It’s the little things that count, big time. Open doors, ask what she’d like to drink before you order for yourself, and remember those little things she asked you to do. She notices this stuff, trust me.
Be supportive.
She probably has a lot of crazy ideas about things she wants to do in her life. They might range from business ideas to places she wants to travel. Clockers are big dreamers, and most of the time she figures out how to make it happen. Don’t squish her dreams; be supportive of her grandiose life plans. If you’re lucky, she’ll take you with her on her journey.
If the modern man can rake in the dough and be the breadwinner, he’s obviously not penalized. But if he doesn’t know how to land a girl who is the breadwinner in the relationship, his dating pool could be shrinking rather quickly.
Did I miss anything?
To read more from Kathryn, visit her site MakinSenseBabe.com.
