Female Supremacy Articles - Page 26

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''Very, very early in a date,'' said Anna Rosenmann, 28, who founded a company called Eco Consulting LA, in Los Angeles, and earns up to $150,000 a year, ''a man will drop comments on how much his sales team had made for the year, which meant his bonus was blah, blah, blah.''

But, she said, ''that's not how we were raised.''

Instead, she said, she starts out dates being discreet. ''I don't talk about myself,'' she said. ''When people ask me, I'm going to be very honest. But I definitely don't say, 'My name's Anna, I'm 28 and I own a business.' ''

Ms. Rosenmann said that dating considerably older men helps her avoid innuendos from younger men who feel threatened by her professional success. She said that when she has gone out at night with men her own age and has to turn in early to be fresh for work, they have commented, ''Oh, Anna's an adult, she has a real job.''

So as not to flaunt her own salary, Lori Weiss, a 29-year-old lawyer in Manhattan, has found herself clipping price tags off expensive clothes she buys on shopping binges, or hiding shopping bags in the closet just so men she was dating would not see them lying around and feel threatened by her spending power.

''A lot of guys don't want to admit they have a problem with it,'' she said, referring to income disparity. ''They don't want to be 'that guy.' But I think it's ingrained.''