Female Supremacy Articles - Page 27

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Does he mind playing the supporting role? “I love it that my wife is this go-getting career woman. I have never been into status anyway, so I don’t feel emasculated by the fact that she earns way more money than me.”

To better understand this role reversal, we have to look at the key social changes in the past 30 years. Since 1975 the number of women entering the workforce has increased by a third and in 2005 one-third of all managers were women. Women are better educated – there are more women with advanced degrees than before – and there are now more female trainee lawyers and doctors than male ones.

This creates a shift in the way women view marriage. With their increased earning power, women are less hung up on the Jane Austen model of finding a providing husband. “Women can choose a man who has charm and looks, instead of going for the grumpy, ugly alpha just because he is solvent,” says Penelope. So is this a liberating thing?

For young women this shift in economic power has given them new choices. But what about the men? While it is true that many older men seem stuck with the “man as success object, woman as sex object” idea and would never contemplate marrying a ball-breaking alpha earner, men in their twenties and thirties seem to be redefining masculinity.