Since the time they were little girls, women have been conditioned to pet the male ego and never dare threaten or bruise it. So as some of these girls become young women, enter college–ambitious to excel in the academia, then go off to the profession of their dreams, they might want to be careful. Especially if they have a longing for a hubby someday, because he might not be interested in a woman who earns more than him. Via Feministing and this study.
Early starts, late nights and endless meetings may be good for the bank balance, but professional women beware. You could be making your husband sick.
Research will this week say that the more committed and successful a woman is at work, the worse her partner feels. The findings blame a syndrome called “unfulfilled husband hypothesis” for making men feel inadequate when women stray too far beyond their traditional roles. The man of the house, it seems, is still not cut out for domesticity.
But never mind the “unfulfilled wife hypothesis,” because if she dares to express nothing but joy over her role as the traditional never male-threatening wife, then she’s a bitch. So unless you’re making less than him, you’re crushing his ego and dooming your relationship to failure. Though, never take into account how you feel about the whole higher-lower income situation because you’re always supposed to be the constant self-sacrificer, not him. He just has to give up having sex with other people.
…Men’s physical and mental health is “significantly poorer when their wives work full-time”, say the authors of the study.
And there’s nothing wrong with wives who have husbands who work full time? Tell that to my sister-in-law and other women. But that’s right, just don’t complain ladies. It’s okay for you to feel inadequate and unfulfilled, but never your hubby.
The report also contends that men are healthier when they earn more than their wives. Wow.
Is men’s health so fragile that it’s dependent on feeling superior to women? If that is the case, it seems to me that the problem isn’t that women work, but that men are massively insecure. Not to mention, I don’t know that feeling inadequate counts as a serious health problem.
Neither do I. But it sounds like a classic case of a guy feeling the sense of lose for his privileges. And the whole emasculation thing which is practically a crime in this culture. So put aside your aspirations for a high-profile career, ladies! Think about that possible Mister Right and his feelings about a woman’s place and proper amount of income. Spinsterhood here I come, because I could care less about some insecure guy’s feelings and ego about how much I make.
Well, Court, this has been said many, many times before (and no doubt will be said as many times and more again), but the feminist movement is NOT some homogenous whole where every feminist actually has the same concrete definition of feminism as every other feminist. And one BIG way in which we can differ from each other is on the question of “equality with men”.
For example, I personally don’t see men as The Standard of Excellence to emulate. Nor do I see men’s lives, including those aspects encompassing their rights, as the ideal ones I should aspire to. And so on.
In fact, I feel that looking at men’s lives can often be counterproductive for feminists because as a society we already have the idea that Man is the norm, the default setting for Human. So we often believe that men’s lives do in fact represent “normal” and even “desirable”. I think that women need to look completely outside of this if we are going to make our own lives better, and not sad copies of men’s lives, with all the negativity and brutality that can imply.
Because of this point of view, I in no way think feminism should “seek equality to men’s rights”. So, I in no way feel obliged to have every single discussion of how women are shortchanged or made to suffer in this world into YET ANOTHER chapter of PHMT, and sacrifice all discussion of women’s lives until every man has had his chance to be succored. What you men decide to do is up to you–as long as you stop screwing others over–but I’m really tired of having you come running to women crying just because you don’t know how to treat each other nicely. Sort yourselves out, and let us get some damn work done.
Sorry about that, Brian and Alsis38.9. I should have double checked.
I thought Brian made some excellent points in post # 100, particularly:
I can understand some men’s resistance to calling themselves “feminist” even though they agree with the basis of feminism – the efforts to free women and others of oppressive stereotypes – but Brian nicely summarizes why I don’t think “masculinist” is the way to go.
I kind of like the terms in use in the Christian debate on the topic – the “complementarians” are the ones who argue that men and women should have quite different social roles (at least within the church and family), while the “egalitarians” are those who argue that the differences between men and women are limited to reproduction and that social roles should not be assigned by sex (or race, or income, or social status…).
Egalitarians argue that there should be a “fundamental unity and equality of human beings,” but the name doesn’t imply the egalitarian in question is of either sex, which I like.
Crys T wrote:
Right. Once you accept or recognize the idea that most of our social roles and men and women are assigned, I think it makes far more sense to look at what makes us human, or to look for the most “human” approach to life, instead of worrying about the current social roles for men or women. I suspect that there will always be some debate over the extent of the differences between men and women, but I presume this debate will be structured quite differently if the “norm” is “human” rather than “male.”
Sigh. Interesting. Men’s egos are frail? How can they be frail and entitled at the same time? Another thread gets turned into a discussion aout PHMT. That’s frail all right.
Having read the original article (by the way, it’s available through EBSCO if you have access through your local library), I feel a need to point out that the original study wasn’t about women earning more than men. The research question was about the effects of work HOURS on the health of BOTH spouses.
That being said, I was troubled by the following statement in the original study: “If each spouse’s employment improves
or weakens the other spouse’s health, then it would seem useful or even
necessary to consider health effects when assessing the impact of the
household division of labor on the well-being of husband and wife.”
It seems to me that Stolzenberg here is suggesting, since the study found that when wives work more than 40 hours a week it negatively impacts their spouses health, that wives shouldn’t work more than 40 hours a week. To me, this betrays a bias on the part of the researcher.
Also, note the following:
“Previous research suggests that
care for the sick and the management of health behavior and social and
emotional well-being are culturally gendered (West and Zimmerman 1987) as female tasks.”
To me, this suggests that the differential effects of long work hours may have something to do with the fact that wives traditionally take on the tasks of “management of health behavior” and “emotional well-being.” (Classic examples are the wife that makes her husband’s doctor appointments runs their social life). Not surprisingly, wives who work more than 40 hours a week probably don’t have the time or inclination to take on ths role.
The solution is not for wives to work less or for husbands to work more. The solution is for these husbands to start taking responsibility for their own health and emotional needs!!!!!
Jesus, what’s with all the spam all of a sudden?
The only problem with “human” as “norm” as opposed to “man” being “norm” will be that “man” will become “norm” for “human” soon enough.
Sexism lies more deeply than language.