When contrasting the modern career women of today with those of the 1950s and 1960s who were caged in the stereotype of the feminine mystique, a portrait of the ideal woman who “was healthy, beautiful, educated, concerned only about her husband, her children, her home” (Friedan 53), it seems as though women have made leaps of progress in the challenge of patriarchy. Women are no longer strangers in the workplace, in many cases are earning comparable wages to men, and have escaped the home for the pursuit of their careers. With women on their way to economic equity and financial independence, we can begin to question whether the patriarchal system described by Johnson will be finally turned on its head. Unfortunately, a reading of the New York Times article “More Men Marrying Wealthier Women” by Sam Roberts casts doubt on this assumption, revealing that the result of women’s increased financial autonomy is a far cry from crashing the system, proving instead as a source of reinforcement of the social relationships determined by patriarchy.
Based on the article’s title, one would expect a positive account of women’s advancement in the workplace and a feminist transcendence of traditional gender roles. Sadly, while the report does challenge the patriarchal institution of marriage, the result is not so female forward. The article begins with a brief anecdote starring Beagy Zielinsky, a 28-year-old German-born stylist who moved to New York to pursue fashion and who recently broke up with her blue-collar boyfriend stating: “ ‘He was extremely insecure about my career and how successful I am.’” (Roberts 1). Similar stories are intertwined with census data released by the Pew Research Center, which examines “Americans 30 to 44 years old, the first generation in which more women than men have college degrees” (Roberts 1). The census report provides many statistics that suggest an optimistic reality for women. From 1970 to 2007, for example, the percentage of husbands that were more educated than their wives declined from 28 percent to 19 percent, and while only 4 percent of wives earned more than their husbands in 1970, that figure rose to 22 percent in 2007. Reporting that among all married couples, “‘wives contribute a growing share of the household income, and a rising share of those couples include a wife who earns more than her husband,’” (Roberts 2) women’s success in the workplace seems to be on the rise, and Friedan’s description of women’s confinement to the household seems to have been replaced with the dual-breadwinner model in which men and women share the role of bringing home the bacon.
Shadowing the article’s report of optimistic statistics for women’s economic advancement, however, are the multiple accounts of women’s struggles to find a husband given their newfound success. Just as women seem to be transcending traditional gender roles, our deeply engrained patriarchal notions about men and women creep back, and the article portrays the dominant, successful woman as incapable of finding a husband. According to Professor Coontz at Evergreen State, the recent shift “‘is truly a sea of change in gender relations within marriage’” (Roberts 2), but the attitudes put forward by career women in the article do not seem to support this feminist wave, succumbing to the age-old stereotypes of male dominance and female submission.
Like Zielinski who confessed that her boyfriend felt insecure with her success, Elaine Richardson, a 50-something divorcée who owns a health care consulting firm in Westchester, is quoted saying that men “‘call you high maintenance if you look like you don’t need anyone to take care of you’” (Roberts 2). Dr. Rajalla Prewitt, a 38-year-old psychiatrist in New Jersey, expresses her desire and the desire of her friends to be married, but the difficulty of finding a partner with their “‘same goals and values’” (Roberts 2). Arguably the most depressing quote of all, comes from Zielenski’s best friend, a man who once told her: “‘You are confident, have good credit, own your own business, travel around the world and are self-sufficient. What man is going to want you?’” (Roberts 2). Like clockwork, all of women’s progress comes crashing down, as their worth is determined by their ability to find a man.
Roberts’ article, while expressing a distinct progression from the second wave dilemma of being trapped in the household and caged by the traditional family structure, is not the account of the destruction of patriarchy that one might have hoped for. Although women’s increased careers show headway in the feminist movement, the reactions to such success, as expressed by this article, portray such women as the exception to the norm rather than its redefinition. In Johnson’s description of the system of patriarchy, he states:
Patriarchal culture includes ideas about the nature of things, including women, men, and humanity, with manhood and masculinity most closely associated with being human and womanhood and femininity relegated to the marginal position of “other.” It’s about how social life is and how it’s supposed to be, about what’s expected of people and about how they feel (38-39).
Although the statistics in Roberts’ article show that women are more actively assuming the role of the breadwinner in the family, the social norms dictated by patriarchy, and the definition of what’s expected of people does not seem to have changed. Instead of providing an example of women transcending patriarchy, the article demonstrates just how difficult it is to overcome the system, and how our culture’s symbols and constructed ideas are resistant to change. The women in the article stray from the social construction of femininity; they abandon feminine vulnerability and resist the need for masculine protectiveness. Unfortunately, their departure from the patriarchal norm does not result in a change in the “ideas about the nature of things” (38) that Johnson describes, as their fiscal success is met with male intimidation and difficulty in the dating world.
Despite the negative stigmas associated with high-powered successful women, Paul Fucito, spokesman from the Pew Center, does state that “‘Men are now increasingly likely to marry wives with more education and income than they have’” (Roberts 1). Although this reality has not yet resulted in the destruction of patriarchal beliefs, judging by men’s resistance and feelings of insecurity when faced with successful women, it does suggest that society is slowly adapting as more men challenge the rules of patriarchy, and its traditional institution of marriage. The challenge now will be to transform our culture’s social norms so that when a woman earns more that her husband it does not come as a threat to male dominance and a source for male shame and feelings of inadequacy. Until the idea that women earning more than men loses its shock value, and we reject the assumption that masculinity is more valuable than femininity, patriarchy will stand—the mere fact that women are becoming wealthier is but a step in the right direction.
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