ALPHA-FEMALE beta-male: A Good man Is Hard To Find?

In keeping with the recent surge of mainstream articles on the growing trend of Female breadwinners this commentary appeared in the past few days. i present it in its entirety followed by a few thoughts of my own.

What if women don’t need guys any more?
By MARGARET WENTE From Saturday’s Globe and Mail
In this new world of economic opportunity, female breadwinners are flourishing. Unfortunately, many men aren’t
Magdalena Hinojosa, a striking-looking single woman, is a senior associate vice-president at the University of Texas. She’s learned that her job makes men uneasy. So when they ask her what she does, she simply tells them she works at the university, in the admissions office. “You have to hide who you are, at the beginning, until that person is comfortable with you,” she says.
Liza Mundy, author of the just-published book The Richer Sex, met Ms. Hinojosa and a lot of other women like her. There’s Sami, the software engineer who tells men she’s a music teacher. There’s the young lawyer and her colleagues who tell men they work as hairstylists when they go out on the town. They have a lot more fun that way.
These are just some of the intricate sexual politics of a world in which women are rapidly becoming the major breadwinners. The statistics are arresting. Women in America now earn almost half the family income, and more than half in lower-income families. Forty per cent of wives now outearn their husbands. And the gender gap is closing fast. The median income of young, unmarried urban women in their 20s is now higher than the men’s.
Education is a major reason why. Women, especially minority women, are pursuing higher education at much greater rates than men. They’re primed for work in the knowledge economy, which is where most of the new jobs will be. “College is built for the female brain,” anthropologist Helen Fisher told Ms. Mundy. “What do you do in college? You sit. You read. You write and you talk.” Over the past 30 years, women’s earnings have been growing while men’s earnings have stagnated.
Meantime, as women’s attachment to the work force grows, men’s attachment has been shrinking. By 2006, even before the job losses of the Great Recession, just 66 per cent of men of prime working age (25 to 64) were employed full-time, down from 80 per cent in 1970.
Where did all those working men go? It’s not that the jobs dried up - their desire to work did. Older blue-collar men who’ve been laid off are often reluctant to take jobs they think are beneath them. Even men with higher education are less interested in work. Researchers have found that many non-working men spend much of their free time in “leisure activities and sleep.” Non-working women, by contrast, spend much of their free time in child care and housework.
   
Today, a lot of younger women simply don’t need guys any more. Guys can even be a liability. The New York Times reported last month that, in the U.S., having children outside of marriage is the new normal. More than half of births to American women under 30 now occur outside marriage. One mother, Amber Strader, 27, told the Times she was in an on-and-off relationship when she got pregnant. Marrying her boyfriend, a clerk at Sears, never entered her mind. “It was like living with another kid.”
If illegitimacy has lost its stigma, so has being out of work. Men who failed to provide for their families used to be known as “bums” and “deadbeats.” Now they’re just slackers.
The Richer Sex assembles plenty of evidence that, as women’s ambition is on the rise, men’s ambition is shrinking. Younger women are more focused and achievement-oriented than younger men. They have realistic career goals. Many younger men have no idea what they want to do or be. Younger women in the work force are eager for more responsibility. Younger men aren’t; they’re happy just to get by.
Women are flourishing in this new world. But many men aren’t. Men have always defined themselves as providers - it’s the main source of their identity. What happens when they aren’t needed as providers any more? What happens when their sense of purpose is lost? The answer is, they become unmoored. They stop being adults. “I’m kind of losing hope in men,” one high-achieving woman told Ms. Mundy. “My husband and his friends, they just love being bachelors - they love to hang around and smoke pot.”
As usual, men and women at the top of the socio-economic ladder have it easier. Their education levels are more equal, and it’s they who’ve benefited the most from the big incomes that wives can earn. But even the most affluent, educated people have fairly traditional hopes about their future mates. Women still want someone to look up to, someone who can pull his weight. Men are thrilled to marry women they regard as equals. But women who are far more successful than they are can make them feel demoralized and inadequate.
Has women’s success come at the expense of men? I’m not about to argue that. Society is better off because women have far more opportunity and can make more contributions to the world. Millions of men are proud of their accomplished wives, and proud to be devoted fathers. Gender roles are far more flexible than we ever thought, and people are capable of creative arrangements that benefit everyone. But the world has shifted beneath our feet, in ways we don’t yet fully understand. It’s going to take some time to work things out. Meantime, women such as Magdalena Hinojosa still find it hard to get a date.
Firstly, the column does a nice job of setting up the current situation and providing some statistics and examples which nicely illustrate this rapidly growing trend. i think that it is both true and a bit sad that these Women have to sell their own success short to avoid putting off a prospective male. i can however see that it is true that many men are quite intimidated by strong, successful Women. After all it can be difficult enough not to be intimidated by Women's beauty and sexual power let alone adding Her striking intelligence and financial independence to the mix. i would not say that guys are necessarily put off Women's success and intelligence just that that many will be intimidated by that. The whole mix puts males at a distinct disadvantage though i would argue that perhaps the Women don’t fully realize just how many Males would actually find all this Female power quite exciting. Also i think again that many guys want to be with successful women but when they meet Them there may be issues of self-confidence and intimidation at play.

On the following points in the article i will certainly concede that there seems to be an ambition gap between Females and males today. The Girls seem to have a laser-like focus on hitting all the milestones needed to build a successful career and life. Many males are indeed finding that their traditional strengths, mainly physical, are not so much in less demand as they are less valued financially. It also seems clear to me that closing that gap is not merely a matter of convincing boys to stay in school. As education test scores seem to be demonstrating, the Girls are simply better at most of the tasks valued in the modern job market (communication and organizational skills for example). If those differences are biological, and i believe they most likely are, then males will be at a permanent disadvantage in the modern economy. males, it would seem are unable to earn their desired income levels in traditional jobs while hitting the limits of their abilities in competing with Females in the faster growing and more lucrative segments of the economy. This i feel goes some way to explaining the ambition gap. i feel that one obvious solution to this is for males to simply accept their secondary roles in relationships with Females. Being in a relationship where he is providing support for Her is in fact quite a meaningful and satisfying life, as i know from personal experience. It is only right though, that Women demand a lot from their men. Today's successful Alpha-Females should demand no less than a mate who puts his full energy into satisfying Her needs (domestically,socially, emotionally, sexually etc) and helping Her to fulfill Her ambitions. i don’t see any reason Women should have put up with ‘slackers’ nor do i see a lot of evidence that Women are tolerant of males natural inclinations in this direction. males who step up by stepping back, i believe, are they very prototype of the happy, successful men of today and tomorrow.

The author asks if Women’s success has come at the expense of men but backs away from giving an opinion. i won’t let it slip though. i think it is clear that Women’s success has come at the expense of men and i feel that this is for the best. Society as a whole will be better off for it.

Are we males supposed to be jealous, hurt and angry because Women are out-competing us?

Should we feel this way because Females are simply demonstrating their superiority?

Women are superior! Lets just acknowledge that and celebrate it.