I thought it was just my friends who are emasculating their boyfriends and husbands. Then I did some digging and learned that this is actually turning into the new normal.
Young single girls are clocking guys when it comes to how much we get paid. And yes, I’m throwing myself in the “young” category despite being 33. In 98% of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys.
But it’s not just single girls either, I have tons of married friends who out earn their husbands. You know who you are.
There are a few reasons why this is going on:
- You get paid more if you have a college degree, and for every two guys who graduate from college, three girls do. This wasn’t the case 30 years ago, around the time we were born. Boys are now falling behind girls in school.
- Over the last 30 years, there’s been a gradual shift to a knowledge-based economy from a manufacturing and construction-based economy. Girls can compete more in a knowledge-based economy because being able to lift stuff is no longer a criteria for success. Brains have replaced pure brute. And, the mancession that started in 2007 was just the icing on the cake for this shift; knowledge based jobs didn’t fall off the cliff like manufacturing jobs did.
- The birth of the birth control pill made it so we don’t have to chose between having a career or having sex; it’s possible to do both and not get pregnant (for most people). Thirty years ago: you get pregnant and stop working.
Knowing those 3 things, it’s not surprising that a lot of my friends are in relationships where they’re lapping their husband or boyfriend in salary. And, this will continue to be the case if we continue to do better in school, if right-brained knowledge-based industries continue to flourish (think technology, internet, web design) and if birth control continues to flow.
So then why are guys still being raised to be the breadwinners if their traditional role as the breadwinner is becoming less relevant?
It makes no sense.
This explains why half the guys I go out with are morons. But it’s not their fault because they’re continuously getting bagged on for not manning up when outdated “breadwinner rules” are becoming less and less important to girls who are earners.
So what are the new rules?
The modern man needs to know how to land a girl who makes more money than he does. Period.
The 10 Point List on HOW TO LAND A SUGAR MAMA
- Have conviction. If you make less money than she does, or no money at all because you’re saving dolphins or something, that’s fine, as long as you have conviction with what you’re doing. A girl who out earns you likes to see fire in your belly, because she has it (obviously, that’s why she rakes in the dough). If you get home from work and have nothing interesting to say about your day, your week, or your year, but she does, she’s out the door because you’re zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
- Have potential. If you make less money than she does, she’s focused on your potential. And, that doesn’t mean the potential for you to out earn her, it means that if the sh-t hit the fan and she had to stop working for some reason, could you put food on the table and cover basic needs, by yourself, without the help of her salary? If you can’t do that, you’ve gotta problem. She needs a moocher about as much as Mel Gibson needs another mug shot.
- Pay. She likes it when you pay in the beginning. She likes this because it tells her that you’re not on the verge of filing for bankruptcy. After she knows that, you can stop paying all the time and you can trade off. Just don’t assume that she should be paying all the time because she makes more money than you do.
- Don’t be a hater. She hears every little snide comment you make. Once a guy told me that if he had chosen to work in finance (the industry I work in), he’d be retired by now. He was 41. Douche Bag. Did he really just say that? If you make snide comments about what she does or try to go head to head with her, she knows immediately that she’s too much car for you and she zones out.
- Handle it. Girls who clock guys in salary “handle it” on a daily basis at work; that’s why they clock the guys they work with; they get it done better and faster. If something goes wrong when you’re hanging out, figure out how to handle the situation so she doesn’t have to think about it. For example, if you go to a restaurant and the reservation is messed up, deal with it so she doesn’t have to. Don’t assume she likes to handle every situation. Just because she’s capable of it doesn’t mean she wants to.
- Don’t lie about your career. If you’re unemployed, don’t talk about your old job as if it’s your current job; you’re lying because you don’t technically have a job. For example, if you use to work in real estate but now you’re unemployed like most people in real estate, don’t say you work in real estate when someone asks you, because you don’t. You don’t have a job. Say you use to work in real estate and you’re looking to get back into the industry; she respects that answer more because it shows that you’re self aware. Guys who aren’t self aware suck. This leads me to the next point….
- Have Confidence. Girls who are earners care more about confidence than what you do for a living. She’s probably pretty confident, so dealing with a guy who is less confident than she is becomes a burden because then she has to worry about not bruising your ego, and that’s fun for about negative 1 second.
- Know how to chat her up. Again, if she’s lapping you in salary, she knows how to chat people up and get people to like her. If she has to keep the conversation going when she’s with you, she’s working harder than you are, and that’s annoying. See “handle it” above.
- Own what you still can. It’s the stupid little things that still count, big time: open doors, ask what she’d like to drink before you order for yourself, if she falls down don’t step on her. She notices this stuff, trust me. Oh, and the whole thing of the guy walking on the outside (the street side) while walking is a bit weird and forced. It’s not like you’re walking in the street, and if a car were to charge the sidewalk, you’d both be dead anyway; I haven’t heard of many accidents where the car just takes out the person on the outside of the sidewalk.
- Be Supportive. She probably has lotsa crazy ideas about things she wants to do in her life. They might range from business ideas to places she wants to travel. Clockers are big dreamers, and most of the time she figures out how to make it happen. Don’t squish her dreams; be supportive of her grandiose life plans. If you’re lucky, she’ll take you with her on her journey.
If the modern man can rake in the dough and be the breadwinner, he’s obviously not penalized. But if he doesn’t know how to land a girl who is the breadwinner or makes more money than he does, his dating pool could be shrinking rather quickly. Guys, put down Angry Birds or Tiny Wings and learn these skills.
Did I miss anything?
Dig the column. I walk on the outside to prevent a lady from getting splashed by passing cars. When properly done it is neither weird nor forced, you shouldn’t even realize its happening.
wow, I had never heard that before Nick, about the splashing water, I thought it was so we don’t get hit by a car. Maybe I should remove that part from the discussion.
No, don’t remove that part. I think it’s hilarious! ;^)
A college degree today is equivalent to a high school diploma 30 years ago. I’d advise the next generation to skip college. Instead start working directly after high school in commission driven sales or go all out and pursue an MBA. A college degree doesn’t separate you from the field, most likely puts one in debt before starting their career. Bit of a tangent.
For #10: if you have zero dollars like me, tell females (make sure you call them females or use the singular girl, “I’m an entrepreneur”.
Wow Kathryn, sounds like you have dated some winners! You should really think about moving up to the Bay Area one of these days, plenty of single guys that are not such “douche bags”.
Plus we love it when our significant other makes more.
great column!! Really like the advice and it’s very spot on. Especially like “handle it” – i hate that if you’re always in control in the office that it means you automatically have to be in charge of everything at home and personal life too – it get exhausting!
@MTU – not sure college is off the table entirely or really as equal to high school 30yrs ago, but i think real life experience and practical application are more key than years of theory based learning and test scores – choosing the right education platform is most important for real life advancement
Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down. ~Oprah Winfrey
I LOVE IT.. I will use this as a template to find Miss Kathryn “Mr Right”..
It would be fun to set you up on a date with a guy that did all of the No no’s listed above
and video tape it just to see your reaction… ohhhaaaaa Im laughing already.
Can the next blog be about “Strange dates”.. I love hearing about your fun dates.
I can add a few …
Kurt said he wouldn’t mind if I made twice as much as he does. .. uhmmmm.. ya right. Thats right up there next to me wearing 2 inch heels and towering over him..= he’s not a fan of that, or when we are traveling and Im charging through the streets of vietnam and have forgotten he’s with me.. oops
I guess there is no perfect man/woman. Its all about deciding what negatives/flaws we can live
with of that potential partner. Kurt likes things lined up in right angles and I like to throw things in the air like its confetti. He takes awhile to trust people and I give out my social security number to strangers.. haa..
Gosh now that I think of it… I married a saint.. : )
Hm… as someone who is out earning her husband, I would definitely say:
COOK. Clean. Be nurturing. Be supportive. Be tall, dark, sexy, and secure in your masculinity. You’re man enough that you can handle your wife making more AND do at least 50% of the chores at home, be a loving father and everything else. I am so glad I hooked mine young.
So many to chose from! I’m adding “Be Supportive” when I get home from my bday celebration this eve. No promises on spelling or grammar accuracy. Stay tuned….
Why does he have to be tall?
Can I find her at PF Chang’s?
of course you can, Rob. That’s where the sugar mama’s hang out because they get carded there.
I have a Ph.D., my BF doesn’t even have an undergraduate degree (he’s 32, I’m 30). So he definitely landed the “suga momma”.
I constantly hear from my family that I should be dating someone who is my “equal” – and by “equal” they mean just as educated and successful.
What bothers me about this is that NO guy who has a Ph.D. is going to hear from his family about how he should ONLY be dating girls who have equivalent degrees. It is such a double standard that guys can date uneducated women but women cannot date the equivalent in men. (Or maybe just a double standard in my family!)
All of the guys that I went to grad school (with few exceptions) were married to or eventually married women who were NOT educated to such an extent. And part of this is practicality. You need someone who has a less demanding job to help at home, someone does HAVE to raise the children (or spend a better part of their time with them), also it is NICE to have someone who doesn’t know what you’re doing at work – but can still appreciate the hard work and intellectual merit that goes in to it.
What I love about my BF is that he appreciates my intelligence (most educated guys don’t, they in fact would rather prove how much more intelligent than me they are). He is understanding of the demands on my job. He is more than willing to get me food when I have to work late or take out the dog if I don’t get home in time. If we do decide to have children he is the one who will stay how with them during the day.
If you want to score a suga mamma it is really easy: do the things that a 1950s wife would do. Be supportive of us emotionally and domestically so that we can bring home the bacon.
But didn’t 1950s housewives realized they weren’t entirely fulfilled by “supporting” roles inside the home and that gave rise to the 1960s and 1970s movement when women joined the workforce in droves?
Personally, I think an arrangement where one person works and another person takes care of the home can ONLY work if both people are happy with the arrangement, one person is comfortable sustaining 100% of the responsibility for bringing home the dough, and the other person is comfortable having his/her finances resting 100% with the other person.
Call me idealistic but I’d like two partners who both work, both contribute financially, and both help around with the house (or, in my ideal scenario, both make enough money to outsource the cleaning!).
Also, I think even though society has changed, there are still a lot of pressures on men and what they should do to “contribute to the family.” Even though a man might be fine with staying home or being in a “supporting” role – society will find ways to remind him that he is less than. That is A LOT of pressure for a relationship to sustain. This might not be PC, but I have seen a lot of marriages crumble because of these dynamics (granted, they were in my parents’ generation, so maybe my generation is more enlightened?).
How can our generation be “more enlightened” if we are, per this “how to land a sugar mama” post, advocating the exact same identical roles: one working, one at home? one financially independent, the other financially dependent. How is that “enlightened”?
Why would any man “be fine with staying at home or being in a supporting role” if at the same time you say that women in such roles are all unfulfilled? As far as society telling a stay at home man that he is “less than,” why is that wrong? Isn’t that the same thing we’ve been telling women who stay at home? For the past 50 years we’ve be incessantly telling women who stay home that they are “less than” their partners and also “less than” women who have careers. Why is it wrong to tell men the same thing?
So you’re telling men that it’s a good thing to have a “sugar mama” and be like a “1950′s wife.” Does that mean they would all be as miserable as feminists tell us 1950′s wives were and in equally in need of “liberation”? Why exactly would anyone want a marriage like that? Or are you saying that feminists were wrong and the 1950s had it right all along?
I thought this generation was supposed to be all about equality and egalitarian relationships, and new ways of relating. How is it we’re looking backwards to the ’50s for the model for how relationships should be?
I doubt if men will be “ending” any time soon. I also doubt you would be recommending an ariticle titled, “The End of Women” or “The End of Jews” or “The End of Gays” would you?
@well heeled, guys do get a lot of pressure to be in a supporting role (a ‘supporting’ role to bring home the bacon) we get a lot of pressure to get married and have kids. It’s the same pressure, but different. I wonder if guys feel the pressure (from society) to be in a supporting role as much as girls feel the pressure to have kids and get married? I feel like girls get a lot more pressure to get married and have kids.
But you have ignored the question: weren’t women who stayed at home and took a supporting role to their career minded partners, all unfulfilled and unhappy and in need of “liberation”? For the past 50 years, we have been told that women who stay at home and do not have their own careers are all miserable, depressed, lonely, unfulfilled, unequal, financially dependent and vulnerable, lacking adult interaction, wasting their education, poor role models, and in need of liberation from their oppressed lives.
That being the case, how can you now advocate that men take on the same role that has been described so negatively when done by women? If you think not having your own career and being in a position of financial dependency is so wonderful, why aren’t you seeking that position for yourself or advocating it for women? Why aren’t you looking for a sugar daddy or advocating that women look for them?
D. Dfram
“That being the case, how can you now advocate that men take on the same role that has been described so negatively when done by women?”
> The purpose of the post is to 1) discuss the fact that a lot of young women out earn men, so 2) men can stop feeling pressure to be the breadwinner because we can help out monetarily and then 3) men can take some of my tips so that they know what’s important to girls who make more money than they do.
I don’t advocate men assuming the role of the 1950′s housewife anywhere in my post. I am giving guys pointers on what girls care about who make more money than they do.
“If you think not having your own career and being in a position of financial dependency is so wonderful, why aren’t you seeking that position for yourself or advocating it for women? Why aren’t you looking for a sugar daddy or advocating that women look for them?”
> I’m not advocating guys be financially dependent on us, some comments have gone there, but that’s not what the post is about. I’m advocating that guys be aware that traditional 1950′s roles are outdated, and they should adjust their dating style as a result.
If you believe 1950′s roles are outdated, you would be advocating equality in relationships instead of “Sugar Mamas.” Some of your readers have clearly got the impression that you favor men being in the 1950′s housewives position. That’s why they responded with posts that supported that type of relationship for men. Your responses to them indicated no disagreement and indeed congratulated one such advocate as being a model of the modern relationship. Perhaps you can clear up the confusion by going back and amending your replies to indicate that you in fact oppose the type of relationship they are advocating?
Hi D. Dfram, thanks for your thoughts, you’ve got some good ones.
the sugar mamma title shouldn’t be taken literally, if you read the post you can see it’s about what I mentioned in my last reply to you.
No need to amend replies –Just because I don’t advocate something (ie a 1950′s relationship), doesn’t mean I “oppose” it.
Yeah, because what woman would possibly want to get married and have kids if it weren’t for all that “pressure” to do so, right? Uhh, well as perverse and deviant as it might seem to you, there actually are women who want to marry and have children, and not because of “pressure” but because it’s suits their nature, temperament and desire.
Oh, and maybe you forgot, but just last month, you wrote a post completely contradicting every thing you and other have said here. I’ll refresh your memory:
Why How Much Money Guys Make Is Important To Girls
February 3, 2011
If I had to choose between two guys: one guy made about $250,000 per year and was just “ok” looking, and the other guy made about $60,000 per year, but was “hot”, I’d choose the guy with the cash.
I know…. I’m so superficial right? This is the truth according to a few researchers from University of Chicago and MIT who did a study to find out what factors drive communication between men and women.
The researchers recorded activity from 23,000 online daters during a three and a half month period and found that…..
For men there is no amount of income that the woman in the bottom ten percent in terms of appearance can earn to make men prefer her over women in the top 10 percent. That is, looks really matter to men relative to income. For women though, if the man in the bottom ten percent in terms of looks earns more than $248,500, they will prefer him over the more attractive guy earning $60,000. – bigthink.com
“I haven’t heard of many accidents where the car just takes out the person on the outside of the sidewalk” I know of two. In both cases the person on the outside was killed (one girl/one boy).
“wow, I had never heard that before Nick, about the splashing water, I thought it was so we don’t get hit by a car.” Nope. When people carried swords (and you had a body guard) your swords was carried on your left side and drawn with your right hand so it was advantageous to walk at the edge of the footpath to allow more room to draw you sword and to fight.
Same reason to the spiral in towers. To allow the defenders more room to swing swords while hampering attackers.
Nearly all customs have a historical reason although the reasons are often forgotten in modern society.
How to Land a Sugar Mama | KATHRYN'S CONVERSATIONS – just great!