There’s an inbuilt bias professional women have against dating “down” socio-economically. A male doctor might marry a nurse and no one would blink. A female doctor would be much more likely to require same or higher social status to her own in her potential SO or partner.
Is this bias changing now that women are assuming more high status roles and their earning power often eclipses that of their potential dating and mating prospects?
Many younger woman don’t care about this as much, IME. I definitely notice that women in their early 20s don’t seem to care about this as much, although I’m not sure if that’s because almost ALL the guys their age are underemployed/unemployed, or if it’s just a generational difference.
Let’s not make it out to be that it’s only women who have problems marrying someone lower on the socio-economic laddder. Many, many men still have problems being with women who make more money than them. Many.
This is anecdotal, of course, but among my college classmates, we’ve all been employed more than a decade now and most of us make pretty decent money. Several of my girlfriends who are married make considerably more than their husbands do. Based on various discussions among my single girlfriends, we don’t object to dating folks who earn less.
I’ve been reading A History of Women: Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes, and quite early on in the book they analyze how this was true hundreds of years ago in class-stratified Europe: Men were allowed to marry down socioeconomically, but women were not. Women were only allowed same-level or upper marriages.
Class is about a lot more than money: I think that a concert pianist marrying a plumber would raise eyebrows even if he made considerably more than she did. Class is more about education, background, and mannerisms than it is about the size of your paycheck.
If anything, I think the trend is more the other way: I think there’s more pressure on men these days to marry women from their own class than there once was. I teach high school, and when a guy at my work married a hairdresser, there were more than a few catty comments. I imagine that it would be even more dramatic if we were a law firm.
I’m puzzled by this, what kind of catty comments would there be re a male teacher marrying a female hairdresser. Not that elementary and high school teachers aren’t wonderful and valuable people, but it’s generally seen as a solidly middle class occupation so is being a professional hair dresser. Did both male and female teachers make these comments?
I don’t agree: hair-dressing is a trade and teaching is a profession. A hair-dresser probably doesn’t have a college degree; teachers all do, and tend to be married to people who also have degrees, or work in a field where degrees are normal (i.e, a tech guy that never finished college but works in an office). Again, social class is about a lot more than the size of your paycheck.
Some of the catty comments may have been because this guy in particular is a jerk, but I think it would have been considered a little odd for anyone. If the spouse in question turned out to be intelligent and well-spoken–the right type of hairdresser–it would have been ok, but when all people knew was the bare fact of her job, it seemed . . . odd.
Also, leaving that aside–because it’s a hijack of my broader point–do you really think a male lawyer or doctor marrying a hairdresser wouldn’t be remarked on? (assuming “lady that works at Supercuts”, not “stylist-consultant to the elite”).
The income difference doesn’t seem to be so socially unfashionable if the man has less education. Especially if he’s doing traditional manly work like contracting, which can pay well and has a bit of a sexy connotation. OTOH, if you both have masters’ or doctorates and he isn’t earning more, it’s questionable.
I’m a female doctor. My fiance is a restaurant manager (when we first met, he was a security guard). He is going to school right now, but odds are that it will be a long time (if ever) before he catches up to me economically.
I actually know a lot of YOUNG female doctors who are married to guys who work low-paying, less “prestigious” job. I do think that nowadays, women who are earning enough in their own careers don’t see the sense in pursuing guys who earn as much. My own thinking is that I have enough money for myself as it is and don’t need anyone else to provide for me.
I do think that in the past, female doctors tended to hold out for guys who were their economic “equals” but that probably contributed to why women with higher education were more likely to stay single.
I never really pictured myself dating/marrying another male doctor. Before I met my current partner, I tended to date a lot of engineers because they tended to be intelligent and scientifically literate (two traits that my current partner also has, despite not being in a profession that directly relates), but I enjoyed the fact that I could get away from work when I was with a non-medical person.
I also know what sacrifices and stresses my career has caused my partner, and honestly I don’t want to deal with anyone else’s “high powered career” with the time-consuming/stressful aspects. Plus there’s the issue that many women see marrying a doctor as “winning the jackpot” so you’re faced with a lot more competition when you aim only for doctors or other “rich guys”. I would rather marry a guy who is in a respectable but not high-paying job and enjoy having him to myself than worry about the techs/aides/nurses/etc. at work hitting on my doctor hubby. 
Nope - I think the assumption would be that she would quit working after marriage and be a professional wife.
I don’t think it’s unusual at all, even in 2012, for the expectation to be that the man will have the career and the woman will work as a barista, or go to University long enough to get a Mrs. Degree, or be a hairstylist until Mr. Right comes along. Certainly less common than it used to be, but not so common as to raise eyebrows.
I’m actually unclear what the snarking about the teacher and the hairdresser was either - if the guy was a douche, that could explain it, but teaching is a regular sort of job, and being a hair dresser is a regular sort of job.
Perhaps if the guy was a…particle physicist I might wonder what they talked about when they were together, but it wouldn’t occur to me that hairdressing was a low class job.
Mm-hmm.
I used to notice that female doctors/lawyers on the dating sites who were born in the mid-70s or earlier tended to be unwilling to even message me back. However, I notice a LOT of young female doctors/lawyers dating/marrying guys who don’t have advanced degrees.
I think the generation gap on that is somewhere between 1975 and 1979 or 1980. Born before that time frame, a professional woman most likely won’t marry/date guys who don’t have advanced degrees. Born after that time frame, she is much more likely to.
It’s still quite uncommon. Moreover, many men do not like marrying up (dating is a different kettle of fish) unless they are social climbers or are in the process of training to improve their standing.A poor law student might marry a banker, but he hopes within a few years to exceed her income.
It’s the college degree. It’s a huge class signifier. A generation ago, there were still nice girls from nice families who didn’t go to college, but these days it’s pretty rare for an 18-year old from a “nice” family to graduate high school and just go to work. To be from a family that doesn’t just expect their kids to go to college suggests very blue collar or very rural roots, and a “professional wife” to a professional is supposed to be more educated and more ambitious than that. I’m not saying it’s right, but I think among young professional men in their 20s and 30s, it’s the reality. I think people would react oddly to a “professional wife” if there were no kids, and even if the wife is staying home with kids, the question “what did your wife do?” and “when is she going back to work?” would come up.
And, again, I don’t think it’s the money. A social worker makes a lot less than a hairdresser (or a shop worker, or a telephone support person) but there’s the implication that it is a choice–they could have been an accountant or something instead. It’s the college degree vs a trade.
I think there may be somewhat of “hothouse flower” aspect to that characterization where teachers may consider themselves to be a certain status level, while the society at large has different ideas. While primary and secondary school teachers are nominally “professionals” in my general social interactions they are not really considered to be in the same class strata as doctors, lawyers, or professional engineers status-wise or socio-economically.
People *respect *teachers, but let’s be frank while there are a lot of intelligent teachers it’s pretty clear to most people in their interactions with teachers that there are also a lot of teachers who are not intellectual powerhouses. This is especially true of people that have college degrees themselves and are familiar with the somewhat relaxed level of intellectual horsepower of many (not all) ed degree students compared to those in other professions.
Yes teachers are professionals, but they are regarded as middle class professionals and notions of them as somewhat elite are counterbalanced by perceptions like this where they are behaving like factory workers.
I suspect there are fewer degrees of class separation in many peoples minds between a hairdresser and a teacher than the teachers themselves might think.
I don’t really want to argue about teachers and class, which is why I switched the topic to lawyers. If a young hot-shot lawyer married the girl that gives $9/haircuts, or a hotel maid, or a Wal-mart check out girl, do you not think there would be pressure? That when asked what his wife did, or even what she did before marriage, he wouldn’t feel some pressure to explain or justify the incongruity? I think there was a time when a young professional just needed a presentable wife, but it’s less true now. If he marries someone without education or ambition, people will wonder why.
You mentioned a few times that it’s not about money, but these examples seem to be very much about money.
What if the lawyer married a girl who gave $100 haircuts?
Then I think he’d be careful to mention that, and even more so, he’d be careful to mention that she hangs out with people who get $100 haircuts. A social worker or an artist might make the same as a hotel maid, but I don’t think people would react the same way to a lawyer marrying one.
I think the pendulum has swung both ways. Guys care more about the socioeconomic status of their girlfriends, and women care less about the SES of their boyfriends. This shift as much to do with changing gender roles and expectations as it does supply and demand. It is a lot harder for a woman to find a man who surpasses her income-wise than it was 20 or 30 years ago.