According to a new
study, men experience a blow to their self-esteem when their female partners experience success, even when they aren’t in direct competition. Women’s success also negatively impacts how men view the future of the relationship, researchers found.
“There is an idea that women are allowed to bask in the reflected glory of her male partner and to be the ‘woman behind the successful man,’ but the reverse is not true for men,” says study co-author Kate Ratliff of the University of Florida.
Skipping down, beyond the mundane details of how they did the study.
The researchers hypothesized a zero-sum approach to success and failure may be what was fueling men’s insecurities and resentment at their partners’ success, explaining that men may be more likely to see their partners’ success as their own failure.
You can read the full study here.
Salon
21 comments:
Hmmmm, when we were both working, the Blonde sometimes made more than I did.
We spent her money just as happily as mine.
"It's not enough that I succeed. Others must fail."
The first time I heard that one was back in high school, attributed to George Bernard Shaw.
Might just as well have been attributed to some hairy prehistoric dude who painted it on the wall of a cave as a caption underneath the magic bison.
Obviously they didn't survey Get Smart (2008). Max loves his successful partner.
And how many mathematicians and physicists want somebody to talk to who isn't a qualified affirmative action hire, now chairman of the women's workplace issues committee.
The only rational solution is for men to become lesbians.
Onto more pressing matters, I'd like to see research dollars spent to determine how men feel when their female partners experience orgasm.
A blow to their self-esteem, or something else, ought not be ruled out entirely.
Similarly, we ought not rule out the possibility that the achievement of orgasm is a zero-sum game.
Skipping down, beyond the mundane details of how they did the study.
It's size? Whether or not there was a control group?
Right - completely unimportant.
Sorry, not buying it, or digging through .pdfs today,...
@MTB/
I think historians say the originator of that saying was Genghis Khan..
You lost me at "Salon"
Forgetting for the moment the quality of the study's research design, many years ago George Guilder made a parallel point about the unequal pressure society puts on men, saying that "in life women have three socially acceptable choices: They can work,; they can stay at home; or they can work some and stay at home some. Men have three choices also: They can work, they can work; or they can work." His point being that a man who chooses to be "Mr. Mom" is labeled by most in society as a beta-male "kitchen bitch"--that or as a "n'er do-well" who would rather tend his roses than work for a living.
(Now, many--especially the feministas--would say that as men control society ("the patriarchy") and set societal rules they have done it to themselves, but as was exampled in a post at TOP concerning the performance artist Sandra Singh-Lo who left her "kitchen bitch" husband because he was too "unexciting" vanilla normal for a more exciting Alpha male, women also ascribe to this societal view of men. The blogger "Whiskey" @ "Whiskeys Place" (tho now dormant for almost 6 mos) has this as a recurring theme in which he backs up his view about the desire for professional women, at least, for Alpha males--often non-white--as opposed to white beta-male cubicle-dwellers--with both statistics, case-studies and copious anecdotes. It would behoove many here to go to his place and sift thru the last few years worth of postings as there is some real food for thought there..
So how do women feel when their man fails? How do men feel when their women fail?
Advantage: Men.
Is Oishi also a female? Even if this person is a male, I would still doubt the results of this study. There is plenty of evidence lately of data fudging to meet a preferred outcome. In this case, I suspect the preferred outcome is that men are unworthy, insecure, and afraid of strong successful women.
This flies in the face of my own personal experience. I am a retired school teacher. My wife is a successful MD. She is a medical administrator and has almost 100 doctors, nurses, and dentists who report to her. In the past, she has held executive level positions in the state government, and an appointment as Professor of Medicine at a teaching hospital. Her achievements have never been a problem in our marriage at all. Of course I am proud of her.
In addition, there is the example of Meade and Althouse. Meade does not give the impression of ‘feeling terrible’ about Ann’s position.
Any "study" containing the words "self-esteem" and "gender difference" is bullshit political propaganda dialed up by some fuckhead apparatchik with a featherbedding job created by conniving government bureaucrats.
So, why would I bother to read this shit?
Might this just correlate with competitiveness, a trait likely found in more males than females due to hormone differences?
I have never resented a woman for being younger and more attractive than me. I'm very secure in that respect......I read a biography of Joe DiMaggio. Marilyn Monroe cheated on him on their honeymoon. I got the impression that she married DiMaggio so that she could tell all the other men in her life that they were no DiMaggio. With some women the dynamics are such that there can be no happy ending.
Why would/ should a man with a strong sense of self be negatively affected by his wife's successes? If it crushes his self esteem, perhaps there is an underlying problem there. A man with poor self confidence is a greater turn off than a man who hasn't surpassed his wife in successes. Women seem to be expected to squelch their own potential to ensure their husbands, in some cases, why can't success be celebrated by both partners, emphasis on the word "partnership".
Meade is a grifter - his meal ticket has to do better than he does or he will starve to death. Lawn clippings provide very little sustenance.
I've heard men actually say (or one man at least) that if his wife got a job she wouldn't need him and she'd leave him. I was completely appalled.
Since then, though, I would probably need both hands to count the number of couples I have known (or singles I met afterward) where this proved to be true. She gets her college degree and she leaves.
I've also known/met women when my brother was single and I was matchmaking who clearly had a "he must be at least as successful and educated, preferably more successful and educated, than I am." Which pissed me off a bit because I figured that "will never ever cheat on you, is honest and hardworking, and loves kids" ought to count just a little bit.
In my mind the question is... Are insecure men responding rationally to what is a real preference for women to "marry up", or are they creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by being uptight about it?
I also know plenty of couples where she makes more than he does and he takes care of a greater amount of the child care and home tasks (or even homeschools) and neither views themselves as anything other than partners.
And of course everyone likes to feel needed. It's actually sort of nasty when men are told they're wrong if they want to have a wife who needs them.
Another way of looking at it is there are a lot of people who are jerks.
There's an evolutionary explanation, probably.
RE: Women "marrying up." Years (and years) ago when Phil Donahue still had his tv show with a live audience circa late 70s he once asked every woman in the audience who had a husband who was better educated than themselves to hold up their hand--almost every single one did...
So was there a secondary study to see how much sand came out of these men's vaginas? I'm happy when my partner succeeds in anything she does. Any man who is threatened by this should be a face punch away from reality.
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