Battle of the sexes: When women earn more and stay single

Walking on the streets of Kampala, I was baffled by the number of women walking out of corporate offices, heading to the gym, home or to an institute where they are upgrading their education. This is coupled with the fact that they drive the latest cars that have graced the potholed and dusty roads of Kampala. From Aston Martins’, Cayeene, Hummers, Land Cruiser and Prado (New models), they zoom around with an elegance and swagger of James Bond. Ironic, isn’t it? When you turn on the other hand, the men are driving old model cars or borrow from other friends who have the same old models. After work, however much they are also successful, they just head to the nearest bar to guzzle outrageous bottles of beer, eat meat, talk politics and soccer (of which they can’t participate in. They just criticize people in those positions) and they wrap up by ogling and talking about the latest beautiful women on the streets of Kampala, that is if they haven’t gone to any of the universities to pick up some confused fresher. Men, don’t get me wrong. Am not in the fight against your hobbies because also women do it when they are seated in a café, but the truth of the matter is that women are more prosperous than men, more hardworking and scandal prone. Just as your career gets red-hot, your bed gets ice-cold. You’ve worked hard to become stable, willing and able to bring something to the table, but find that some men are too busy comparing paychecks to show you a little love. A growing number of women who “have it all” are having a hard time finding or keeping someone to share it with. Viewing their riches as a relationship repellent, some ingenious women have responded by fine-tuning their dating and socialisingstrategies. While on a blind date in, a woman describes herself as an up-and-coming hairstylist, when in reality she owns two lucrative salons. While attending a conference a woman introduces herself as a medical assistant, not the obstetrician that she really is. And in some cases, they park their brand new Cadillac Escalade a block away from the restaurant to avoid outshining a cute male colleague. From Kampala to Kigali, Nairobi to South Africa and the USA to China successful women are downplaying their credentials or flat-out lying about who they really are, and what they really earn to snag a mate, giving the term “faking it” a brand new meaning. Women have very good reasons to hide their wealth, education and social status in order to capture and keep a man’s interest. They find it difficult being more successful than men. They don’t want to come across as elitist; they get scared when they see waitresses, house-helpers and the so-called-musicians scoring good husbands. It’s like they are being punished for having money in their pocket. On the surface, it appears that some men may not be able to handle a relationship with a woman who earns more than he does, but the reverse may be closer to the truth, according to a new study. Consider this: Married women are earning more than ever before, with a whopping 50% percent earning more money than their husbands, according to a research published on Yahoo done in LDC’s. Looking at this, I identify the female vs. male cash-flow competition as a consequence of long held societal roles that distinguish men as providers and women as nurturers. But today many question the validity of these gender-specific roles when gaps in education, coupled with adverse unemployment and incarceration rates, have resulted in women outnumbering men on college campuses, and, consequently, out earning them in the corporate world. This nonetheless has a down side. In today’s society, men fully recognize the benefits of having a high-quality partner. If women make a bunch of money but are unable to make that man feel cared for, or if you don’t know how to comfort that man, he will draw the conclusions that you can’t be warm or intimate, and that you can’t accept his love. Women should learn that a man wants to know that he can trust you to accept his love and care for his children. But if you’re so caught up in your career that you can’t make time for him, or if you view wealth as being all about money, not lifestyle, then it can be a problem for him. Some soul-searching may be in order for women, but men need to do some soul-searching, too. Some men intentionally avoid successful women because they anticipate a negative experience. Successful women are a favorite target for the man’s animosity. Professional women are attacked by men for being too independent, lacking homemaking skills, being afraid to mess up their hair in bed, staying up late because of work, refusing to have a large number of children, and not allowing a man to be ‘the man’ in the relationship. This whole animosity between men and women is rooted in fear. One of men’s biggest secrets is that they truly fear women’s intelligence and strength. Men are terrified by the prospect of being dominated because by nature men want to dominate and take control. Some men are uncomfortable about having a bread-winning woman at home, but the majority of men are surefooted and confident in their manhood. Women who are the principal breadwinners find themselves carrying the responsibilities of buying the house, the car and the groceries, often making the decisions on how the leftover money is spent. For some of the women, it takes a short time to realize the relationship is not going to work if they take on all the responsibility. For others, it’s a cycle that repeats itself many times before they realize that the relationship is going downhill. Ends

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Battle of the sexes: When women earn more and stay single