Can Love Survive When A Woman Earns More Than A Man?
Maggie Berry, 16/02/2010, posted in "Analysis"
Maggie Berry runs Womenintechnology, a leading online job board and networking forum for women working in the technology profession in the UK. She has been involved since Womenintechnology's inception ...more info
Maggie Berry runs Womenintechnology, a leading online job board and networking forum for women working in the technology profession in the UK. She has been involved since Womenintechnology's inception in the autumn of 2004 and manages all aspects of the Web site and the networking activities Womenintechnology organises. ...less info
The Daily Mail strikes again. And the title says it all: “Can love survive when a woman earns MORE than a man?” You can find the piece here.
It starts by saying: “It’s a seismic social shift: nearly half of women are paid as much as or more than their man”. ‘Hooray!’ we think – finally all the fighting for equal rights is perhaps beginning to pay off. However according to the Daily Mail, “it could all end in tears” and “the truth is that we don’t know whether to feel triumphant or dismayed”. That’s certainly news to me!
Here are some other gems of information:
“Many [women] are working simply because their families need their income, and increasing numbers are finding themselves accidental breadwinners because men’s jobs have been hit far harder than women’s in the economic downturn – a phenomenon dubbed the ‘mancession’.”
“If the past 40 years have been all about women entering the workforce and boosting the economy, the next 40 will be spent dealing with the social, personal and family consequences. And that may be the hardest part of all.”
With the struggle of breaking the glass ceiling that women still face, it’s disappointing that articles like this are still written. All it does it turn women’s success into a negative, when it’s an achievement we should be celebrating. What’s more the article states that only 19% of women earn more than their partners with another 25% earning the same – that means that around half of the women in the UK still don’t earn as much as their partner.
As the article states, “social attitudes are still trailing far behind”. But they won’t improve when we’re still reading pieces like this.
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