Female Supremacy Articles - Page 26
Mysteries of the male
By John Launer
Oxford Journal of Medicine
Why do males exist? If you look at any standard biology textbook, you will probably read that the point of having males as well as females is to promote variation by the exchange of different mutations, and hence to increase the chances of species survival.
Unfortunately, most evolutionary biologists stopped believing in this explanation over 20 years ago. From a reproductive point of view, no individual is interested in anything beyond donating genes to the next generation, while species survival happens more or less at random, according to the whims of climate and geology. You don't actually need sexes in order to mutate and produce variation. In any case, most mutations have no effect, or mainly deleterious ones. John Maynard Smith talks of ‘the twofold cost of males’.1
Firstly, it is incomprehensible that any female should want to chuck away half her genome. Secondly, the males of many species are useless at doing anything except sitting around, getting fat at the females’ expense, and—in the words of Richard Dawkins—duffing up other males.2 Among some animals, such as elephant seals, the vast majority die as wasteful, disappointed virgins.
Given the cost of males, it is perhaps not surprising that there are at least 40 species where the female kills the male during or after sex. In the case of the praying mantis, she literally bites his head off as part of foreplay, and he carries on in a delighted reflex of posthumous orgasm. Females of other species are equally imaginative: male scale insects have been demoted to microscopic excrescences on their females’ legs, while female angler fish carry their mates on their backs as tiny dwarves. More pertinently, there are many effective ways of reproducing apart from sex as we understand it. These include simple division and gene exchange, which have served prokaryotes so well that they have produced the longest-enduring of all species on the planet, as well as comprising the greatest number of species, and probably constituting most of the biomass as well.
Among other organisms, alternative methods of reproduction include budding, hermaphroditism and isogamy (i.e. two individuals, not distinguished as males and females, combining their genes). There are asexual variants among all sorts of creatures, including jellyfish, dandelions, lichens and lizards. Of the creatures who do reproduce sexually, some species have two sexes, but others have three, or thirteen, or 10 000, if you are a fungus. Many species alternate between sexual and asexual reproduction, either on a regular basis or occasionally, as the circumstances require. Bdelloid rotifers—tiny invertebrates who live in drains and puddles—went off sex about 80 million years ago, and have cheerfully diversified into several hundred species since then, without regaining the inclination. Maynard Smith described them an ‘an evolutionary scandal’.
The various current theories about why males evolved and still remain in existence are nicely set out in Matt Ridley's book ‘The Red Queen’.3 They are also covered in Olivia Judson's racy and wonderfully informative book ‘Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation’.4 Different theories rejoice in names like Muller's ratchet, Kondrashov's hatchet, and the eponymous red queen of Ridley's book (named after the character in Alice in Wonderland who perpetually runs without getting very far because the landscape moves with her). This last theory seems to be the front runner at the moment. It is based on W.D. Hamilton's idea that sex is part of a continual race to outwit external pathogens.
What is clear, however, is that the consensus that existed on this topic from Darwin until the 1980s has totally broken down. The purpose of males has instead become one of the biggest unanswered questions in science. My guess is that we will eventually come to understand fertilization by males in a similar way to how we now understand the appearance of ancient autonomous organisms such as mitochondria or chloroplasts in the eukaryotic cell.5 In other words, we will see it as an evolutionary compromise poised half way between invasion and alliance, parasitism and symbiosis, or genetic rape and informed consent. There is already much evidence to show how females resist the process physiologically (for example by stripping male gametes of all extra-nuclear DNA) and how males try to control reproduction against their females’ will (for example, by killing off competitor sperm or genetic material in the female genital tract, or alternatively killing the competitors and their offspring directly).
If the status of males in evolutionary terms is an equivocal one, the consequences of sexual dimorphism are not reassuring for males either. In a review of the evidence relating to human males, my colleague and mentor Sebastian Kraemer has set out the scale of the problem.6 Throughout life, men are more vulnerable than women on most measures. This starts with the biological fragility of the male foetus, leading to ‘a greater risk of death or damage from almost all the obstetric catastrophes that can happen before birth’. If they survive these catastrophes, boys then have a far greater susceptibility to developmental disorders than girls. These are magnified in turn by our cultural assumptions about masculinity, and by our low expectations of males. The toxic interaction of biological and social ingredients shows itself in far higher rates of suicide and deaths through violent crime. Males also do worse in (among other things) scholastic achievement, emotional literacy, alcoholism, substance abuse, circulatory disorders, diabetes, and of course in longevity. Kraemer looks at how male disadvantage is ‘wired in’ from infancy and persists to the grave, but he suggests that we shouldn't necessarily conclude that maleness is a genetic disorder. Instead, he argues, we should show more curiosity about the reasons for boys and men being so vulnerable, and should pay more attention to redressing this in child-rearing and in medicine.
It may be no coincidence that questions about the ‘raison d’etre’ for males, and concerns about their relative deficiencies, should have arisen at this point in history; enough of the relevant information behind them would probably have been available to an observer in Darwin's time. The recent appearance of these scientific preoccupations may well be the consequence of understandable male anxiety. In the last few generations of our species, female control over fertility has developed at a rate so phenomenal that it may justify comparison with the sudden emergence of male-female reproduction itself, around a thousand million years ago. In evolutionary terms, it has taken only the twinkling of an eye from the introduction of the vaginal diaphragm and the contraceptive pill in the middle of the last century, to the widespread use of frozen sperm and extracted eggs, and hence to the actualization of human oocyte cloning. Within the span of just one lifetime, women have advanced through several enormous stages of biological liberation and have reached the threshold of elective parthenogenesis.
Assuming that the minor technical problems of gene damage during cloning can soon be overcome, and that legal constraints will in time be removed—assumptions that seem reasonable by any standard—it is possible that the women of our species will soon have the overall choice of doing with very few men, or with none at all. If, in the mean time, they can prevent males from destroying any environment in which to survive, they might be forgiven if they choose to follow the path that has already been pioneered by the bdelloid rotifers. Attempts to understand maleness or to redress its difficulties will then become entirely academic.
References
1. Maynard Smith J. The Evolution of Sex. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1978.
2. Dawkins R. The Ancestor's Tale: a pilgrimage to the dawn of life. London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2004.
3. Ridley M. The Red Queen: Sex and the evolution of human nature. London, Viking, 1993.
4. Judson O. Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: the definitive guide to the evolutionary biology of sex. London, Chatto and Windus, 2002.
5. Lane N. Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the meaning of life. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005.
6. Kraemer S. The fragile male. Br Med J 2000; 321:1609–12.
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The sturdier sex? -- Study by Pittsburgh scientists finds female stem cells work better
Biology News Net
Female stem cells derived from muscle have a greater ability to regenerate skeletal muscle tissue than male cells, according to a study at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC.
The study, which is being published in the April 9 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology, is the first ever to report a difference in regenerative capabilities of muscle stem cells based on sex.
This finding could have a major impact on the successful development of stem cells as viable therapies for a variety of diseases and conditions, according to the study’s senior author, Johnny Huard, PhD, director of the Stem Cell Research Center at Children’s and the Henry J. Mankin Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
"Regardless of the sex of the host, the implantation of female stem cells led to significantly better skeletal muscle regeneration," said Dr. Huard, also the deputy director of the McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine.
"Based on these results, future studies investigating regenerative medicine should consider the sex of the stem cells to be an important factor. Furthermore, investigations such as ours could lead to a better understanding of sex-related differences in aging and disease and could explain, at least partially, the high variability and conflicting results reported in the literature on stem cell biology."
Dr. Huard’s team, and the study’s first author, Bridget Deasy, PhD, director of the Live Cell Imaging Lab at Children’s Stem Cell Research Center, made the discovery while working with a population of stem cells they isolated in the lab while searching for a cure for Duchene muscular dystrophy (DMD). DMD is a genetic disease estimated to affect one in every 3,500 boys. Patients with DMD lack dystrophin, a protein that gives muscle cells structure. Using an animal model of the disease, his laboratory is using stem cells to deliver dystrophin to muscles.
In this study, Dr. Huard’s team injected female and male muscle-derived stem cells into dystrophic mice and then measured the cells’ ability to regenerate dystrophin-expressing muscle fibers.
They then calculated the regeneration index (RI) – the ratio of dystrophin-positive fibers per 100,000 donor cells.
Only one of the 10 male populations of implanted stem cells had an RI over 200. In contrast, 40 percent of the female stem cell populations had an RI higher than 200, and 60 percent of the female populations of stem cells had an RI higher than the mean RI of the male cells (95).
This difference may arise from innate sex-related differences in the cells’ stress responses, according to Dr. Deasy, an assistant professor in the Departments of Orthopaedic Surgery and Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and School of Engineering, respectively.
The investigators examined several aspects of stem cell behavior. They screened for differences in thousands of genes, and they also looked for differences related to estrogen. In many ways the male and female stem cells were similar, Dr. Deasy said.
"The major difference was what we observed after exposing the cells to stress or after cell transplantation in the animals that have muscular dystrophy. Transplantation of female cells leads to a much more significant level of skeletal muscle regeneration," she said. "The male cells exhibited increased differentiation after exposure to oxidative stress, which may lead to cell depletion and a proliferative advantage for female cells after cell transplantation."
Source : Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh
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Girl Financial Power
By Glynn Davis
The Daily Reckoning (UK Edition)
Nov 1, 2007
For the first time, women account for almost half the millionaires in the UK. What makes it surprising is that the number is growing by a hefty 11% per year, which means that women will overtake men within a very short time frame. Although there is no disputing the fact that the very richest among them have acquired their wealth through inheritance or from being the wives of rich husbands (or the ex-wives of rich husbands) the list is peppered with an increasing number who have built up their fortunes independently through the creation of their own successful organisations.
It is this trend that has resulted in the big increase in the number of women in the Sunday Times Rich List for 2007. Among the 1,000 rich individuals listed in the table the number of women has grown by 20% since last year - to a record 92 entries. And this is despite the higher entry threshold compared with 2006.
Although there is no disputing the fact that the very richest among them have acquired their wealth through inheritance or from being the wives of rich husbands (or the ex-wives of rich husbands) the list is peppered with an increasing number who have built up their fortunes independently through the creation of their own successful organisations.
Proof of this trend can be seen from the entries in the most recent Management Today annual list of the top 100 entrepreneurs. Whereas in previous years the female quotient would have been pretty dismal, it is now looking reasonably healthy. Women now account for 25% of the entries on the list.
And the wealth that these women have in their grasp is growing at a faster rate than that held by men, according to Datamonitor. It found the differential between female millionaires and their male counterparts is narrowing.
Go back 10 years and the average male millionaire was worth £2.7m, while the average female was worth £1.3m. Today, the former is worth an average £3m while the latter typically has around £2m. The gap between the two has fallen by almost 31% - which means the wealth of a male millionaire has increased by only 9.1% over this period, whereas the female millionaire has seen their fortune grow by an impressive 54%.
This rapidly growing wealth in the hands of the female demographic has major ramifications for consumer spending patterns. It is the reason we are starting to see a gradual skewing by many companies of their marketing and branding efforts to attract greater numbers of female consumers.
In the retail industry, it has been noticeable that companies selling certain products have started to 'feminise' their offers. Yes, women have for a long time effectively controlled the high street but in recent years they have extended their dominance beyond the obvious products such as fashion and clothing. This is certainly the belief of Allegra Strategies. They reckon women account for at least 80% of consumers in home ware shops.
To tap into this trend the DIY and home wares retailers have re-jigged their offers to better highlight lifestyle concepts rather than focusing on selling individual products. This strategy has been remarkably successful for IKEA, with women finding its 'complete room solutions' very attractive. IKEA realised that DIY was a turn-off for women and it made the savvy decision to sell its goods via a shop-fit that incorporated many show home-style displays.
This is an approach that B&Q has only recently begun to replicate in the UK. Although why it has taken it so long to catch on is a mystery. Both Homebase and MFI have also followed this route. The new private equity owners of the latter decided to pitch the business as a much 'softer' proposition. Evidence of this move was its high profile sponsorship of the Hell's Kitchen TV series.
The softer proposition is also being gradually introduced into the formerly stuffy world of private banking and finance. Banks like Coutts recognise the importance of convincing today's army of affluent women to deposit their money with the bank.
Such a move is hardly surprising when you consider Datamonitor's results. They found as many as 4,000 women could be classified among the richest people in the country on the basis that they have liquid assets of more than £5m.
One move Coutts has undertaken to woo these potential clients is to align itself with fashion brands. Its most radical initiative to date was its sponsorship of a retrospective of the 10-year career of fashion designer Matthew Williamson. It is also hosting an event in its gardens that will bring together Williamson's ready-to-wear range and the bank's female clients.
This sort of female-friendly event is also being mirrored in the world of corporate hospitality. There is a shift away from companies hosting events that are appealing only to men - namely invites to major sporting events.
Matilda Velevitch, head of marketing at event organiser Pall Mall, reckons that around 50% of corporate hospitality events now involve sport, compared with nearer 80% five or six years ago.
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Why Womenomics is the force of the future
By Clemency Burton-Hill
Daily Mail
18th October 2007
A recent Ofcom report found that women aged 25-35 now spend more time using the internet than men.
This was one of the findings of a report entitled Living Britain, which examines the trends affecting the country at the beginning of the 21st century.
It looked at the increasing purchasing and physical power of women on the economic and cultural
front, which has been labelled 'womenomics'.
A phrase initially coined by the Economist, womenomics refers to the increasing purchasing and
physical power of women on the economic and cultural front.
The number of women scientists has soared, there are more female graduates than male, girls
outstrip boys at A-Level and even traditionally male markets are succumbing to female touch.
A recent Ofcom report found that women aged 25-35 now spend more time using the internet than men.
The womenomics phenomenon was described by the Economist last year which argued that the future of the world economy lies increasingly in female hands.
It found that over the past decade or so increased female participation in the paid labour force has contributed more to the growth of the world economy than either booming China or new technology.
"Women are becoming more important in the global marketplace not just as workers, but also as
consumers, entrepreneurs, managers and investors," the report said.
"Women have traditionally done most of the household shopping, but now they have more money of their own to spend."
For the Living Britain report, researchers were keen to establish whether the womenomics
phenomenon was equally alive in Britain as in the US. And Mr Raymond said it was a phenomenon driving Britain today.
He said instead of focusing on women and gender, focus was instead switching to women and
economic factors.
He said this was partly driven by the fact that more than half of graduates are women. Graduates aged 25-30 earn on average 25 per cent more than non-graduates. More women on higher salaries mean they are a driving force in the workplace.
"Womenomics is about the purchasing and physical power of women and there economic influence, about how many women are in the workforce," said Mr Raymond.
Flexible working times and work-from home options have given women in the workplace more
options, said the Living Britain survey.
Today more than 80 per cent of employees in the UK, both male and female, rate flexible working as the most attractive benefit that an employer can offer.
Jane Cunningham, founder of female marketing consultancy Pretty Little Head - who was interviewed for the comprehensive trends survey, said: "There's an increasingly interesting commercial opportunity in marketing to women.
"Not only do they dominate household spending decisions, they are now significant in categories that have been traditionally viewed as male such as technology, cars and financial services."
The report said: "Women are becoming more important in the global marketplace not just as workers, but also as consumers, entrepreneurs, managers and investors.
"Women have traditionally done most of the household shopping, but now they have more money of their own to spend."
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The naked truth: How women are stripping their way to success
By CLEMENCY BURTON-HILL
Daily Mail
20th October 2007
Klass act: But where would Myleene be without her bikini?
Since graduating from university four years ago, I have come to dread the question: "What do you do?" When I tell people I'm a juggler, I get blank stares, though they usually realise I'm not a circus performer.
But when I try to explain that I'm an actress, writer, violinist, charity administrator and political adviser, I'm then asked the most dreaded question of all: "So when are you going to make up your mind which one to do?"
Actually, I'm not sure I ever will, even though people will always try to pigeon-hole me – and all other juggling women out there – as one thing or another.
This bothers me because I suspect that when it comes to multi-tasking women, something deeply hypocritical is at work in society.
Although females are acknowledged to be good at performing multiple activities (not only can we cook and have a conversation at the same time, we can even hold down careers and be mothers), when smart women of a certain background try to multi-task professionally they get lambasted for it.
They're labelled "Superwomen" or "Alpha Females", for which read ruthless bitches.
The curious inverted snobbery that underpins such attitudes can be evinced by a trip down the High Street.
At Waterstone's, you will find a slew of female "celebrity" memoirs with such edifying titles as Living The Dream.
At Boots you'll find the same girls and their eponymous perfumes.
In WH Smith, there they are again: on magazine covers, either falling out of cabs or clutching shopping bags. And in clothes shops, they have their "own" fashion lines.
I wonder if anyone ever dares ask Jordan or Kerry or Jade or Chantelle – such girls become so
powerful they no longer need surnames – what it is they actually "do"?
Nobody seems to have a problem with these women juggling away. Far from it: they establish personal "empires", make millions and encourage a generation of females to aspire to nothing more than a place on Big Brother.
But empire-building was always a folly-riddled enterprise. And what a very skewed message these girls send out.
Symptomatic of a society that worships celebrity, the message declares that social mobility through hard work, intelligence or natural talent is obsolete.
Blonde ambition: Jordan has made a fortune from flaunting her assets
To be deemed a success or, laughably, a "cultural icon", you need only to bed a footballer, get breast implants or appear on a reality TV show and strip or eat worms. After that, you'll be a star.
Part of the appeal of someone such as Jordan or Kerry is they are "normal girls done good".
But this makes me depressed. I am passionate about social and educational equality; I believe
opportunities should be available to people from all backgrounds and that role models must come
from all walks of life.
But it's mystifying that educated women of a certain class or background are mocked if they dare to be good at more than one thing.
I realise it's politically incorrect to say so, but might Jordan not have "done better" had she built her empire out of something other than artificial breasts?
I have nothing against such women – or their breasts – it's society's demand for what they supply that baffles me.
I've been told many times how clever Myleene Klass is: she's said to have declined a place at
Cambridge University.
But would she have got where she is today (ie everywhere) had she not worn a skimpy white bikini on I'm A Celebrity...?
Working girls: Becoming a wag has become the profession of choice for many young women
Whenever her rejection of university is mentioned, it seems to be slanted as a positive thing. As if to say thank goodness she didn't go to Cambridge, otherwise she and her bikini may never have made it to the jungle.
It's easy to blame powerful men for these attitudes and accuse them of trying to stifle the ambition of potentially equal females.
But women are also complicit in this trend of downward aspiration – it turns out that we're not very sisterly when it comes to the idea that a fellow female can be bright, beautiful and talented at a number of things.
Some of the cleverest women I know would rather see a footballer's vacuous girlfriend making a
million out of a modelling contract than a beautiful col-league, who plays the cello to concert standard, being promoted.
They prefer a Myleene who stripped to a Myleene who studied. And they're the ones who shell out for Heat magazine. That's the thing that makes me most confused of all.
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President's wife poised to take power in Argentina
by Marc Burleigh
Sat Oct 27, 4:20 AM ET
Yahoo News
Argentina holds a presidential election on Sunday that is expected to see first lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner take over from President Nestor Kirchner.
Fernandez has been widely compared to Hillary Clinton, a former first lady, who is seeking the US presidency.
But, if successful, Fernandez will be Argentina's first elected woman president. Isabel Peron, third wife and vice-president to three-time head of state Juan Peron, became president in 1974 on her husband's death but was ousted less than two years later in a military coup.
Fernandez, 54, is known across the country as "Cristina", or sometimes "Queen Cristina" because of her designer clothes and haughty manner. But she has pledged to pursue the leftist and nationalist policies of her husband.
She faces 13 rivals in the vote but all the polls released before campaigning ended suggested she will win most ballots from the 27 million registered electors for whom voting is compulsory.
"Some of our dreams have started to be realized, and now we need to work on the remaining dreams," she said in her last campaign speech Thursday.
Kirchner -- who has not explained why he is stepping aside to support his wife's bid rather than seek re-election himself -- is expected to play an influential behind-the-scenes role if he swaps roles to become first man.
He oversaw a turnaround in Argentina's economy that earned him widespread popularity.
His policies of public spending and price controls have reversed much of the damage wrought in 2001, when the South American nation became the biggest defaulter of sovereign debt in history and was forced to unhitch its peso from the dollar.
Now, however, cracks are starting to appear in the recovery. Inflation is growing and estimated to be running at 20 percent this year, growth has slowed, and foreign investment is sparse.
Roberto Lavagna, a former economy minister fired by Kirchner after putting the recovery on track, is running for president too, but polls put him in distant third-place, just behind Elisa Carrio, a center-left politician championing an anti-corruption drive.
Eleven other candidates round out the field behind them.
Fernandez is seen as a more conciliatory figure than her husband, but her lack of concrete policy promises made her hard to judge.
Many Argentines figured that, in any case, a vote for her is a vote for Kirchner.
"I have confidence she will continue the president's plan, which is for the best," a businessman in central Buenos Aires, Gustavo Sanchez, 50, said.
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Female U.S. corporate directors out-earn men: study
By Martha Graybow
Reuters
Wed Nov 7, 2007
NEW YORK (Reuters) - They may be a small minority in corporate boardrooms, but women directors typically earn more than men, a new U.S. study has found.
Female directors in corporate America earned median compensation of $120,000, based on the most recently available pay data, compared with $104,375 for male board members, research group The Corporate Library said in its annual director pay report on Wednesday.
"This makes being a director one of the few jobs in the U.S. economy where the pay differential is reversed," between men and women, the study found.
The study found that overall, median total compensation for individual U.S. board members was just over $100,000, based on companies' annual proxies filed through last month. The median increase in total disclosed compensation was about 12 percent compared with the year-earlier period, the study said.
The report looked at pay data for more than 25,000 directors at more than 3,200 companies.
The pay increases were driven in part by the addition of previously undisclosed forms of compensation this year, said study author Paul Hodgson, a senior research associate at the Corporate Library. New regulatory rules now require public companies to disclose the cost of perks, cash incentives and other elements of total pay for top executives as well as directors.
More than 80 directors earned more than $1 million in total compensation for a single board seat, according to the Portland, Maine-based governance researcher.
Director pay is typically far below what top corporate executives are awarded, though it has risen sharply in recent years as director oversight duties have increased. Activist shareholders, however, say that director pay does need to remain in check because the role is basically a part-time job.
The Corporate Library also found that directors who have titles such as lord and judge tend to earn more than other board members. Even the least well-compensated titled directors -- medical doctors -- earned a
median total compensation of $105,181, above the median compensation for all directors, it said.
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Putting Money on the Table
By ALEX WILLIAMS
New York Times
September 23, 2007
FOR Whitney Hess, a 25-year-old software designer in Manhattan, the tension that ultimately ended her recent relationships was all right there, in the digits on her pay stub.
The awkwardness started with nights out. She would want to try the latest downtown bistro, but her boyfriends, who worked in creative jobs that paid less than hers, preferred diners.
They would say, ''Wow, you're so sophisticated,'' she recalled. A first look at her apartment, a smartly appointed studio in a full-service building in TriBeCa, would only reinforce the impression. ''They wouldn't want me to see their apartments,'' she said, because they lived in cramped surroundings in distant quadrants of Brooklyn or the Bronx.
One of them, she said, finally just came out and said it. ''Look,'' Ms. Hess recalled him saying, ''it makes me really uncomfortable that you make more money than me. I'm going to put that out on the table and try
to get over it.''
But he never got over it, she said.
''The sad thing is that I really liked the guy,'' she said. ''If that hadn't been an issue with him, we'd probably still be dating.''
Ms. Hess's quandary is becoming more common for many young women. For the first time, women in their 20s who work full time in several American cities -- New York, Chicago, Boston and Minneapolis -- are earning higher wages than men in the same age range, according to a recent analysis of 2005 census data by Andrew Beveridge, a sociology professor at Queens College in New York.
For instance, the median income of women age 21 to 30 in New York who are employed full time was 17 percent higher than that of comparable men.
Professor Beveridge said the gap is largely driven by a gulf in education: 53 percent of women employed full time in their 20s were college graduates, compared with 38 percent of men. Women are also more likely to have graduate degrees. ''They have more of everything,'' Professor Beveridge said.
The shift is playing out in new, unanticipated ways on the dating front. Women are encountering forms of hostility they weren't prepared to meet, and are trying to figure out how to balance pride in their accomplishments against their perceived need to bolster the egos of the men they date.
A lot of young women ''are of two minds,'' said Stephanie Coontz, director of research at the Council on Contemporary Families, a research organization. ''On one hand, they're proud of their achievements, and they think they want a man who shares house chores and child care. But on the other hand they're scared by their own achievement, and they're a little nervous having a man who won't be the main breadwinner. These are old tapes running in their head: 'This is how you get a man.' ''
YOUNG affluent women say they are learning to advertise their good fortune in a manner very different from their male counterparts. For men, it is accepted, even desirable, to flaunt their high status. Not so for many women.
''Very, very early in a date,'' said Anna Rosenmann, 28, who founded a company called Eco Consulting LA, in Los Angeles, and earns up to $150,000 a year, ''a man will drop comments on how much his sales team had made for the year, which meant his bonus was blah, blah, blah.''
But, she said, ''that's not how we were raised.''
Instead, she said, she starts out dates being discreet. ''I don't talk about myself,'' she said. ''When people ask me, I'm going to be very honest. But I definitely don't say, 'My name's Anna, I'm 28 and I own a business.' ''
Ms. Rosenmann said that dating considerably older men helps her avoid innuendos from younger men who feel threatened by her professional success. She said that when she has gone out at night with men her own age and has to turn in early to be fresh for work, they have commented, ''Oh, Anna's an adult, she has a real job.''
So as not to flaunt her own salary, Lori Weiss, a 29-year-old lawyer in Manhattan, has found herself clipping price tags off expensive clothes she buys on shopping binges, or hiding shopping bags in the closet just so men she was dating would not see them lying around and feel threatened by her spending power.
''A lot of guys don't want to admit they have a problem with it,'' she said, referring to income disparity. ''They don't want to be 'that guy.' But I think it's ingrained.''
She said one boyfriend ''wasn't too comfortable with me paying for things'' on dates, so to make him feel better, she would surrender to his wishes. The two would just ''stay home and cook, or just get something cheap,'' she said. ''We'd skip a movie.''
Women said the income disparity becomes obvious in all facets of dating: where you live, what you like to do for fun and how you travel. It often comes down to minimizing who they are -- successful, focused women -- with their dates, who may be lagging a bit behind.
Although these women often say it is men who have issues around their higher salaries, sometimes it is the women themselves who are uncomfortable with the role reversal.
Hilary Rowland, 28, bought her first condominium when she was 18, using money she had earned from an online business started when she was 15. Last spring, Ms. Rowland, who lives in New York, started dating a
34-year-old musician.
''I usually always fly business or first,'' she said in an e-mail message. ''The one trip where he paid for the flight -- we stayed at a friend's place -- he didn't tell me the details, then flew us economy on a 6 a.m. flight with a two-hour stop-over, from Salt Lake City, to save money I would have rather paid myself and flew business at a regular hour.''
''When we broke up,'' she added, ''he was upset that I gave my 'ex' more gifts than I gave him. Meanwhile, the only gift I'd gotten from him was a small notepad.''
Ms. Rowland, like some other women interviewed, said that she has come to the conclusion that it would be easier to date someone in the same economic bracket.
''I love traveling, going to the opera and good restaurants,'' she said. ''It doesn't have to be Per Se, but good food is important in my life. It's sometimes hard to maintain the lifestyle I'm used to when I'm in a relationship with a guy who makes less than me, since I don't want to be paying for the guy I'm with all the time.''
The discomfort over who pays for what seems to be not really about money, plain and simple. Instead, it is suggestive of the complex psychology of what many of these women expect from their dates (for him to be a traditional breadwinner) and what they think they should expect (Oh, I just want him to be a nice guy).
On a first date at a lounge in Hell's Kitchen, Thrupthi Reddy, 28, a brand strategist in Manhattan, watched her date down several cocktails to her one, then not even flinch when she handed the waitress her credit card. Initially miffed, she recognized her own contradictions.
''You wonder if you're being a hypocrite,'' she recalled, ''because all date long I'm telling him how independent I was, and how annoying it was that men wouldn't date strong independent women.'' (The relationship ended after six months.)
Michael R. Cunningham, a psychologist who teaches in the communication department at the University of Louisville, conducted a survey of college women to see if, upon graduation, they would prefer to settle down with a high school teacher who has short workdays, summers off and spare energy to help raise children, or with a surgeon who earns eight times as much but works brutal hours. Three-quarters of the women said they would choose the teacher.
The point, Professor Cunningham said, was that young professionally oriented women have no problem dating down if the man is secure, motivated in his own field and emotionally supportive.
At least, that's what their responses are in surveys. Talk about the subject with women a bit older -- those who have been out of college long enough to be more hardened -- and what you hear is ambivalence, if not downright hostility, about the income disparity.
Jade Wannell, 25, a producer at a Chicago ad agency who lives in a high-rise apartment building, started dating a 29-year-old administrator at a trucking company last year. ''He was really sweet,'' she said. But ''he didn't work many hours and ended up hanging out at home a lot. I was bored and didn't feel challenged. He would finish work at 3 and want to go to the bar. The college way of life is still in them at that age. All they want to do is drink with the boys on Saturday. I was like 'Let's go to an art gallery' and all he wanted to do was go to the bars.''
TO her, his lack of income masked a greater problem: a lack of drive.
''I have to say that I didn't like his career, I didn't think he had the goals of someone I would eventually like to be with or have respect for,'' she said, adding, ''It wasn't the job, it was the passion.''
Unyi Agba, 27, an advertising executive with a small firm in Boston, almost always dates professional men, but when she goes out with someone earning less money, there is tension. ''This is a topic that's traveled in my own female circles a lot in the last year,'' she said. Across a restaurant table with a man who earns less, ''it's never explicitly said, but there are nuances,'' she said. ''Things are said like, 'Boy I'm going to be really broke after this dinner.' ''
And her response?
''Silence.''
