Bringing home the bacon

Is it an issue anymore if a woman makes more than her husband?

I am moderating a panel tonight on women in corporate America. I know I'd like to be an executive one day. I'd also like to be a mom one day and I know it's a tough balance in more ways than one.

Do guys mind if their partner makes more? I mean, they might say they don't mind, but do they?

Here's something I wrote a few years ago on the subject:

A few months ago, I did a scary thing.
I bought my own house.

Even though more women are buying homes, having babies, living their lives alone, when I was a kid, I never thought I would buy a house without first being married.

(I also didn't think I would be 25 and single, but I'm OK with that part.)

But having a house changed the way I look at dating. 

When I was younger, I dated guys who couldn't afford my movie ticket, guys who lived in shabby apartment houses with three or four friends. I can't do that now. I have a full-time job, a car and a mortgage. But it's hard to find guys who are on my level.

I can't go back to dating guys who live in junky apartments, and I can't kiss another frog who doesn't have a real job.

As for the rest of Kansas City, I talked to some people and found out that maybe I've just been dating the wrong guys. 

A recent poll conducted for The Kansas City Star by Market Data Specialists asked 600 single adults between 20 and 34, "Who usually pays for a date?" The majority of respondents - 61 percent - said the guy usually foots the bill. Three percent said the girl usually does, and 20 percent said they usually split the bill.

So, it's Saturday night. You're on a dinner date. The bill comes. This is where the story becomes a choose-your-own adventure. Who pays? The woman? The man? Do they split it? Does any of this even matter? 

Yeah, it matters. I've gotta pay," said Chris Meneses, 31, of Kansas City. "It's the gentlemanly thing to do. It's always been known that men pay." 

But does any of this change when the woman makes more than the man?

 Meneses said no way.

 "She makes her money, and I make my money," he said. "It doesn't matter to me who makes more."

 Aja Hardy, 27, said she was a bit traditional, too.

 "In the interest of keeping chivalry alive, I think the male should pay on the first few dates," she said. "I have no problem with going Dutch after that."

 Although men as a whole still make more, there were more than 1.4 million women 25 and older who were working full-time, year-round jobs and making at least $100,000, according to the most recent Census figures.

So men might be bringing home the bacon, but some women are bringing home the filet mignon.

"We don't need them for a dinner any more," Hardy said. "It makes them have to step up their game a little if the individual they're dating pays her own bills and doesn't need them for the traditional male role." 

Ninety-seven percent of local singles said they would date someone who makes more money. At the same time, 83 percent said they also would date someone who makes less.

They might not like it, though

"I'm a little traditional, so I would prefer the male to make more," Hardy said, "but I know that sometimes that can't always be the case."

Hardy has met men who were intimidated by her career gains. One guy even told her he didn't hang out with women from "corporate America."

"Either you get guys who are scared because the norms are challenged," she said, "or you meet some that probably are scrubs like, `You can pay for everything,'"

(For the uninitiated, a scrub is always talking about what he wants while he sits on his broke ass.)

I didn't find any scrubs - at least none willing to admit they'd love a sugar mama - but I did find some men who wouldn't mind having a woman with a fat paycheck. One was 27-year-old Kansas Citian Tim Rowland.

"I'm an artist," Rowland said. "I don't hold standards like the rest of the American population."

He still pays most of the time but wouldn't protest if his date pulled out her purse.

"Depending on the night, where we went to, if the situation was right," he said.

Some men I talked to said they like to pay for things because they feel it's right; they feel like they're supposed to be the providers and caretakers. Some women - those who are tired of dating jobless guys who live in their parents' basement - would love to hear that.

But 23-year-old Sarah Carlew of Kansas City said men who have an "archaic view that they need to be providers" need not apply.

"Men who feel like they need to take care of the little lady, that's not cool," she said. "That's a turnoff, I think."

When it comes to who makes more or who pays, she has no requirements. At dinner, when the check comes, she always offers to pay at least half. And she thinks she might have dated men who made less than she did, but she's not sure.

"I have dated some high-school dropouts, but none of them has ever been intimidated, or at least they haven't shown that if they were," she said. "I generally don't talk about money with guys I'm dating. It's not a huge concern."

All the guys I talked to said some men felt inferior to women who made more money. All of them also made a point to say they weren't among those men.

Take Meneses, for example.

"I think the guy wants to be in charge, and a woman who makes more money would be a threat to some people," he said. "Not to me, of course."

And although other guys won't admit it, at least one guy told me that when it comes down to it, he'd like to wear the pants - with the wallet in his back pocket.

"It's that whole machismo thing," said Danilo Aguilar, 23, of Kansas City. "If she were to make more money, I would accept it, but inherently, I would prefer to make more money."

When a woman makes more money, "it crashes the egotism," he said. "That's what it comes down to, is male egotism."