Comment by filoleg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by filoleg | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I feel like this one is a problem on both ends. Quite many women are not ok with dating men earning less than them, and quite many men are not comfortable dating women earning more than them.

From my personal perspective, it is sheer silliness, especially on the part of (a good number of) men. While I don’t agree with it, I can see why someone would be hesitant to date someone earning less than them. But I am struggling to see that many tangible downsides of dating someone earning more than you do.

There are, of course, some potential downsides in every situation. But given that men (in general) seem to have no personal qualms about dating women earning less than them, i fail to see why a good number of them would be so vocally opposed to the inverse of it.

People compare themselves to their spouses. If you feel like your spouse is "our of your league" it's harder to feel secure in your relationship. Men are probably being pretty pragmatic here, given that even though higher income tends to make men more attractive as a spouse, women still initiate 70% of divorces.

Culturally, a lot of the value men bring to the relationship is providership, security, stability. If you as a man don’t even bring that anymore, what do you bring? If you don’t bring anything, are you just another fling?

We used to say that about women and doing domestic chores. "Well women take care of the kids, provide a stable loving home and warm meals for the family. If they work what do they even bring to a relationship??". It's unfortunate that we can't seem to be so progressive on these things

That's a very interesting line of thought.

Once upon a time if you were not an attractive woman, you could still be a very appealing match if you learned to be a great cook & were great with kids. Now, if you aren't gorgeous, a winning personality is the only play you have left. There might be a really interesting discussion there. Perhaps reduced role of homemaking has increased the pressure of beauty standards on women...

Those men are probably afraid that the women will disrespect, cheat, abuse and divorce them. Remember that women initiate 70% of the divorces.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com