My girlfriend is a stunningly successful career woman. A self-trained computer game and blockchain programmer, she is fluent in multiple programming languages, successful as a cryptocurrency trader, and soon to be fairly well-off when the startup she works for and holds stock in it completes its IPO. Her wide networks in the programming world mean she frequently finds herself at the receiving end headhunting messages with highly competitive compensation packages. But with the high demand for her skills, she finds no trouble finding better work anyways even without the headhunters.
As the romantic partner that she chose, I should be very happy but I find myself quite jealous. Despite the stability of my work and not at all shabby pay by Japanese standards, I realize that the potential for her to up her income in the future is many times what I can possibly achieve in my career, barring some hard bargains and frequent job changes within the same industry. Given my past tendency to swap into different industries with completely different skillsets and even countries of operation, my professional interests may instead see me jumping into new fields at the expense of lowered salaries.
Of course, she is not the first or the last that I am jealous of from a professional standpoint. In any industry and country, there is always someone more successful and well-compensated. But following the tried-and-true approach of not comparing oneself with others, I have been keeping a healthy distance from those that elicit envy as a standard coping mechanism. Putting myself in a place where I can think about what I want out of my life and my career, without the presence of others nearby to inadvertently cause comparisons, has allowed me to independently make decisions out of interest, not money.
Yet, the prospect of someone who is always nearby being more professionally successful has triggered negative reactions in me that even I feel as shockingly serious. When putting a healthy distance is not a realistic option without damaging the fundamental romantic factor of the relationship, an almost toxic sense of masculinity sets in. Despite the recent global trends in respect for gender equality, many people, myself included, are raised in a society that continues to consider the male partner making more than the female as "normal" and the main breadwinner of a family being female as a sign of the husband's failure.
The continued presence of this "traditional" belief, that the man ought to make more than a woman in a relationship, has led to many successful women unnecessarily going out of their way to cater to this toxic masculinity. To start and secure stable relationships, women have had to hide their professional success from their male partners. Those who cannot be bothered with such self-censorship of professional success have chosen to abandon the very idea of a long-term romantic partnership, adding to the now international phenomenon of highly educated women forgoing marriage and children.
Calming the jealousy of men toward their female partners requires facing down a tricky chicken-and-an-egg question. Getting more men to accept women as being more successful than they require an almost revolutionary change in how we define masculinity beyond financial success and the biological sex. Yet, to get the ball rolling on the revolutionary change, a sufficient number of new youngsters to be born in the first place – a task that would be much more difficult if women do not hide or even sacrifice their financial success on the road to becoming a mother.
Indeed, navigating the intricacies of how to get more men to accept their female partners being more successful is fraught with risks as they change from merely a couple to a long-term family. The power relationship between the two parents, measured by their relative professional success, will greatly affect what kind of values are instilled in their children, and who take up the leading role in childrearing and early childhood education. The children's relationship with the two parents, as they come to understand the power balance between the two, will also affect how they see male-female relations as adults.
There is no easy solution on the horizon. The fact that even I, often consciously proud of socially progressive values on gender parity, find myself reflexively jealous of my girlfriend's success and helpless in how to cope with its devastating mental impact in the short term. Too many couples in a similar situation may end up avoiding the topic of money in conversations as a bandaid solution, perpetuating the "traditional" belief of the male success over the female one despite the real world being increasingly at odds with such toxic masculinity. Bright ideas would certainly be needed to resolve the dilemma.
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