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Uptown Girls Say Success Makes Dates Uneasy

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By ALEX WILLIAMS, The New York Times

Published: September 30, 2007

For Whitney Hess, a 25-year-old software designer in New York, 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 the Tribeca area of Manhattan, would only reinforce the impression.

'They wouldn't want me to see their apartments,' she said.

Hess' 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.
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.

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.'

Anna Rosenmann, 28, who founded a company called Eco Consulting LA in Los Angeles, earns up to $150,000 a year.

She 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 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.'

Sometimes, however, it is the women who are uncomfortable with the role reversal.

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