Random Musings: The Rise of the Independent Woman

This post came about because of an article I read on CNN entitled Are Women Leaving Men Behind? An interesting piece and definitely worth a read. More than anything, it got me thinking about male/female dynamics.

I’ve run into more than my share of guys (some friends, some random strangers) who tend to poo poo the Independent Woman. They see her as a symbol of man hatred.

But let’s examine this for a second. What exactly is an Independent Woman? I would say that she is someone who does not have to depend on others for basic survival. Probably has a job that allows her to, at the very least, support herself. Might own her own place/car/whatever. Possibly educated, probably to a fairly high level.

So what’s wrong with the Independent Woman? Some of my guy friends argue that she is a result of anti-men tendencies. But how? I’m not a man, so my perspective may be biased. However, could it be less that the America is anti-men and more the loosening of traditional gender roles?

For a long time in America women were very limited in what they could do and the type of jobs they could take, if they were allowed to work at all. And forget about getting an education beyond Home Economics classes. Too many people saw educating girls as useless anyway, focusing on educating the boys instead. Which of course meant that when the boys grew up they had more opportunities, more options while the girls were, by and large, dependant on their future husbands.

Fast forward to my generation and you see women getting degrees at higher rates than men. In the black community in particular I think it’s something like women earn 65% of BAs. I believe the numbers are even more lopsided the higher you move up the education ladder (don’t quote me on this...if someone has more updated/accurate figures please let me know and I’ll change this).

With these degrees, women have more opportunities, more options to provide for themselves, are less dependent on others for basic survival, which I think is awesome. But I’ve run into some guys who see this as emasculating. Or more specifically emasculating if the woman in their relationship earns more money, has a higher degree (or in some cases a degree at all) and.or owns property/cars/investments/etc. Too often such women are accused of “trying to be the man in the relationship.” But a woman making more money doesn't automatically make her the "man" in the relationship. By assuming it does, this holds to a very specific idea of the gender roles of men and women.

At any rate a relationship is (or at least should be) built on the idea of each person as an equal partner. So even if one partner makes more than the other partner, neither should have an automatic veto on decisions within the relationship. They (in theory) should come to a consensus together, no?

Now, on to the emasculation argument: is it a valid one or is it a matter of a man FEELING emasculated because the relationship doesn’t necessarily fit within the sometimes still strict view of the role of men and women? On the flip side of this, if a woman comes into a relationship with little to no money/assets/education/skills/etc they’re accused of being nothing more than a gold digger. So how are we supposed to win? Either we’re emasculating or we’re gold diggers. Very problematic indeed.

I was talking with my friend J about this issue and she made a great point: because there are so many choices in terms of the type of women out there, men often have no clue want they want. And beyond that, they often feel threatened by woman who, for lack of a better term, do it for themselves: “Men look upon every advance of women as something they lose, like someone had to lose when they don’t realize that if women are more empowered, they actually win.”

What do y’all think? Is the rise of the Independent Woman a good thing? Anti-male? Or simply the result of centuries of gender inequality slowly falling by the wayside?