I feel bad for women with really big jobs who make a boatload of money. Somewhere along the line, they got the message (from their parents, from their professors, from the culture, etc.) that a high-paying career should be their life’s goal. As a result, from the time these women graduated high school, they began mapping out a life that would reflect just that. They deprioritized everything else and became the powerhouses they were taught to become.
No one told them it comes at a cost.
A new study examined how promotions to top jobs affected the probability of divorce and determined that getting a top job “dramatically increases” a woman’s chances of divorce.
“Promotion to a top job in politics increases the divorce rate of women but not for men, and women who become CEOs divorce faster than men who become CEOs,” notes Johanna Rickne, a professor at Stockholm University and co-author of the research study.
This will no doubt upset women who’ve chosen a more traditional male path, with work at the center. But those who understand and accept (the acceptance part is key) the vast differences between women and men and how these differences are designed to work in tandem, the finding makes perfect sense. In other words, it isn’t cause for alarm.
If anything, as Rickne points out, it’s a good lesson for the United States, since we are quickly moving toward a more egalitarian economy. Because what this research is essentially saying is that even in the most egalitarian countries in the world, sex differences and human desire trump the massive amount of time, energy, rhetoric, and wealth people spend to achieve so-called equality.
Indeed, men and women have different wants and needs. To provide and to protect are at the core of a man’s identity, whether it’s 1920 or 2020. It is not his singular means to care for a wife and children, but to him, it’s the most important. It is the unique contribution he brings, the way giving birth is to a woman.
The truly beautiful part is that women are made to respond to a man’s desire to provide and to protect. When a wife knows she can rely on her husband, whether or not she’s employed herself, her respect for him comes naturally. She wants to feel taken care of, and he wants to take care of her.
When this dynamic breaks down (for whatever reason, perhaps the husband is unemployed, or the wife earns more), the resentment sets in, and the respect and the sex fall away. Divorce is almost inevitable.
Had today’s high-earning women been privy to how their wealth would affect their marriages and love lives, many would have made different choices early on. But they were misled by a generation that had marinated in the idea that in order for women to be deemed worthy, they had to live a man’s life. By doing so, women lose the greatest power they own: feminine power.
Feminine power is rooted in warmth, in grace, in nurturing, and in loving. It’s focused on feelings and emotions more than it is on the bottom line. Indeed, the power of the feminine is what allows a marriage to flourish. Without it, a relationship will die.
Sadly, women who were indoctrinated to believe that masculine is powerful and feminine is weak traded in their feminine power for a different kind of power: wealth. This wealth was meant to keep women from having to “depend on a man,” but all it did, in the end, is keep them from having a man at all. “Rickne’s data suggests that women who divorce after scoring top promotions are less likely than men to remarry or have a serious relationship,” writes Maddie Savage.
There is no way for an egalitarian society to thrive because it’s in direct conflict with male and female nature. “I think this norm changing is pretty far off,” notes Rickne.
Far off, indeed. The truth is, it ain’t ever gonna happen. In the fight between man and nature, nature always wins. We’re much better off embracing reality than fighting against it. That’s where the real power lies.
Suzanne Venker (@SuzanneVenker) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She’s the author of five books and a relationship coach, as well as host of The Suzanne Venker Show. Her website is www.suzannevenker.com.
