I think this basically just all comes back to your "top half"/"bottom half" thing, though it's more exaggerated than that, because really it's that the top 20% are entirely different and WAY better off in every possible dimension than everyone else, while the bottom 20% are such horrible losers in life that they skew every stat and honestly things would look a lot more sane if you just left them off.
The chronically unemployed and often previously incarcerated men in the bottom third are basically totally responsible for skewing all of these median and average stats. Of course marriages where a dude doesn't work at all and has been in jail suck.
But even some of the studies you cited are just really not even nearly as bad as they try to portray. For example, if you look into that 2025 study that purports to show that spouses are less happy in female breadwinner marriages...they literally tossed out all participants who had an income above $84k per year. That was 20% of their sample!! So they completely excluded anyone in the top 30% of earnings and only looked at people in the middle or lower. They don't explain why they did that, but they did that. In fact they considered it a "plus" that after tossing out 20% of their sample, they were only left with people earning at around the median level or below. I'd love to see the data with actual financially comfortable people, and what it looked like for everyone they tossed out who either themselves or their partner made more than $84k, because I bet it would look entirely different.
Similarly, that graph on male infidelity...the rates only go up above 5% where the woman is earning at least 3/4 of the couple's total income, and even where the man earns nothing, they only go up to 15%. That's not really that bad, and to me once again just shows that the type of loser guy with no job, who has probably been in jail, is also likely to be a cheater, with all that time on his hands. Of course he is (keep in mind that about 30% of men will go to jail at least once in their life, and it's a very safe bet that most of the men not working are in that previously incarcerated category).
So basically what we're looking at here is a bunch of people who are financially struggling. I would really love to see the data for couples where the husband is a stay at home dad while the wife is a doctor, or other arrangements where the man earning less does NOT mean they are struggling financially, as I am quite certain that none of these stats look anything like this story we see here. I know a ton of high income couples in this category (in fact it seems like at least half of high income marriages around me of people under 40), and they are all happy stable people. Life is better when you aren't worrying about paying your bills and your husband isn't on disability or can't get a job because he has a criminal record.
Thing is, the *majority* of new marriages today where the woman earns in the top 20% now marry a man who earns less. https://ifstudies.org/blog/women-still-marry-up-but-the-income-gap-is-narrowing And even where the man earns more, it's not much more nowadays. Basically about 4 out of 10 new marriages the man does not earn more, and in the 6 in 10 where he does, she earns about 80% what he does on average, unless she's not working at all. This whole thing is seriously on its way out, though partly that's because the bottom half men just don't bother any more at all. Not only are the highest earning women most likely to marry "down" now economically, but they're also the most likely to get married in the first place, and the least likely to divorce, so this narrative doesn't add up and it's becoming such a big pet peeve of mine how people don't disaggregate these things because the trends are entirely flipped for the top third and bottom third, as you repeatedly note.
I have no idea why our culture continually insists on worrying about the crisis among men when actually there's no crisis except for the guys at the bottom, and it's the women at the bottom who have a total nightmare on their hands to contend with, and basically no options for partners who will commit to them.
I have become so distrustful of any statistics and charts reported. 9 times out of 10 when you click through to the study there is some wild ass control variable or they measured a different thing then is being reported on. If I had more free time I would just write about that.
As a teacher who’s sort of a stay at home dad on summer break this article made me want to scream.
Every line of it just feels lousy. I’m taking the foster kid to the beach picnic while my wife is at work. I have dinner in the slow cooker and the house outside of his room is spotless.
My wife loves summer me—she gets so much more of my attention while I’m a sahd. June and July are great for her.
I of course know I’m an outlier on the other end of the spectrum but I don’t understand the lack of appeal here.
We are and like the more I've sat with that article the more I think it's reductive and missing a lot too. I agree there is a class based element to it that's meaningful but I think it really understates the meaningful tax of really being a feminine man.
It seems to me there are significant penalties to income and safety and socializing that come along with it. Probably somewhat more so if we add age on as a 43 year old men a few years older definitely do not view it as as a flex that I'm an elementary school teacher whose friends with almost only women and my hobbies are as housewifey as you can imagine.
Isn't this missing the point? The article isn't about feminine men, it's about the fragility and danger of female breadwinner marriages. I think your experience is so unusual, that it is irrelevant to the bigger picture.
I think Andrew is responding to the femininity is a flex article.
I do think I've long underestimated the meaningful tax of really being a feminine man. I think I understand it better now, but probably still not even close to fully. I've never really considered, until recently, the fact that men will literally beat up and even kill other men for performing femininity. So when we tell men to be vulnerable, it's literally a dangerous thing to do. Women ostracize and mock feminine men. It's very hard to refuse to perform masculinity, for everyone, but very much moreso people assigned male at birth.
I've been thinking about writing about this point in particular. How we kind of need all, or at least a sizable portion, of men to all go in on defection at the same time. Otherwise the few defectors will keep getting beaten and ostracized.
The one area I'm not sure about here is if women normally ostracize and mock feminine men.
I've found that if you're interested in women as friends, and not as a stepping stone to a relationship, and have feminine interests it's not hard to make women friends. I wonder if this is more class dependent and inviting a colleague to your party is more of a thing teachers would do compared to say retail workers.
The dating situation is more fuzzy and it's no surprise my wife is as gender nonconforming as me in the opposite direction. I'm always a little bit surprised the amount male loneliness is presented in terms of finding a wife/girlfriend because I find having friends equally important to coping with loneliness.
I agree I'm weird but my reply was to the linked article. I can probably stack a bunch of kind of rare identities together.
My original post was just exasperation that so many people don't appreciate this, including many professional women probably truth be told. It gets worse as we go down the ladder.
I have so little association with men that I really don't have much to offer for solutions for them. Between the career, and my interests and autism, where my masking looks like me behaving like an elementary school teacher, I don't have much to offer on how to improve men.
I think there’s an even simpler reason that “top-half” female breadwinner marriages are generally much healthier than their bottom-half counterparts: these marriages (like yours) generally represent actual considered arrangements rather than de facto situations where the wife supports the family because the husband is a lazy chud.
Yes! I think that’s huge. Also, they’re marriages where the folks prefer a model they can’t make happen. Which means there’s probably a lot of other things they want and can’t make happen for themselves.
My marriage was not actually all that well-considered. I met him in college. He had just graduated from an MA program when we married. I knew he wouldn’t make much money. I had no idea how lazy he would turn out to be! He is a sweet, kind man. But I had no idea how far from the average we both turned out to be when it comes to how important “work” is to us. Income I could do without. Hard work and ambition are, as it turns out, non-negotiable to me.
There's no lack of appeal, this pattern is not replicated for people at the top. You're all good. This is people in the bottom where the man is a loser who can barely keep a job and has probably been in jail.
Whilst male breadwinner may be a new concept, male status seeking is not. Is it possible that with level of earning being so tied to societal status and being so easily measured (it's a number hitting the bank account every month), that the strength of male breadwinner (i.e. status seeking) preference, could go way way back in our history?
I think this basically just all comes back to your "top half"/"bottom half" thing, though it's more exaggerated than that, because really it's that the top 20% are entirely different and WAY better off in every possible dimension than everyone else, while the bottom 20% are such horrible losers in life that they skew every stat and honestly things would look a lot more sane if you just left them off.
The chronically unemployed and often previously incarcerated men in the bottom third are basically totally responsible for skewing all of these median and average stats. Of course marriages where a dude doesn't work at all and has been in jail suck.
But even some of the studies you cited are just really not even nearly as bad as they try to portray. For example, if you look into that 2025 study that purports to show that spouses are less happy in female breadwinner marriages...they literally tossed out all participants who had an income above $84k per year. That was 20% of their sample!! So they completely excluded anyone in the top 30% of earnings and only looked at people in the middle or lower. They don't explain why they did that, but they did that. In fact they considered it a "plus" that after tossing out 20% of their sample, they were only left with people earning at around the median level or below. I'd love to see the data with actual financially comfortable people, and what it looked like for everyone they tossed out who either themselves or their partner made more than $84k, because I bet it would look entirely different.
Similarly, that graph on male infidelity...the rates only go up above 5% where the woman is earning at least 3/4 of the couple's total income, and even where the man earns nothing, they only go up to 15%. That's not really that bad, and to me once again just shows that the type of loser guy with no job, who has probably been in jail, is also likely to be a cheater, with all that time on his hands. Of course he is (keep in mind that about 30% of men will go to jail at least once in their life, and it's a very safe bet that most of the men not working are in that previously incarcerated category).
So basically what we're looking at here is a bunch of people who are financially struggling. I would really love to see the data for couples where the husband is a stay at home dad while the wife is a doctor, or other arrangements where the man earning less does NOT mean they are struggling financially, as I am quite certain that none of these stats look anything like this story we see here. I know a ton of high income couples in this category (in fact it seems like at least half of high income marriages around me of people under 40), and they are all happy stable people. Life is better when you aren't worrying about paying your bills and your husband isn't on disability or can't get a job because he has a criminal record.
Thing is, the *majority* of new marriages today where the woman earns in the top 20% now marry a man who earns less. https://ifstudies.org/blog/women-still-marry-up-but-the-income-gap-is-narrowing And even where the man earns more, it's not much more nowadays. Basically about 4 out of 10 new marriages the man does not earn more, and in the 6 in 10 where he does, she earns about 80% what he does on average, unless she's not working at all. This whole thing is seriously on its way out, though partly that's because the bottom half men just don't bother any more at all. Not only are the highest earning women most likely to marry "down" now economically, but they're also the most likely to get married in the first place, and the least likely to divorce, so this narrative doesn't add up and it's becoming such a big pet peeve of mine how people don't disaggregate these things because the trends are entirely flipped for the top third and bottom third, as you repeatedly note.
I have no idea why our culture continually insists on worrying about the crisis among men when actually there's no crisis except for the guys at the bottom, and it's the women at the bottom who have a total nightmare on their hands to contend with, and basically no options for partners who will commit to them.
I have become so distrustful of any statistics and charts reported. 9 times out of 10 when you click through to the study there is some wild ass control variable or they measured a different thing then is being reported on. If I had more free time I would just write about that.
As a teacher who’s sort of a stay at home dad on summer break this article made me want to scream.
Every line of it just feels lousy. I’m taking the foster kid to the beach picnic while my wife is at work. I have dinner in the slow cooker and the house outside of his room is spotless.
My wife loves summer me—she gets so much more of my attention while I’m a sahd. June and July are great for her.
I of course know I’m an outlier on the other end of the spectrum but I don’t understand the lack of appeal here.
Are you both top half? https://cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/p/femininity-is-a-flex-for-top-half
We are and like the more I've sat with that article the more I think it's reductive and missing a lot too. I agree there is a class based element to it that's meaningful but I think it really understates the meaningful tax of really being a feminine man.
It seems to me there are significant penalties to income and safety and socializing that come along with it. Probably somewhat more so if we add age on as a 43 year old men a few years older definitely do not view it as as a flex that I'm an elementary school teacher whose friends with almost only women and my hobbies are as housewifey as you can imagine.
Isn't this missing the point? The article isn't about feminine men, it's about the fragility and danger of female breadwinner marriages. I think your experience is so unusual, that it is irrelevant to the bigger picture.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding you?
I think Andrew is responding to the femininity is a flex article.
I do think I've long underestimated the meaningful tax of really being a feminine man. I think I understand it better now, but probably still not even close to fully. I've never really considered, until recently, the fact that men will literally beat up and even kill other men for performing femininity. So when we tell men to be vulnerable, it's literally a dangerous thing to do. Women ostracize and mock feminine men. It's very hard to refuse to perform masculinity, for everyone, but very much moreso people assigned male at birth.
I've been thinking about writing about this point in particular. How we kind of need all, or at least a sizable portion, of men to all go in on defection at the same time. Otherwise the few defectors will keep getting beaten and ostracized.
The one area I'm not sure about here is if women normally ostracize and mock feminine men.
I've found that if you're interested in women as friends, and not as a stepping stone to a relationship, and have feminine interests it's not hard to make women friends. I wonder if this is more class dependent and inviting a colleague to your party is more of a thing teachers would do compared to say retail workers.
The dating situation is more fuzzy and it's no surprise my wife is as gender nonconforming as me in the opposite direction. I'm always a little bit surprised the amount male loneliness is presented in terms of finding a wife/girlfriend because I find having friends equally important to coping with loneliness.
I read an interesting thread about the girlfriend focus of male loneliness: https://www.threads.com/@keviemetal/post/DKUT65BuX-H?xmt=AQF0Kaot-Gu45Xp6zSpohsyCnY6FIET9DWBD128PmduplQ
Sorry yes, I see that now.
I agree I'm weird but my reply was to the linked article. I can probably stack a bunch of kind of rare identities together.
My original post was just exasperation that so many people don't appreciate this, including many professional women probably truth be told. It gets worse as we go down the ladder.
I have so little association with men that I really don't have much to offer for solutions for them. Between the career, and my interests and autism, where my masking looks like me behaving like an elementary school teacher, I don't have much to offer on how to improve men.
I think there’s an even simpler reason that “top-half” female breadwinner marriages are generally much healthier than their bottom-half counterparts: these marriages (like yours) generally represent actual considered arrangements rather than de facto situations where the wife supports the family because the husband is a lazy chud.
Yes! I think that’s huge. Also, they’re marriages where the folks prefer a model they can’t make happen. Which means there’s probably a lot of other things they want and can’t make happen for themselves.
My marriage was not actually all that well-considered. I met him in college. He had just graduated from an MA program when we married. I knew he wouldn’t make much money. I had no idea how lazy he would turn out to be! He is a sweet, kind man. But I had no idea how far from the average we both turned out to be when it comes to how important “work” is to us. Income I could do without. Hard work and ambition are, as it turns out, non-negotiable to me.
There's no lack of appeal, this pattern is not replicated for people at the top. You're all good. This is people in the bottom where the man is a loser who can barely keep a job and has probably been in jail.
What and insightful and depressing article.
Whilst male breadwinner may be a new concept, male status seeking is not. Is it possible that with level of earning being so tied to societal status and being so easily measured (it's a number hitting the bank account every month), that the strength of male breadwinner (i.e. status seeking) preference, could go way way back in our history?
I had a really sweet reply, but it disappeared and now none of you will ever know.
No notes.