Paloma Faith is doing her best to keep it real. The singer-songwriter’s new album Exaltation of SorrowIt is about separation struggles. 2021 documentary, as I am, It sparked a debate about the incompatibility of art and motherhood.
Now, in a recent interview, she talks about how she broke up with her partner two years ago, partly because of his demands to have children.
He said: “Men like to be put first and resentment builds.” Away from Faith (she’s clearly on good terms with her ex and no one else was involved), this revelation may have sent shockwaves through women’s hearts. Is there still no such thing as a completely supportive man? Is this really true even now?
I can’t believe I’m asking this in 2024. By now 21st century women must be fighting with big sticks the liberal, modern-minded men who “get it.” But perhaps this is a question that will never quite go away. And maybe some women are secretly afraid of this answer.
Right now, both men and women might marvel at the idea that any working parent, for example, would think they had the chance to be “first in line” for the foreseeable future, if ever again (if they fear). Is there still any truth to men who are shaken, even emasculated, by a woman whose main focus is elsewhere? This isn’t just about the sexual politics of date night (that ancient affair, Elastoplast): It’s a teeming hornet’s nest of socioeconomic gender issues, including how earnings relate to status inside and outside the household. Because the gender pay gap needs to be tackled, women do not routinely earn more than their partners. But that’s not unheard of: reaching an all-time high of 30.6% in the US in 2021. This is where things can get complicated.
While women are thought to enjoy the success of their male partners, some men feel insecure when the tables are turned.
While women are thought to enjoy the success of their male partners, when the tables are turned some men feel insecure, belittled and resentful. You would think that men would be relieved if women were making economic progress in difficult times. Yes, but only to a carefully calibrated degree (you guessed it: women still earn less than they do). One study found that men don’t always express such concerns and resentments verbally, but they still mark them subconsciously.
Even men who enjoy being with alpha women don’t want to outperform. Last year’s hit Netflix movie Fair play I studied this: the power imbalance inherent in a woman daring to do better than her man. Shock. Wounded, fragile male ego. Anger… Pass the gender popcorn!
Beyond this being a fun fic, there is a lot that suggests that such women end up being punished. Women who earn higher incomes still face society’s disapproval (some couples even resort to lying about the man’s lower earnings). Psychodrama also infiltrates housework and childcare. It’s a sitcom-like reality where men are praised, without being asked or thanked, for household chores normally undertaken by women; and any housework is recorded and itemized by some men as “evidence” of their great sacrifice and suffering, for which a medal is sure to follow soon.
In the real world, 45% of British female breadwinners still do most of the housework, compared to 12.5% of male breadwinners. In fact, women routinely undertake much more housework and childcare; even when men work less. Women who earn higher incomes are also more likely to be cheated on and divorced.
While the statistics may be vague (for example, divorce figures may be related to women having more financial freedom to separate), there is still a sense that high-achieving women should be humbled, placed where they “deserve.” Men who cheat claim that they need to recalibrate what their conditioning tells them is an unnatural gender imbalance. Perhaps the bigger surprise is the idea that some women collude in this matter; that women may be doing far more than their fair share of housework and childcare, in a bizarre attempt to appease the “man of the house” and compensate for upended traditional male-female dynamics.
Is this where we are? You’d think that by the turn of the millennium, with the “Surrendered Wives” claptrap (for the blissfully unaware: primarily co-op U.S. women playing cooing, apron-clad house servants) this phenomenon would have taken an extremely creepy turn. Looking around, one realizes that the Miss America pageant (advancing female stereotypes since 1977!) is still going strong.
But it turns out that many ordinary women may also be frantically trying to keep the peace, hiding their accomplishments in a pile of juice boxes and dirty laundry, sublimating their own needs with a creepy display of artificial femininity. Women who are anxious about intimidating (or turning away) their men and therefore diminish themselves; are as small as they can be.
Where is hope? Obviously, younger, smarter people are coming, but it becomes clear that even younger men can take some time to shed their conditioning and recover from the shock of displacement, and old-school attitudes are still internalized. and acted upon, and not only by men. Perhaps the tide will only turn when women weaponize their anger. When the revolution comes, we will talk about being a “priority”.
• Barbara Ellen is an Observer columnist