Prometheus 6

A 2003 survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that about a third of wives earned more than their husbands. And about 43 percent of household income overall was earned by women, according to a 2003 study by the Families and Work Institute, a group in New York.

This data doesn’t begin to reveal the uncomfortable situation that breadwinner women are in: How to renegotiate expectations for everything from who manages the money to who does the laundry — when you’re C.F.O. of the household.

When I say uncomfortable, I’m trying to be polite. The women I know in these shoes are seething — with uncertainty, resentment, anxiety and frustration. The patterns that seem “normal” when the husband is the breadwinner don’t hold up when women earn most or even all of the income.

That is partly because “men have a sense of esteem, of identity that comes with being the provider,” says Barbara Risman, professor of sociology at the University of Chicago. “Women don’t get the same identity benefit — there’s a sense that one has a double burden.”

A Breadwinner Rethinks Gender Roles
By M.P. DUNLEAVEY

WHEN my son was born last fall, my husband and I had a plan. After a short maternity leave, I would continue to work, and he would quit his job to take care of the baby.

I didn’t think of myself as becoming the breadwinner; I had always earned the higher income. The fact that my mate would have a job at home, just not a paying one for now, didn’t bother me.

The main hurdle, we assumed, would be figuring out how to afford the shift from two incomes to one. That has turned out to be the least of our problems. The real challenge is navigating the kinds of financial and emotional issues that you can’t enter into a calculator or plug into a spreadsheet.

Like so many women raised at the tail end of feminism’s first wave, I assumed that my spouse and I would enjoy a relationship based on equality. Equality is an overworked word, but to me it meant sharing the income, chores and child care.

So when my husband asked me the other day, “Did your concept of ‘equality’ ever include supporting the family?” I had to admit that my answer was no.

I wanted it to be yes. If men could provide for their wives and families, as they have traditionally in many cultures, why shouldn’t women feel just fine about assuming that role themselves? Why didn’t I?