Letter here. Excerpt:
'Dear Carolyn:
What’s your opinion on women who grossly out-earn their partners? I’m a raging feminist yet have difficulty with the fact that I make much more than my boyfriend. He doesn’t have a college degree, so his lifetime salary ceiling is capped. If we ever buy a home together, I’ll have to pay more — but he can fix almost anything. Then I shudder to think “he’s earning his keep.”
How do people avoid resentment? If I made $250,000, I’d care less, but I don’t want to face a lifetime of struggling with bills and never feeling financially secure (especially once we have kids) while dealing with the fact that he can’t contribute equally.'
Carolyn replies:
'The lenses through which you’re viewing this situation aren’t doing you any good. Making it a male-female issue is a loser, because it’s breathtakingly unfair; you can’t demand/expect/capitalize on equal opportunity (“feminism”) and then be dismayed at or disparage the men you out-earn. The inevitable consequence of a bias-free system is that roughly half of the women in hetero couples will have to get used to the idea of making more than their sweetumses.'
