Women are significant contributors to consumer spending, with estimates often citing around 70-80% of purchasing decisions being influenced or made by women.

However, the gender wage still persist with men earning more than women. As of September 2021, in the United States, women earned, on average, about 82 cents for every dollar earned by men. In terms of the percentage of all income earned by men, it was roughly around 60-70% due to the wage gap.

So let's say men earn 70% of all income but 70% of all spending is done by women. This means that of all the money that men earn, about 60% of it is transferred to women, which is an enormous amount.

This would suggest that women need men more than men need women because women will simply go broke if they didn't have men.

However, an argument can be made that even though so much money is being given to women, most of it is to give men what they want eg if a man wants to have children but he is busy working and the woman ends up buying the nappies, this is counted as a purchase by a female rather than a male, but maybe the male wants the child and the woman is just going along with his wants.

Also another argument against the idea that women are desperate and need a man's money is that the gender wage gap statistic may not capture different types of women. Women who are married and stay at home looking after children understandably earn nothing and would push down the average salary of women. However, there is evidence that young childfree women actually earn more than men.

https://abcnews.go.com/WN/reverse-gender-gap-study-young-childless-women-earn/story?id=11538401

This finding suggests the opposite which is that women actually have the upper hand because when they are young and childfree they earn more and can be picky about the men they are with. They can even choose to be childfree and single forever which would allow them to dedicate themselves to their career for longer and earn more over their lifetime. The fact that young childfree women earn more may be why so many men are so desperate.