COVER: Are men intimidated by successful women?

Career success of one partner in a relationship doesn’t have to determine the longevity of that relationship.

We’ve witnessed powerful couples coexisting in blissful matrimony for decades. Couples such as Bill and Hillary Clinton have both reached the apex of their respective careers, but have managed to stay together through out, albeit having to overcome some obstacles along the way. In Tanzania we witnessed our very own Dr Asha-Rose Migiro become the Deputy Secretary General of the UN in 2007 to 2012, while her husband, Prof Cleophas Migiro lectures at the University of Dar es Salaam.  But even with such power and success attached to her name, her marriage stayed intact. Her husband showed support by publicly praising Dr Asha-Rose and accompanying her to some corporate functions.

However, such compatibility doesn’t resonate in all relationships.

Undoing a long history

Some women have always consoled themselves that it is just an issue of self esteem whenever a relationship with a man turns sour after a short period of time.

For this, they employ reductive reasoning based on the assumption that maybe the man felt intimated by how strong, smart and successful the woman is.

The plight of high-status women is something that has been reported excessively. Yet, the well-educated young woman in her 30s or 40s, earns a good salary, and has a great social life — but she is single and is worried that her success might be the reason she has not met a suitor.

Looking at how women are consistently rising in many spheres across the world, in Tanzania for instance, we’ve seen women rise in education, a considerable number of corporations have employed women in top positions – all these sum up to accumulated influence and power in society.

The social repercussion of such rise will have women surmise that men feel threatened by such success. A strong independent woman with a successful career can find her own way thereby undercutting the value of a man. She sets her eyes on men who’ve accumulated the same or more success so as to maintain her social status.

Though some might conclude that such thoughts of men being intimidated are mere fallacies, Hilda Luciano, a successful career woman with a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) accolade might beg to differ.

 For the past three years, she has seen her less-accomplished childhood friends getting married and starting up families. Whenever she attended her friends’ weddings, Hilda always wondered when her right time would come.

But being a successful woman in Tanzania comes with its own demerits, as a developing country, the number of equally successful men looking for partners is declining, this leaves you with average men at your disposal.

As the clock continues to tick, Hilda is not close to getting married. She has reached a point where she is demoralised. 

“I don’t know what is happening to me, I go to corporate parties and engage in conversation with different kinds of men, nobody has ever been bold enough to approach me and say that he wants us to get to know each other better,” says the 33-year-old.

Hilda is now a desperate woman; she no longer attends weddings, fearing she would be labelled as the ‘unmarried’.

Men shying away from successful women

As the disparity between men and women in positions of power continues to shrink every year, people have opined that a woman who is on equal or higher level of education or finances than a man tends not to attract suitors.

It has even been suggested that a woman should try to make it seem less obvious that she is smart in order to have a chance of attracting the average man.

But successful women have also set the bar too high. It is uncommon to find a woman who has worked her way up the corporate ladder end up marrying a man who hasn’t achieved admirable success.

Women like Hilda have failed to find suitors.

It is not that they are not attractive; but rather it is due to their high expectations that make them feel most men are inadequate.

Men with same academic backgrounds and respected jobs stand a higher chance with them.

Perhaps there’s a reason behind successful women having an eye for men who have high career accomplishments; women go through a lot in their rise to success.

She has to overcome obstacles by being boldly decisive and highly opinionated.

However, some women tend to bring the same qualities into the relationship as well, something that most men loathe.

Men are usually viewed as pillars of the family; therefore having a more educated and financially endowed women is met with resistance. This therefore makes men shy away from successful women.

Successful women suspect that men are intimidated by strong women who might challenge them, or that they cling to outdated gender roles by which they have to be the primary if not sole providers.

As Kiki Strickland, a certified relationship coach for singles and an author of How Divas Date and How to Date like a Diva to Get Your Mr Right argues, such women tend to focus on men who look like Shemar Moore, have a PhD and a wallet full of money.

Stunning academic credentials

Although some relationship experts are of the opinion that people who share similar values, backgrounds and goals are more likely to have a successful marriages, there is yet another school of thought that asserts that opposites may attract but may not live together harmoniously as married couples.

People who share common backgrounds and similar social networks are better suited as marriage partners than people from very different backgrounds and networks.

Nevertheless, such men develop cold feet once they come across women with stunning academic credentials and hefty salaries.

“It is incomprehensible to share a roof with a woman who outshines you in everything,” says Severine Kimolo a businessman based in Dar es Salaam.

Kimolo, a holder of Masters Degree in Business Administration, but yet to marry, thinks that an ‘ordinary man’ as he puts it, will be submissive to the learned woman, while he is supposed to be the head of the family.

According to Kimolo, men like him would rather go for ordinary women they bump into at recreational venues or tend to gravitate towards company secretaries.

“When a woman is more accomplished in terms of education and cash, be assured that such a marriage is heading nowhere,”he says.

Whereas women appreciate an accomplished man, such a relationship can become stressful especially after one of the couples has had a straining day in the office, only to come back home to a competitive environment, much similar to the one left at work.

Echoing similar views, Kimolo says, “ordinary women aren’t as concerned with our success as their professional counterparts are, as long as we make decent money and can support them, that’s all that matters to them. This is viewed as a less stressful relationship environment, something that gratifies men.”

Objectifying each other

The question of whether women can objectify men also gets asked a lot. This stems from the fact that men too often sexually objectify women. In the Good Men Project website, Mark D White writes that women are often judged solely based on their appearance, and treated differently based on how they measure up to men’s ideas of what they should look like.

This, according to Mark, is obvious, and he is sure that majority of men applaud the women who tolerate this offensive treatment that reduces women to just one aspect of who they are, while ignoring their many other strengths.

However, there had to be a “but”—women should acknowledge that they often do the same thing to men—not based on looks as much as on jobs, careers, and success.

“This may even explain another thing that I’ve heard professional women wonder about: why the men they know and work with, at similar levels of success, are very attracted to “ordinary women” such as waitresses and bar tenders,” he argues.

Mark further argues that men seek out women who look well-suited to bearing and raising children, and women seek out men with wealth and power to ensure the children will prosper.

“Of course, we don’t think of it like this: men and women each interpret their preferences in terms of attractiveness. In addition, each person desires a unique combination of traits in another person, conscious preferences which may, on occasion, overwhelm our subconscious evolved desires”.

He believes that those basic desires are always there and can cause problems when we think we’ve evolved socially beyond them—such as when women desire successful men even after they’ve achieved success themselves.

Emma John Tesha is a perfect example of Mark’s assertion.

At 35 years of age, Emma, a working woman with a Masters Degree in International Business has already envisioned the kind of man she would marry.

“The man I would marry should at least have a masters degree like me and with a decent job, that is the man who suits me”.

On being asked why she opts for such a man, Emma’s response is simple; she wants to maintain her status.

She believes that men who fall short of such expectations tend to become paranoid and inferior.

“Isn’t it pleasing to see your husband involved in some useful discussions with your workmates and other peers” she queries.

Fitting her standard of living

Learned women earning hefty salaries always eye men that fit their standard of living but hardly get their matches.

“Various reasons come in when there is no perfect match not in characters but how hefty or intelligent one is, and such norms make men turn their backs on such kind of women for fear of becoming towed around like pets,” says Jaykesh Rathod, a  relationship counsellor based in Dar es Salaam.

He argues that on the other hand, women cannot afford being asked questions such as ‘is he really your husband’? and would rather avoid being accompanied by them to dinner galas or parties when their husbands have poor academic credentials.

“If only ladies would set aside those norms then there are many men and likewise ladies who can have a loving partner and have a healthy relationship,” adds the counsellor.

Jaykesh ponders: What is the point of having colourful academic credentials and a loaded purse while your relationship treads on a loose rope? He is of the opinion that marriages are defined by people’s personalities and not what they have or might not have.

Support each other

The relationship counsellor advises couples to view each other as supporting partners and avoid becoming adversaries.

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