Confession: girly magazines are one of my guilty pleasures. I love looking at clothes and shoes I can’t afford. The embarrassing confessions, silly relationship advice, never-ending sex tips, and shocking true-life stories never fail to amuse. I don’t take anything in them seriously, and certainly don’t expect much of a feminist sensibility. (Though I have to say that Glamour’s health reporting has recently risen well above average mainstream media levels.)
The current issue of Cosmopolitan, though, has some relationship advice that crosses from merely silly to actually kind of offensive. And I know it’s an easy target, but I couldn’t resist sharing.
The article is about how to help your man handle it if you’re more successful than he is. One featured woman makes significantly more money than her boyfriend does, but it’s working out all right for them:
The crucial factor: He carries the relationship in other, nonmonetary ways. “I may own my own place and have a steady 9 to 5, but there’s no question that Nate is the dominant one. He is athletic and passionate, and he goes out of his way to protect me, like rushing to my place at any hour of the night if I’m scared or calling to make sure I got home okay after driving alone. He also has more romantic experience and teaches me.”Explains ["clinical psychologist Alon Gratch, PhD, author of If Love Could Think"], “Every masculine trait the woman possesses outside the relationship must be balanced out with a masculine trait for him inside the relationship.”
So it’s OK if you make more money, as long as he’s in charge at home. Just make sure you’re a whiny baby who needs to be protected and taught (ew), and his penis won’t fall off when he looks at your bank balance. And don’t forget to keep the “masculine trait” tally even. (What’s a masculine trait, anyway? Do burping and leaving the toilet seat up count?)