The Pretenders-elle Magazine

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The Pretenders

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f I could do it all over again, I’d just be an English teacher,” Monica* says sheepishly, partly to me, more to the glass of pinot grigio she’s staring into. An hour earlier, I’d arrived at Manhattan’s Warwick Hotel bar on time, but Monica was early. A 29-year-old attorney for one of the city’s top corporate law firms, she perched on her chair in a charcoal skirt suit and pumps, talking on her cell, her BlackBerry and legal pad in front of her. With her long blond hair and toned, stockinged legs, she looked like a little girl’s fantasy of a working woman, not unlike the Career Girl Barbie my grandmother once gave me. Monica smiled hi and wrapped up the conversation with her client. “Why don’t I give you a call when I get back to the office in a couple of hours?” she asked. It was 8 p.m. As she closed her phone, it rang again. “That’s him,” she said. “Him” is her boyfriend, John. Monica told him she’d 000 elle

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probably stay out until one or two with friends, adding “I love you” before hanging up. “Sometimes I lie and say I’m socializing when I have to work late,” she said to me. “Otherwise, he gets upset. I know—it’s bad.” Monica and John have been together for almost two years. In many ways, she says, they are ideally suited: A fellow striver, John is a Wall Street trader who, at 28, owns an Upper West Side apartment and a brand-new Audi. They take an Italian cooking class once a week and on most Saturdays get up early and drive to the mountains to hike. Plus, Monica describes John as tall with a runner’s lean body, dimples, and a full head of wavy auburn hair—a Ken doll among Manhattan’s Barney Rubbles. “When I’m with John, I feel relaxed,” Monica says. “I feel comfortable being myself. During the good times.” The bad times—which have grown more frequent as the relationship has progressed—stem mostly from his

* Some names have been changed

jacqueline bates

how far would you go for love? Some women downplay their intelligence and success to attract men and appear less threatening. but the cost may be greater than solitude. by j. courtney sullivan

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ELLETHEPRETENDERS discomfort with her career success. Six months after they cited a host of small, cherry-picked academic studies to back started seeing each other, John ended it. “He said, ‘It just up his claims, including a 2005 University of Michigan study makes me really uncomfortable that you’re such a superstar at which found that a wife who earns more than $15 an hour will work,’” she recalls. “My jaw hit the floor. I thought, Shouldn’t do almost two fewer hours of housework a week. (His colleague you love that about me?” Elizabeth Corcoran countered with “Don’t Marry a Lazy Man” Raised in rural New Hampshire by liberal doctor parents on the site a few days later.) Maureen Dowd didn’t offer much who taught her to aim high, Monica says she played “law reassurance in her 2006 book, Are Men Necessary?, in which office” while other girls played house, using her stuffed animals the Pulitzer prize–winning journalist described an ill-fated as judge and jury. With degrees from Princeton and Duke encounter with a top New York producer: “He confessed that Law, she clerked for a federal judge before landing her current he had wanted to ask me out…but nixed the idea because my position two years ago. “I’ve worked really hard to get where job as a Times columnist made me too intimidating. Men, he I am, and I love my job,” she says. “But John says my career explained, prefer women who seem malleable and awed.” Even makes him feel like he’s less of a man.” the single-but-looking 70-year-old former secretary of state In their weeks apart, Monica, with little time to date, missed Madeleine Albright admitted last year in a Times interview, “I him constantly and, ironically, couldn’t focus at work. When truly can’t imagine who is out there who might be interested in John called to say he wanted her back, she agreed, without someone like me. I’m intimidating, don’t you think?” discussing how to keep her job from coming between them. In conversations with many single women, I heard the same “I believe that a successful story: Women have to “ease” men relationship takes compromise,” into the truth about their success “To turn a guy off Monica says. “I overlook it as if it were a communicable because I’m in love…I don’t want disease. Michelle, 26, a third-year completely, I mention to believe there’s such badness medical student at the University I have an MBA in him.” She rolls her eyes, of Arizona, tells men she’s training acknowledging how ridiculous to be a nurse. “When I say I’m from Harvard,” she sounds. “Then again…” she going to be a doctor, guys get this continues, “being with someone one woman says. She and weird look,” she says. “I’ve always who appreciates all the little wanted to be one, so pretending her business-school things about me—including that not to isn’t something I imagined I’m hardworking and driven—is doing. I tell myself, When the friends call it very important.” right guy comes along, he’ll be “dropping the H-bomb.” It’s hard to grasp Monica’s impressed by my career.” In order acceptance of the situation. It’s to snag a Saturday-night date, she not like she has no life outside of John: She tells me about reasons, “I need to keep my job on the down-low.” a recent trip to Venezuela with girlfriends and a huge victory Kristin Harmel, a 27-year-old novelist from Orlando whose in court that made it onto the nightly news. “Before I left for latest book, The Blonde Theory, is about an attorney who South America, I said to John, ‘Listen, you need to decide keeps her job secret to get dates, has been trying to kick the what you want.’” When she returned, John promised to try dumb-down habit for years. “When I was younger, I looked to change his attitude about her work, but later complained at dating from a strategic perspective,” she says. “I would act she emasculated him by picking up the tab for an expensive however I thought I ought to in order to make myself most dinner with his friends. The hortatory skills that make Monica attractive. So when I sensed that someone was intimidated by a courtroom champion rarely come to bear on her relationship. my career, I’d avoid talking about it.” “It’s not about convincing him: He wants to feel that I respect Forty-one-year-old San Francisco–based fashion designer and look up to him,” she says. “I’m hoping he’ll come around; Stacey Estrella—who founded a successful consulting group for now, I’m just trying to keep the peace.” before pursuing a fashion career on Project Runway and starting a custom-design fashion business—confesses that she’s only THE SUCCESS PENALTY open about her résumé with men she has no interest in. “To While she can sometimes sound like a pre-Friedan throwback, turn a guy off completely, I mention I have an MBA from Monica isn’t an aberration. Christine Whelan, PhD, author Harvard,” Estrella says. She and her business-school friends of the recent Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women (Simon call it “dropping the H-bomb.” “For men, the H-bomb works & Schuster), has extensively researched the so-called success in reverse. They drop it, and women are drawn to them. We penalty. In a poll of more than 1,600 “high-achievers” drop it, and men flee.” She laughs and quotes her mother’s (defined as those with a graduate degree and/or those who recent husband-snagging advice: “Maybe you should start earn in the top 10 percent of their age group), she found that using smaller words when you talk to men.” nearly half of the single women believe their success is hurting their chances of getting married; and about 33 percent say MARRIAGE BY THE NUMBERS they minimize their accomplishments to men. Last year, this In reality, though, successful women marry at the same rate perception got a boost from an article that ripped through the as others—just two years later. Even Newsweek, which two blogosphere called “Don’t Marry Career Women,” by Forbes decades ago infamously published its “Marriage Crunch” .com writer Michael Noer, which said that wedding a successful cover story proclaiming that a 40-year-old single woman was woman can lead to divorce, adultery, and childlessness. Noer more likely to be killed by a terrorist than to marry, has revised 000 elle

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ELLETHEPRETENDERS its conclusion. In “Marriage by the Numbers,” reporter Daniel McGinn wrote last year, “Newer studies conclude that nowadays, a college degree makes a woman more likely to marry, not less.” According to the 2001 Princeton study cited, more than 97 percent of female college graduates born between 1960 and 1964 will eventually marry. Today, women outnumber men in American colleges, hold nearly half of all corporate management jobs, and have twice as many senior positions at large national companies than they did in 1995. Seventy-two percent of today’s high-achieving men were raised by mothers who worked. The landscape has shifted vastly, and of course many men welcome the change. “Some women are terrified of spinster­ hood, even though statistically speaking, there’s no reason for it,” Whelan says. Despite women’s old-maid fears, she found that 92 percent of high-achieving single men say they’re more attracted to successful women, and almost 90 percent say they married or want to marry women who are as or more intelligent than they are. Of women aged 35 to 39 who live in medium-size cities, earn more than $75,000 a year, and have a master’s degree, 92 percent are married. And yet, ask again and some men will admit they love a successful career woman—as long as she isn’t more successful than he is. And there are women who have decided, perhaps unconsciously, to play ditzy damsel to pacify male insecurities. “The woman is struggling between what’s most important to her, which is her own self-esteem, and the nature of the relationship,” says William Pollack, PhD, assistant clinical professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School. “If the man feels he’s not successful, he’ll want [her] to make him feel good about himself. Unfortunately, the way for her to do this is to show herself to be not as good as she is.” ONE-SIDED REVOLUTION In 1980, Vanderbilt University professors published a study in Social Psychology Quarterly exploring the effects of playing dumb which found that about 15 percent of never-married women said “yes” when asked, “Have you ever pretended to be less intelligent or knowledgeable than you really are 000 elle

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with a date?” It also reported that those who hide their smarts often have poorer mental health than those who don’t. “For women, they have depression— if not clinical—and a minor sense of sadness,” Pollack says. “Because these women feel like they’re being disingenuous, they start to question whether they’re really worthwhile.” When I tell Monica this, she looks wistful. “You don’t learn these things in law school,” she says. “When [advisers] tell you it’s hard out there for women, you think about glass ceilings, not bad relationships.” But dumbing down isn’t just detrimental to women; it lowers both partners’ self-worth. “In these kinds of relationships, you have real dysfunction,” Pollack says. “The woman’s self-esteem is being diminished unreasonably and without her knowing it, and the man’s maintains itself on something that’s not genuine.” So why is it still so prevalent? In large part, to preserve the relationship. “The woman is sustaining the man’s need to believe in himself so he won’t fall apart,” Pollack explains. “And a man will accept her doing so because he doesn’t see her as being dumb, just someone who makes him feel good.” University of Houston assistant professor Brené Brown, PhD, the author of I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame (Gotham 2007)— a book based on her six-year study on the effects of shame on women, from relationships to work and appearance— surmises that some women are willing to play along because they’re conflicted about their own achievement. “If you ask a woman whether she’s ashamed to be smart or successful, the answer will of course be no,” she says. “But when you dig deeper, you see that it’s not the success that’s the problem, it’s the fact that every other attribute we ascribe to women opposes our vision of what it means to be successful. If a woman is great at her job, can she still be a great mother and wife? Can she still be nice, friendly, sexy, and feminine? Our fear is that the answer is no.” Pollack adds that our emotional socialization also is a factor. “Girls are brought up thinking they should be in touch with their feelings and make relationships happen,” he says. “As men www.elle.com

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ELLEBEAUTYBODYHEALTH and women grow into adults, women still to a large extent become the keepers of the relationship, and men maintain their invulnerable stoicism so they can feel good about themselves.” Which, to bring us back to John and Monica, seems to be part of the problem. Monica admits that the stress he feels over her career is getting worse: 1. He’s unhappy in his own job. “He’s bored and sees no future there,” Monica says. “He just wants to do something tolerable, make money, and focus on his free time.” 2. His father works in finance; his mother is a teacher. “His model for relationships is very traditional, and it’s hard for him to imagine a wife who outearns or outworks her husband.” 3. His previous girlfriends all had

“Have you ever wondered if you’re not less of a man, but that it’s actually an achievement that you found a woman who is your equal?” pollack asks. “nondescript office jobs.” “Professional identity, success, and status are the biggest sources of shame for men,” Brown says. “If a man feels at all insecure about these things, he’s at risk of being very intimidated by his girlfriend’s or wife’s success.” Jackson Katz, author of The Macho Paradox and cofounder of Northeastern University’s Mentors in Violence Prevention program, points out that because of the “lag between the cultural acceptance of women making incredible career advances and the phenomenon itself,” women have had to be the social pioneers and figure out how to navigate men’s anxieties and insecurities. Of course, if Monica’s relationship and others like it are going to survive, men will need to change too. “You can’t have a gender revolution with just one gender,” Pollack says. In sessions with male patients, he asks, “Have you ever wondered if you’re not less of a man www.elle.com

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or that it isn’t a deficiency, but that it’s actually an achievement that you found a woman who is your equal?” Right away, patients get it. “It looks like I’ve just created a psychotic experience,” he says. “They drop their mouths, open their eyes, and think about it from a whole different perspective.” Going forward, though, men need to work at trying to master the conflict between what they know is right and the “old male way” that still tugs at them, Pollack says. LET’S MAKE A DEAL A week after our drinks, Monica throws John a surprise birthday party at a sports bar. Sometime after midnight, John, fueled by Jameson shots, picks up Monica by the waist and spins her around in the air, like in a Kay Jewelers commercial. “This was the best birthday party, ever, baby,” he says. “You’re too good to me.” Hanging in the air at that moment, in a bright-red Diane von Furstenberg wrapdress and heels, with her long blond hair drawn into a high ponytail, she looks just like the woman John seems to want. “Nights like this show him that I’m not married to my job and that I can find time to plan a fun party for him,” Monica says. “I’m not a totally useless girlfriend!” Minutes later, though, when she sidles up to the bar with her coworker to toast the multimillion-dollar deal they’d made earlier that week, John says, “Don’t talk about work now, Mon. This is my party.” Monica, oblivious to her coworker’s eye-rolling, would do well to attend one of Katz’s talks, in which he tells his all-female audience, “I hope you don’t limit yourselves—your life choices, your dreams—because some weak men are intimidated by your strengths. You might have to look a bit longer and harder, but there are plenty of strong men who are attracted to strong women out there.” “Women should not have to feel that they need to dumb themselves down,” Pollack says. “Not only is it a terrible thing to do and ultimately doesn’t work; but if you’re with someone, he’s going to find out you’re smart.” In Monica and John’s case, Pollack posits that they’re “scared that if they really face what this is, they’ll lose each other. But they’ve already lost each other,” he adds, “because they’re not being who they really are.” elle 000

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