This is what happens when we embrace those pesky femininist ideals...

NYTimes recently had an article called 'Putting Money on the Table' which discussed a growing trend in the dating scene. With more and more women getting education, the class and income scale is actually tipping in their favor. Because of that, they get better jobs, make more money, and then hit a dating stall when they discover that men don't exactly seem to be catching up.

Living in a largely chivalrous culture, both men and women find themselves forcing to adjust to the class and income inequality; with men struggling to accept that the women they're seeing make more money than they do, and the women being confronted with the illogical choice of being who they are or downplaying what they earn in effort to find a man who won't be threatened by it.

I remember in college there was an article in a journal about the same issue: as woman grow older, become more successful, they begin to outclass (status/money) their male peers. The result? Cougars (women who actively look to date younger men/sugar mamas), a heck of a lot of single women, or women dating much older men.

MSN's dating site even has an article called 'Dating Women Who Out-Earn Me', in which the writer discusses the pros and cons of dating women who make more money than he does. In his favor, he does seem to get a kick out of playing the 'evolved male'.

Hollywood is finally taking notice of the dating dilemna as well. Cashmere Mafia and Lipstick Jungle, both about successful executives, struggle to find the balance between celebrating the successful woman and knowing quite what to do with her. Women's Murder Club seems a novelty not because of the subject matter, but because the leads are all female.

With the reality coming where we might actually find ourselves with a viable female candidate for the Presidency, it's going to be a curious year for the sucessful female, and for the men in her age bracket, struggling to keep up.