Love goes thud as eves fly high

What made the episode poignant was not just that Miranda lied about her success, but that her date did, too: he worked in a shoe store.

Is female empowerment killing romance?

Sexual attraction in the 21st century, it seems, still feeds on 20th-century stereotypes. Now, as more women match or overtake men in education and the labour market, they are also turning traditional gender roles on their head, with some profound consequences for relationship dynamics.

There is a growing army of successful women in their 30s who have trouble finding a mate and have been immortalised in Sex and the City and the Bridget Jones novels.

There are the alpha-women who end up with alpha-men but then decide to put career second when the babies come. But there is also a third group: a small but growing number of women who out-earn their partners, giving rise to an assortment of behavioural contortions aimed at keeping the appearance of traditional gender roles intact.

Anne-Laure Kiechel is an investment banker in Paris who makes than five times more than her boyfriend, a communications consultant. She keeps watch on their finances and pays for all big invisible expenses, like vacations. But in public, it is he who insists on pulling out his credit card to avoid, he said, looking like a “gigolo.”

“It makes me laugh,” Kiechel said. “But if it pleases him, that’s fine.” (Not long ago, he asked her to book hotels in his name because he doesn’t like being referred to as “Mr Kiechel” upon arrival.)

Timothy Eustis, once a teacher in New York City, is a proud stay-at-home dad and occasional wine consultant, who moved to France with his wife, Sarah, when she was offered a senior management post at the French lingerie brand Etam. Neither has a problem that she is the breadwinner. But both cherish what he calls “those little traditions” to keep the romantic spark alive.

“I make an effort to hold the door, I almost always drive the car, and when it’s time to pay the bill, I pay the bill,” he said. “Sarah intentionally lets me do these things because she thinks it benefits the relationship.”

Some men have more fundamental issues. One 38-year-old Italian manager complained that her boyfriend suggested she change jobs because he no longer felt able to “seduce her” after her salary rose above his. A French management consultant said her husband, a teacher, stopped coming to parties because he felt inadequate every time anyone asked him what he did.

“It is amazing how even many liberal-minded men end up having sexual and emotional difficulties being with more obviously successful women,” said Sasha Havlicek, the 35-year-old chief executive of a London research group. “The male ego can be a more fragile thing than the female ego, which is used to a regular battering and has hence developed a sense of humour!”

‘Success is not sexy’

Anke Domscheit-Berg of Microsoft Germany, who has stories of past would-be boyfriends fleeing after seeing “director” (of communications) on her business card, put it this way: “Success is not sexy.”

Dating sites seem to suggest that highly educated women have more trouble finding a partner. “Care and social professions work well; the really educated profiles are more difficult,” said Gesine Haag, 43, who used to run match.com in Germany. An elite dating portal at the company, trying to match up highly educated men and women, was abandoned and refocused more broadly, said Haag, who now manages her own Internet marketing agency.

“Men don’t want successful women, men want to be admired,” she said. “It’s important to them that the woman is full of energy at night and not playing with her BlackBerry in bed.”