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It's the powerful men that Dowd and her cohort seem to want. Tyler, I think you're right that things could be different for later generations--I'm under forty, and most of our circle (mostly male scientists and their wives) are academics--Ph.D.'s married to other Ph.D.'s, or, failing that, ABDs and M.A.'s. Our incomes are comfortable, but the husbands are really more interested in pursuing their research than moving and shaking. Some of the wives, however, are a different story: many are faculty, but some are journalists, politicians, and University policymakers. Who knows? In time, some of them may leave their spouses for trophy husbands.
I think, in the end, it may be a psychological hurdle that Dowd and her contemporaries simply have been unable to clear because of the residual expectations of their generation and those of their parents. I still have problems explaining to my mother (who is about 10 years older than Dowd) that no, close collaboration with colleagues of the opposite sex rarely leads to personal involvement, that sometimes it makes a lot more sense for a man to stay home with children, and that a man who makes less than his wife is not necessarily a deadbeat.
