Real reason successful women like Jackie O and Pip Edwards are still single
Jackie O Henderson is now very much an Aussie icon, but there is a big truth we can’t ignore.
OPINION
If there is one lie that is still being shoved down women’s throats, it is that if you’re successful, it could come at the cost of your romantic life.
The culture always tends to ebb and flow, but at the moment, there seems to be a bit of a war on single successful women.
I read an article recently where it was argued that both Pip Edwards, the P.E. Nation founder, influencer, and radio star Jackie O Henderson remain single because successful women are still “scary” to men.
As you can imagine, the comment section of that article wasn’t exactly a feminist oasis, but one comment really summed up the rhetoric.
“Men do not care about your career or money. That is a woman thing,” one social media user argued.
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It is not the first time I have heard that sentiment recently.
There has been a clear Zeitgeist shift online at the moment, with men (not all men) claiming they do not care about women’s careers.
The reason they seem so desperate to make this point is to then argue that a woman’s career has no bearing on whether men will or won’t find her attractive or wife material.
Therefore, and this is where the logic gets particularly distressing, women should not put so much time and effort into their careers, because it won’t help them get a man.
People are out here in 2025 acting like a woman shouldn’t want a promotion because it won’t help her become some guy’s wife.
I’ve repeatedly heard the phrase, “men do not care about your career, ladies, I’m sorry, they just don’t”, bandied around X as a war cry against successful women.
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It is getting bizarre online.
When Dr Juliet Turner, an ecologist and biologist, shared on social media that she had completed her PhD, her post went viral because men were acting offended that she had chosen to pursue higher education.
Bizarrely, some men were chomping at the bit to claim that her academic achievements weren’t making her any more or less datable.
“Just look at that degree on that chick, said no man ever,” one wrote.
It might seem like pointing all of this out is basically undermining my point, right? Men do not like successful women.
But I actually think what men do not like is when women have more choice.
Being successful means being financially independent.
If you’re financially independent, you don’t have to settle for the first man that isn’t actively mean to you.
I have noticed in my own personal life that the woman who seem to be the happiest in their relationships are the ones who could – if they had to – afford to leave them.
Historically, women have often had to pair up with men basically for their own survival. Women couldn’t get a home loan without a man in Australia until 1971.
I don’t think the reason Henderson or Edwards are single is that men aren’t interested; I think the reason they are single is that both are in a position where they don’t need men.
Some of my most successful mates that are single aren’t at home on Friday nights waiting for the phone to ring
They are in demand, but they’re also in a position where they are not just going to settle for a guy just because he doesn’t consider milk crates furniture or that he has an actual bed frame, rather than a mattress on the ground.
They are in a position where they can chose who they want to be with.
All these men raging on the internet about how they don’t care about women’s careers, what they’re really saying is they don’t like when women set themselves up to not need them.
They don’t like it when women are in a position of power, because it means they don’t have to settle for the kind of man who goes on the internet and actively tries to tear down a woman for getting a PhD.
I have never in my life heard a guy say in real life that he didn’t want to be with a woman because she has too much superannuation or a fancy job title.
A women’s success doesn’t threaten confident men; in fact, I’d go as far as to say that a woman’s success does not threaten the average bloke.
This bizarre new uprising, I think, speaks to some men looking around and getting fed up that they’re going to have to step up their game if they hope to be someone’s idea of husband material.
Edwards, 45, and Henderson, 50, aren’t single because men are scared of them, they’re single because they want to be.
Being successful in their careers means they can afford to make that choice and not just end-up with some loser.
Originally published as Real reason successful women like Jackie O and Pip Edwards are still single
