What am I missing? Serious question.
It's a valid question. I'll do my best to explain it for me. What may apply to me may not be representative of all men. I think a good portion of men will find that parts of my answer do apply for them.
The first thing that I'll do is define career woman. A career woman is a woman in a white collar occupation that is demanding. She takes her professional achievements seriously and devotes a lot of hours to her career and ancillary career activities (networking events, webinars, LinkedIn, etc).
I'm surprised to hear men prefer and desire women without a career.
Which would mean she makes less money, which would mean you, as a man, would become her "beta provider," needing to financially support her, which many of you guys are against!
Having a career does not automatically mean she's less feminine or less submissive at home, with you.
A woman can have a career and be extremely feminine and submissive with you, and there are women without careers who are the opposite.
Since the Sexual Revolution and Second Wave Feminism, more women have entered the work force. If you ever watched Mad Men, the main character of Peggy Olson was a decent depiction of a pioneering era career woman, though there were some smaller bit characters (1-5 episode arcs) in Mad Men that would have been even better examples.
Prior to Second Wave Feminism, women typically worked in occupations that were traditionally feminine. Nurses, dental hygienists, K-12 teachers, secretaries/other administrative professionals, retail store workers, and so on. In the 1970s, this started to change. Women started to branch out into more career fields, typically encroaching upon what was then the territory of the white collar male. There became more female lawyers, more female business professionals, more female doctors (both MD and PhD doctors), and so on. Some of these white collar occupations are very demanding in terms of hours worked and achievements.
The new found freedom women obtained in the last 25-30 years of the 20th Century and continuing into the 21st Century came at a cost.
It has been my experience that women with demanding white collar careers have less time available to devote to things that would make them good girlfriends. While demure single moms without big careers are often hard to schedule with due to child related activities, big time career women are often difficult to schedule with due to the demands of their careers. It's very difficult to get together with a female lawyer with enough regularity to actually develop a relationship. In the short term, this is one of the biggest obstacles, but there are others that I'm about to cover.
If one can actually manage to get a female with a high powered white collar career to actually show up in person to something, her mind may not be present. She might be thinking about the next work thing she has to do, the early meeting she needs to wake up for, or any other thing that makes her less present. This doesn't make for a good impression. Also, it's against feminine energy. Feminine energy is warm, giving, and nurturing. This behavior is none of those. Men with stronger masculine energies are totally put off by this.
In a conversation with a woman with a high powered white collar career, she will often prattle on about white collar bullshiit topics, or leftist/SJW talking points.
@Howiestern partially described that above. None of those things project a feminine aura that is most attractive to a lot of men. We don't care. Women with high powered white collar careers think that talking like one of the white collar men is what will build commonality with men and lead to attraction. It doesn't.
More and more women go to college/university and obtain a BA/BS degree. They might even get some advanced level degree. Due to the rising cost of education, it puts a lot of pressure about women to work hard from ages 22-35 (prime child bearing years) in order to pay off debt from their degree(s) and/or get a positive return on investment from the education. This isn't good for mating purposes. This requires her to abandon a lot of her feminine energies and obtain a more masculine frame. Also, the nature of white collar work is vicious, with the potential for layoffs often looming. Women are less vulnerable to white collar layoffs than white men is but the potential still exists.
There is a difference between a working woman with a degree and a career woman. On the surface, this can be difficult to determine. While certain types of women are almost always big time careerists (lawyers, doctors, mid-level management and up), other types of women are more difficult to read. Sales and marketing professionals are often some of the most difficult women to read because some can be big time careerists while others are more laid back and balanced.
One of the downsides of the economy of the last 3 decades that there are fewer opportunities for women who don't receive a BA/BS degree. In high school, the trade occupations are not promoted well enough, and there are some good trade school occupations for women that are more balanced than what might happen for women who pursue the BA/BS degree or advanced level degrees. Additionally, a lot of the women with only a high school diploma/GED as their highest level of educational attainment tend to be irresponsible and bad partners longer term. There is also a higher incidence of single motherhood in this population too. Women with Associate Degrees are a little bit better of a bet, especially if they get a trade certification in something useful that offers balanced hours. A dental hygienist would be a good example of this.
There is some sociological research that indicates that relational outcomes in scenarios where men outearn women are more positive. It seems good for both men and women. When women outearn men, which is occurring more and more, there is evidence of more negative relational outcomes, likely due to some of the factors described above. Men are definitely put out of their element by a high powered career women.
A man does not automatically become a "beta provider" if he outearns a woman. We feel better if we make more money than a woman does if the woman helps support us with her presence in our lives in some way. Women with big time careers don't have the time to be able to do that, even if a man is able to navigate the early stage challenges that I illustrated above.
