I am well aware of what you’re referring to. Realize I’ve worked my entire career as female. Most jobs I haven’t even been out to my employers about my trans status. At work, people just assume I’m a cis gal. I could talk all day about the misogyny I’ve encountered in my career.

And it’s complicated. I haven’t made a ton of sacrifices for his career. We’ve done the opposite actually. We moved states for me to attend a doctoral program. He does his share of the housework. He’s never once discouraged me from working. As you might imagine, the Venn diagram circles of “straight cis men who would marry a trans woman” and “misogynistic chud” don’t have a lot of overlap. I don’t feel like I’ve been pressured or have had to make sacrifices for the sake of his career.

More it’s like, perhaps in part due to gender roles, I’ve chased my passions a lot more than he has. He’s always earned well more than I do, so maxing out my salary really hasn’t been my primary goal. I chased a PhD for several years that ultimately didn’t work out do to ADHD issues. But I kept with it as long as I did precisely because I wasn’t under a lot of social or financial pressure to earn a paycheck. And I’ve also just found though trial and error that I love and excel at teaching.

The real barrier has been my own ASD/ADHD. I’ve burned out at five different engineering jobs, each lasting no more than two years. I just reach burnout very quickly in office jobs once I’m passed the initial learning curve where everything is new, fresh, and interesting. And at this point, I’m done looking for full time engineering work. I just cannot thrive in a full time engineering design position. (Work at home vs in office makes no difference, it’s the work itself that’s the problem.)

This year I’m trying something different. I’ve done a lot of university teaching and a lot of k12 tutoring, but I’ve never taught at the k12 level. I’ve applied for and received my substitute teacher’s license, and I’ll be doing a lot of substitute teaching in the coming year. I’m going to immerse myself in classrooms as much as I can and see if it’s a good environment for me.

Interestingly, gender roles have had an affect on the ADHD/ASD front. I was only diagnosed this year, at age 39. I had suspected something like this, but I never had the chance to actually get screened for it. The main reason it went undetected until now is really because I don’t have the type of autism traditionally diagnosed. I have the “girl type” autism rather than the “boy type.” When I have a meltdown or burnout, it’s expressed internally as anxiety or depression rather than externally as rage or physical action. The inward type is far more common among women, and it’s why autistism is so under-diagnosed in women and girls. My ASD/ADHD never caused a problem in schooling until I got to the PhD level. I never needed extra time on exams and could always do well in courses. But the executive function difficulties really crippled my PhD work. And it’s made office jobs very difficult. But teaching just works with my neurology better than anything else.

So in short, it’s complicated. Gender absolutely has had an impact. But it’s not because I’ve had to repeatedly sacrifice my career for my husband’s. I think maybe women are more encouraged to follow their passions, or at least to choose career paths for reasons of passion and social esteem as much as salary. Maybe with him serving as the clear breadwinner, I was more likely to chase a passion project like a PhD. And I certainly haven’t been helped by the fact that the disability I’ve been struggling with for years went undiagnosed because of gender biases in screening and diagnostic criteria. So it’s not really in the exact form you’re imagining, but gender has played a strong role.