At a party for the Broadway opening of "Sweet Smell of Success," a top New York producer gave me a lecture on the price of female success that was anything but sweet. He confessed that he had wanted to ask me out on a date when he was between marriages but nixed the idea because my job as a Times columnist made me too intimidating. Men, he explained, prefer women who seem malleable and awed. He predicted that I would never find a mate because if there's one thing men fear, it's a woman who uses her critical faculties. Will she be critical of absolutely everything, even his manhood?
. . . .
A 2005 report by researchers at four British universities indicated that a high I.Q. hampers a woman's chance to marry, while it is a plus for men. The prospect for marriage increased by 35 percent for guys for each 16-point increase in I.Q.; for women, there is a 40 percent drop for each 16-point rise.
I can't begin to tell you how this annoys me.
The premise of the article is that women have caved in the gender wars, riding a backlash back to the fifties in an effort to pick up men. Her evidence? The success of the "Rules" books, the declining trend in keeping one's own name on marriage, the popularity of movies in which powerful men end up with the maid, the secretary, the serving girl. All because men are too insecure to handle the strong female.
Excuse me, but I find this highly insulting.
To men.
I can name off ten men who are married to brilliant, strong, beautiful women for each one who is drawn to the brainless young thing who needs rescuing from the harsh reality of life. Presuming looks are roughly equivalent, I don't think I know anyone who'd take the needy airhead over a sharp-witted, funny female.
Yes, her statistics may show that smart women marry less. I'd like to suggest that perhaps its a function of being a little choosy?
Guys? Any opposing views?
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