Maureen Dowd finally admits to herself that men truly do prefer Pamela Anderson to Harriet Miers:
He had hit on a primal fear of single successful women: that the aroma of male power is an aphrodisiac for women, but the perfume of female power is a turnoff for men. It took women a few decades to realize that everything they were doing to advance themselves in the boardroom could be sabotaging their chances in the bedroom, that evolution was lagging behind equality….
Women moving up still strive to marry up. Men moving up still tend to marry down. The two sexes’ going in opposite directions has led to an epidemic of professional women missing out on husbands and kids.
Sylvia Ann Hewlett, an economist and the author of “Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children,” a book published in 2002, conducted a survey and found that 55 percent of 35-year-old career women were childless. And among corporate executives who earn $100,000 or more, she said, 49 percent of the women did not have children, compared with only 19 percent of the men.
Hewlett quantified, yet again, that men have an unfair advantage. “Nowadays,” she said, “the rule of thumb seems to be that the more successful the woman, the less likely it is she will find a husband or bear a child. For men, the reverse is true.”
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 find it rather amusing that when I point out exactly the same phenomenon as Miss Dowd, so many women leap on their high horses. But sometimes one can’t hear the message for the messenger. One must commend Ms Dowd for being so brutally open about what is clearly a major societal disappointment for her and overlook the vaguely aggrieved tone that leaves one with the impression that she thinks this has somehow got to be men’s fault for not wanting what some women think they should want. After all, what is unfair about experiencing the logical consequences of your choices?
I quite like intelligent women. I’ve dated them and I married one. But there’s no question that they are more difficult, more complex and generally less happy in life than the dumb ones. I speak from experience; the girl I dated throughout high school and college scored in the sixth percentile on her SAT and she remains to this day one of the best and nicest people I have ever known. Girls may be made of sugar and spice, but there’s no question that men prefer sugar.
Perhaps the biggest mistake that women make is thinking that men want to be challenged in their relationships. But life is full of challenges, some of which men embrace with enthusiasm, some of which we take on only if we must. An ability to pose a challenge is not on the normal man’s list of desirable attributes, far more preferable is someone you know is on your team, someone you trust to get your back when your friends aren’t around to do it.
Space Bunny is not my equal and I am not hers. We compliment each other, we are not interchangeable.