Maureen Dowd gets feedback from men on courting successful women
harmony
Pls post this one to more newsgroups who are liekly to be interested where
smart men and women are likely to be. Make america stronger, find mates for
our smart women.
April 17, 2002
Y? DNA! Q.E.D.
By MAUREEN DOWD
More Op-Ed Columns
Columnist Biography: Maureen Dowd
WASHINGTON - Men. Listen up. This one's for you.
I did a column about the article in Time reporting that professional women
are repelling the men they're trying to attract - Holly Hunter's lament in
"Broadcast News."
Three decades after feminism blossomed in a giddy wave of bra-burning,
birth-control pills and unisex clothes, the female ideal of having it all is
a risible cliché.
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.
After urging guys not to be leery of high-achieving women, I was swamped
with 600 e-males. (And one from a bystander in this struggle-of-the-sexes:
"Mary Ellen, a 60-year-old, one-kidneyed, unrepentantly aggressive, abrasive
but cheerful horseback-riding lesbian who found true love in the
Southwest.")
Some female readers are concerned that men might be engaged in a sinister
Stepford plot to get rid of uppity alpha women by refusing to mate with them
and pass down their genes to their daughters.
Many men wanted to defend themselves against the charge that their fragile
egos resist a challenge.
"For months," writes Yeung-Seu Yoon of Toronto, "I have been sullenly
wondering if there are any women out there who have I.Q.'s that actually
exceed their body temperature. What I would do to meet a woman who treats
her head as more than just a frilly decorative ornament!"
Kevin Johnson from Chicago: "A woman who has qualities that put me in awe is
far more likely to make me think she is worth falling for."
Wright Salisbury writes "in praise of brainy women: Shortly after we were
married, my wife tearfully confessed that her I.Q., at 178, was 45 points
higher than mine, had been salutatorian of her college class, and was a
member of Phi Beta Kappa.
"I was shocked, but divorce was out of the question. It has been terrible to
live with, but there have been compensations: 1) Our children are a lot
smarter . . . 2) She remembers people's names, places we have visited, and
learns foreign languages the way I catch colds.
"Men, don't fear that cute little genius you have your eye on."
One guy sums up the male dilemma with a Joni Mitchell line: "You don't like
weak women, you get bored so quick. And you don't like strong women, 'cause
they're hip to your tricks."
But there were also many e-mails scorching career women as materialistic,
choosy and self-absorbed.
"They want to find somebody who is as much or MORE: good looking, socially
skilled and well-off," writes Mike "not Mormon" Dropkin of Sugarhouse, Utah.
"What do successful men want? Typically, a good-looking women who is kind."
Steven Greenfield agrees: "I find that most successful women have little
respect for a man who does not out-earn them. I am all too frequently made
to feel as though I am the sum total of my résumé, which is embarrassingly
slim in their eyes."
Anthony Santelli writes about career women in their late 30's: "Despite
being older and less beautiful, they are none the wiser and as picky as
ever. . . . The very men whom they had rejected are now happily married to
women who are less picky. Worst of all, many of these men have gone on to
have successful careers and now would meet these women's standards. But it's
too late."
Patrick Partridge from Fort Collins, Colo., says, "Men instinctively know
that career-focused women will not be as focused on them."
Ray Lewis admits that while smart women fascinate, "I do find them draining
at times." He ended a romance with one because "I was worried she wasn't
going to look after me as much as I would her."
Adam Rogers, who was unhappily married to two overachievers and
undernurturers, observes: "I certainly don't want my home life to reflect
the sorry state of American corporate life, where everyone thinks that
he/she is so damned smart, and where very few really do anything of any
consequence for anybody. . . . The more of them that are childless the
better!"
And my friend Paul Costello opines: "While men say they appreciate and
applaud equality, the price that it extracts from them makes them run from
its reality. Face it, men are basically lazy. It's in our DNA. The bottom
line? Men don't want it all and women do."