Posted on 01/13/2005 4:53:28 AM PST by Jim Noble
A few years ago at a White House Correspondents' dinner, I met a very beautiful actress. Within moments, she blurted out: "I can't believe I'm 46 and not married. Men only want to marry their personal assistants or P.R. women."
I'd been noticing a trend along these lines, as famous and powerful men took up with the young women whose job it was to tend to them and care for them in some way: their secretaries, assistants, nannies, caterers, flight attendants, researchers and fact-checkers.
Women in staff support are the new sirens because, as a guy I know put it, they look upon the men they work for as "the moon, the sun and the stars." It's all about orbiting, serving and salaaming their Sun Gods.
In all those great Tracy/Hepburn movies more than a half-century ago, it was the snap and crackle of a romance between equals that was so exciting. Moviemakers these days seem far more interested in the soothing aura of romances between unequals.
In James Brooks's "Spanglish," Adam Sandler, as a Los Angeles chef, falls for his hot Mexican maid. The maid, who cleans up after Mr. Sandler without being able to speak English, is presented as the ideal woman. The wife, played by Téa Leoni, is repellent: a jangly, yakking, overachieving, overexercised, unfaithful, shallow she-monster who has just lost her job with a commercial design firm. Picture Faye Dunaway in "Network" if she'd had to stay home, or Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction" without the charm.
The same attraction of unequals animated Richard Curtis's "Love Actually," a 2003 holiday hit. The witty and sophisticated British prime minister, played by Hugh Grant, falls for the chubby girl who wheels the tea and scones into his office. A businessman married to the substantial Emma Thompson falls for his sultry secretary. A writer falls for his maid, who speaks only Portuguese.
(I wonder if the trend in making maids who don't speak English heroines is related to the trend of guys who like to watch Kelly Ripa in the morning with the sound turned off?)
Art is imitating life, turning women who seek equality into selfish narcissists and objects of rejection, rather than affection.
As John Schwartz of The New York Times wrote recently, "Men would rather marry their secretaries than their bosses, and evolution may be to blame."
A new study by psychology researchers at the University of Michigan, using college undergraduates, suggests that men going for long-term relationships would rather marry women in subordinate jobs than women who are supervisors.
As Dr. Stephanie Brown, the lead author of the study, summed it up for reporters: "Powerful women are at a disadvantage in the marriage market because men may prefer to marry less-accomplished women." Men think that women with important jobs are more likely to cheat on them.
"The hypothesis," Dr. Brown said, "is that there are evolutionary pressures on males to take steps to minimize the risk of raising offspring that are not their own." Women, by contrast, did not show a marked difference in their attraction to men who might work above or below them. And men did not show a preference when it came to one-night stands.
A second study, which was by researchers at four British universities and reported last week, suggested that smart men with demanding jobs would rather have old-fashioned wives, like their mums, than equals. The study found that a high I.Q. hampers a woman's chance to get married, 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.
So was the feminist movement some sort of cruel hoax? The more women achieve, the less desirable they are? Women want to be in a relationship with guys they can seriously talk to - unfortunately, a lot of those guys want to be in relationships with women they don't have to talk to.
I asked the actress and writer Carrie Fisher, on the East Coast to promote her novel "The Best Awful," who confirmed that women who challenge men are in trouble.
"I haven't dated in 12 million years," she said drily. "I gave up on dating powerful men because they wanted to date women in the service professions. So I decided to date guys in the service professions. But then I found out that kings want to be treated like kings, and consorts want to be treated like kings, too."
E-mail: liberties@nytimes.com
LA men...
says it all.
Life as it should be.
1. She looks for wool and flax And works with her hands in delight. (She searches for materials to make and design clothes, and loves it.)
2. She is like merchant ships; She brings her food from afar. (She buys imported stuff.)
3. She rises also while it is still night And gives food to her household And portions to her maidens. (She gets up while it is still dark and feeds her family and maids.)
4. She considers a field and buys it; From her earnings she plants a vineyard. (She purchases some property. Then she invests in it, with HER money though.)
5. She girds herself with strength And makes her arms strong. (She works out at the gym).
6. She senses that her gain is good; (Yeah baby, she makes good money from her investment!)
7. Her lamp does not go out at night. (She burns the midnight oil.)
8. She stretches out her hands to the distaff, And her hands grasp the spindle. (She starts making clothes again.)
9. She extends her hand to the poor, And she stretches out her hands to the needy.(She gives to the poor.)
10. She is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed with scarlet. She makes coverings for herself; Her clothing is fine linen and purple. (She provides clothes for her family, and she wears some good things herself!)
Her husband is known in the gates, When he sits among the elders of the land. (It's because he has a hard working wife who makes a profit, feeds the family and maids before dawn, gives to the poor, and provides clothes for the family.)
11. She makes linen garments and sells {them,} (In the garment business)
12. And supplies belts to the tradesmen. (Ah, a supplier too!)
13. Strength and dignity are her clothing, And she smiles at the future. She opens her mouth in wisdom, And the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. (Late to bed, early to rise, work your butt off, makes you healthy, wealthy, and wise.)
14. She looks well to the ways of her household, And does not eat the bread of idleness. (She has to, cause her husband is always off sitting with the elders.)
15. Her children rise up and bless her; Her husband {also,} and he praises her, {saying:} "Many daughters have done nobly, But you excel them all." (As well they SHOULD! I would tell her to save more money though and fire the maids. She seems to be doing all the work anyway.)
Yep. Kinda sensitive. "I read the original post as being only devoted to what a woman should be like because that was what most of the thread was about."
Exactly. But he expected to be flamed for it. Now explain to me why he expected to be flamed for it.
I don't think that men should look for a woman for the purposes of cleaning, cooking, washing and taking care of them... do you?
"...Exactly. But he expected to be flamed for it. Now explain to me why he expected to be flamed for it..."
Experience, friend, experience. It was intended as a tongue in cheek comment.
Sorry, I only explain my own thoughts and that infrequently.
Shalom.
>>I don't have a source, but I have read that women are attracted to men "above" them, but avoid men "below" them.
Hypergamy is an anthropological term for it. "Marrying Up" is another way of saying it. It is seen across pretty much every culture I have studied, so I think it is really part of human nature.
Did a quick Google search on the term and this paper came up. Seems like an interesting study:
http://www.aeaweb.org/annual_mtg_papers/2005/0109_1300_0701.pdf
Shalom
Thanks for your post.
I saw Carrie on tv last night and noticed that she's looking very UNglamorous and unfeminine.
LOL....very funny. (So how tired are you?)
OMG i know, i was shocked at how old and bad she looked. how the heck old is she anyway? doesn't appear to be aging gracefully....
Maybe they want to marry a HELPMEET instead of someone who constantly picks on him or belittles him like many women do to their guys. (sometimes out of ignorance but more often just out of having bought too many feminist lies).
Maybe the author should read some Laura Schlessinger... "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands" and "Woman Power."
They're not mutually exclusive qualities you know.
Ya got that right! I wonder if she did a slam piece of Schlessinger's book which noted the same thing she is noting here... except that Schlessinger's aim was to teach women how to work with the phenomenon.
I wonder if Carrie knows any men that aren't "metrosexuals"?
Don't be deceived. Looks aren't everything.... but a lot of guys make the mistake of putting too much stock in looks. So you may as well avoid them until they learn to look a little deeper anyway (even if you have the looks you don't want to be stuck with 'Shallow hal'.)
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