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
I just ache thinking of how you must have felt then... ergh. people have some messed up priorities. :-\
Places where men of character frequent. Church, Republican campaign offices... ;-)
None of the places Dowd goes.
THANKS! for the heads up.
Firing ranges...
Rush says men are simple....he just wants approval. I would agree with him. It really is all about them.
Not sure what the source of Maureen's difficulties is. Assuming she does not have one of the usual personal or gynecological problems, she may have unrealistic expectations. "Compatibility" is a little different from looking for an "equal" in some sort of elite power game. She seems to have a very exalted image of herself. I'm sure she's bright but she doesn't strike me as too intelligent. Some people who think that they are very smart are in a defense mechanism mode of deeper low self-esteem. That's certainly true in the northeastern, liberal Ivy League set. A lot of pretensions and hot air - less substance than claimed.
We should pray for her.
As for where she should look - getting out of Manhattan liberal power circles might be the best life-change move.
Yikes! I don't know anything about guns. I don't particularly like them, either. I am not against them, I just don't think they are my thing.
Don't men like dogs? I have a great big dog.
Birds of a feather. This Dowd has a bit of schizoid stuff going on. She wants her independence and yet wants a good guy who realizes marriage is a partnership of interdependence both physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
People want their independence from the opposite sex because they've chosen badly and been burned. So instead of learning to discern character better, they blame the opposite sex as a whole.
As far as Ms. Fisher is concerned, it's easy to see why she can't get a date. She was on with O'Reilly last night and although she is about 50 years old - she looked nearly 70. AND I AM NOT KIDDING! I don't know if she's been fitted with bad dentures or what, but I was truly shocked at her appearance.
i was too, i just looked it up online and she is 48, and she looks much older than that. i was horrified to see how badly she has aged. but she has some substance abuse in her past doesn't she? still, she has cash and could pay to be fixed up some.
You haven't heard of Maureen Dowd?
hmm...
Oh well, in any case, if she goes to church she either isn't listening or goes to a liberal church.
Yep, we should pray for her. Your wife should have a talk with her, too. Sounds like she has her head on straight. Wow! She picked you out and made the first move. I could never do that. What a lady! She is my hero.
Gotta love it. Rush just said "A man who believes he's smarter than his wife doesn't know how truly smart she IS." Awwwww shucks.... But really, Cyrano *is* smarter than me. At least, if we're not talking about dogs.
I guess she's in her fifties. You have to give her credit, though, for not getting a facelift. I saw her on Bravo recently interviewing her father, Eddie Fisher. What a piece of work he is and still alive, after being a total failure as a father and human being. Carrie was pretty funny.
Maybe they're just dirty old men like me.
Good for her. I kinda sorta did that too.. sort of (although I balked at the idea...)... I knew something clicked in my head the first time Cyrano opened his mouth and introduced himself. It was a weird feeling I'd never felt before in all my previous 'crushes.' I fought it for...5 months actually hoping it was just another 'crush.' Finally I gave up and cried to my roommate. I asked her to talk to Cyrano and then HE came and asked for a time that we could get together and talk... and the rest is history.
Now, do I meet all his needs... uh.... well... Cyrano?
don't you want a helpmeet?
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