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Men Just Want Mommy
New York Times ^ | January 13, 2005 | Maureen Dowd

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


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: culturekampf; czj; dowd; dowdy; dustywomb; feminism; miz; modo; single7and7hating7it; spinster
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To: HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
There was a girl we knew in college (something of a control freak) who had a list which had about 37 or 38 criteria which her man of dreams had to meet.

She can have fun reading that list to her cats when she's 40. ;)

381 posted on 01/13/2005 11:56:55 AM PST by Mr. Jeeves
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To: Mr. Jeeves

It was pretty bizarre. She carried it around with her - making periodic updates (like a shopping list).


382 posted on 01/13/2005 12:02:25 PM PST by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: Area51

Well said. The whole thing!


383 posted on 01/13/2005 12:05:27 PM PST by Eaker ("I am a Scientist ............... and that was fast for me.")
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To: Mr. Jeeves

reminds me of a never married sorority girl who said her SECOND marriage will be for love.


384 posted on 01/13/2005 12:16:15 PM PST by longtermmemmory (VOTE!)
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To: winner3000

So sweet of you to say so (blush).


385 posted on 01/13/2005 12:17:42 PM PST by Liz (Wise men are instructed by reason; lesser men, by experience; the ignorant, by necessity. Cicero)
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To: Terriergal; anniegetyourgun
I don't know if I'd equate "men are simple, they only want approval" with "it's all about them". Particularly if the approval is "approval of someone I know and who knows me", which is the context I'd assume (having not heard any of Rush today).

The power and focus is not on the man in that case, it's on the one(s) from whom he desires approval (or appreciation or whatever). While there are exceptions (and men as a group or individually are no more perfect than women), I think in general, a reasonably normal and healthy guy has an innate willingness to sacrifice much of himself to benefit those for whom he cares. Often without thinking much about it. Even if it means enduring suffering by the actions or omissions of the very people he's seeking to serve.

That sort of service without introspection is easy to overlook. To take for granted. Because it is simple.

What it is not is simplistic. Ms. Dowd et al miss that point at their own distress (though to be fair, Carrie Fischer, whom I like quite a bit, was raised in and resides within the Hollywood world, where the percentage of "reasonably normal and healthy guys" must be written in scientific notation...)

It's too bad we spend so much time talking about the exceptions and the stereotypes: the shrews, the players, the ex-whatevers. Because a relationship should be, can be, one of those mysterious things where the whole is not only greater than the sum of its parts, but it actually serves to improve those flawed individuals of which it is comprised. The more accessible that concept is, the more it is actually modelled, the better.

Cyrano

386 posted on 01/13/2005 12:27:22 PM PST by Cyrano
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To: ArGee
Mr Gun is the love of my life too. But, alas, to a certain extent, Rush is right on this one too. Most men are quite focused on their own ego, wants, and needs. What comes with that territory is a missed opportunity to build into their wives, such that she becomes all that God intended for her. When that opportunity is missed, one ends up with either a bitter wife or a sad wife. I've known several of both.

There is a great deal of societal emphasis (probably due, in part, to the destructive feminist movement) on how much wives influence their husbands. So much so, that I fear that husbands no longer realize how much influence they should have on their wives.....and how much their wives reflect (to the world, to their children, and back to their husbands) the care they are receiving at home.

No, Dowdy is wrong to suggest that men just want to marry mommy. They are more likely to be wedded to themselves. Such men don't make good marriage material, as marriage only makes them adulterous.

387 posted on 01/13/2005 12:36:52 PM PST by anniegetyourgun
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To: anniegetyourgun
Most men are quite focused on their own ego, wants, and needs.

All men are fallen. We look to G-d to know how we should be, and for the strength to become that (to the extent we can this side of Paradise).

Shalom.

388 posted on 01/13/2005 1:07:08 PM PST by ArGee (After 517, the abolition of man is complete)
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To: ArGee
Seems to me, I read that somewhere....

; ]

389 posted on 01/13/2005 1:17:59 PM PST by anniegetyourgun
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To: Jim Noble

One should regard romantic advice from someone as tortured, neurotic and outright stupid as Ms. Dowd with extreme suspicion.

Regards, Ivan


390 posted on 01/13/2005 1:19:23 PM PST by MadIvan (Gothic. Freaky. Conservative. - http://www.rightgoths.com/)
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To: Terriergal

Heck, I'd just like to meet someone.


391 posted on 01/13/2005 1:27:56 PM PST by Tennessee_Bob (Come on you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?)
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To: HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
There was a girl we knew in college (something of a control freak) ....

What ever happened to her? Just out of morbid curiosity. Did she wise up and drop the list, or is she still out there like Mo Dowdy and Carrie F.?

I remember Carrie Fisher's first movie line. She was in Shampoo, playing a randy teenager whose mom got her haircuts and her sex fixes from Warren Beatty's character. She's playing tennis as Beatty passes the court en route the house. Her first words were, "Wanna ____?"

I have a copy of Fisher's Surrender the Pink, which is her sequel to Postcards from the Edge, which I didn't read. I started reading Surrender, but never finished it. It was all about ungrounded relationships and the heartbreak of cystitis.

Speaking of hypergamy, which came up upthread, I remember going on vacation to West Texas in 1981 and thumbing through an article in the Southwest Airlines magazine. It was about a very successful woman realtor in Dallas who'd moved up the property ladder. She was unrefined (she drove an Excalibur, for example -- a showboat kit-car) but lived the good life nevertheless. She let the magazine know that whenever a man asked her out, she always asked him to fax over his financial statement. Her rationale was that men are "threatened" by women who earn more than they do and that she could short-circuit the inevitably unsatisfying experience by turning him down flat on the basis of his bottom line. I saw her point but thought she was missing the Point anyway.

On the other side of the aisle, a neighbor and I were talking about a very upper-middle-class couple that lives down the street. Both work insane hours (she's a bank EVP, he's an attorney in private practice), so much so that we could always hear their poor dog barking disconsolately in the back yard well into evening (a Weimaraner named for a famous German field marshal, of course, to go with their German cars). Neighbor commented that she was just like all the other attorneys' wives he'd ever seen: trophy-thin and trophy-cute. So what did they do, to round out their household collectanea? A couple of orphans from Eastern Europe, of course, whom they adopted a couple of years ago. Trophy wife, trophy kids, trophy cars and dog, insane work schedule, combative and argumentative nature, all the personality of a chunk of concrete. Whattaguy.

The insanity of "having it all" infects both sexes.

392 posted on 01/13/2005 1:34:14 PM PST by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
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To: Politicalmom
Most men are too shallow to choose properly, valuing the packaging above the contents.

In my case, I got it right the second time around. :-) I got both!

393 posted on 01/13/2005 1:34:20 PM PST by TChris (Most people's capability for inference is severely overestimated)
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To: lentulusgracchus
Not sure. She did marry some guy that approximated her shopping list. Not sure how that worked out. I'll ask around.

As for the status-conscious workaholic yuppies... That sometimes goes on for about five years or so....until the divorce. Look for the FOR SALE signs in the overpriced upscale neighborhoods.

The red-faced guys working on high blood pressure who look like their heads are about to explode, racing home through rush hour like madmen in the Jags and Lexus sedans are part of this syndrome as well.

Um....life doesn't have to be this complicated to find happiness, folks!

394 posted on 01/13/2005 1:46:38 PM PST by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
She picked me out, btw, and made the first move.

Saw a 20/20 segment once with some sociological smartypantses.....burden of the discussion was, women always make all the choices. They propose, they dispose, you just pay for it all. Made men sound like billing-address chumps and sperm donors. Disappointing, I've always liked women both little and big, going back to when I was six or so. Too bad they think we're just chewing gum on the sidewalk if we aren't a meal ticket, a status connection, or a boy-toy.

A men's-magazine article I read back in the 1960's claimed that women didn't have the same spirit of "play by the rules" men did, and cited as support the (then) prevalence of cheating in women's golf, which was something of a running scandal for years. Something about that pragmatic streak burning through a tissue of "silly rules", and how in men it was different, that they were somehow able to "play by the rules" for abstract reasons and results in a socially useful way. Sidewalk psych, I never did find out if there was anything to it, but have had occasion to wonder at women's cold-bloodedness -- er, make that pragmatism -- in dealing with men. Remember Esau? His own mom, man. That's cold, man.

Tacitus said the same thing about the politically elite women of the Julio-Claudian line.

Very disappointing to hear, but I still like them and take encouragement from all the good examples out there. The Liberty Belles are hot, for instance: attractive and intelligent women, they're to the right of most talk-show hosts, can shoot straight, speak Standard English, and have real morals. So who would you want your kids brought up by? I like 'em like those old girls! (Though I also like Sigourney Weaver a whole bunch.)

395 posted on 01/13/2005 2:16:47 PM PST by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
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To: Jim Noble

396 posted on 01/13/2005 2:28:30 PM PST by Roscoe Karns
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To: HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
Are you Dr. Sonheim? I thought only he would mention Walker Percy on an FR thread!

;-)

REgards,

TS

397 posted on 01/13/2005 2:41:08 PM PST by The Shrew (www.swiftvets.com & www.wintersoldier.com - The Truth Shall Set YOU Free!)
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To: Nachum

This is the only Dowd column I have ever thought she got right. Most men prefer to love a woman, not compete with their spouse. The term strong woman means "me first, not us".


398 posted on 01/13/2005 2:42:19 PM PST by bfree
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To: HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
....racing home through rush hour like madmen in the Jags and Lexus sedans are part of this syndrome as well.

Yup, seen 'em. The guys who rush up the right lane of the service road past a long line of traffic waiting to get onto the on-ramp on the freeway, then suddenly slow, swerve, and cut into the line at the head....? It's always guys in Infinitis, Lexuses, Jags, BMW's, or squatty little Benzes mit Kompressor -- yup, that's them!

I'm gonna go get an old, pre-smogification, pre-ban-on-everything, '67 Plymouth Satellite, drop in a 383 four-barrel, hang pickup-truck bumpers and fat radials on it and get me some Ben Hur hub caps and a fresh layer of gray primercoat, and then go looking for a line of traffic somewhere. This should be fun.

399 posted on 01/13/2005 2:46:38 PM PST by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
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To: The Shrew

NO, sorry. Prof. X here.

Percy's Lost in the Cosmos seems a perfect fit for Maureen's postmodern Angst and ennui. What she needs is ontological reorientation (out of Manhattan liberaltopia) back into reality.

400 posted on 01/13/2005 2:48:51 PM PST by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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