I saw this column last week on the New York Times' website. I have my thoughts,but I wanted to get your feedback first. Maureen Dowd talks about how successful, professional-type women have trouble finding mates.

Men Just Want Mommy

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: January 13, 2005



WASHINGTON

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."

source: www.nytimes.com

I just want...she knows.

I think most men would like to marry a women who reminds them of their mother in some way.....Mommy is ideal

What is it called, the Oedipus Complex??


Smooches;)

"Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction" without the charm" -- I know Maureen is dry, but this is a bit much. I actually hate Maureen Dowd, almost as much as that blond hyper-conservative.. I forget her name now. That being said, I do think this article speaks the truth, unfortunately. This also links to another problem I have .. why can't women ask men out? Men need to be the pursuers for a relationship to be successful, I am told. Is this true also? If these are both the case, when is evolution going to catch us up to women's lib?

"Men think that women with important jobs are more likely to cheat on them" Is this really the reason? I have a hard time believing this part of the study.. do any men care to comment?

I think Dowd is right to raise the issue. But she's too quick to jump to a conclusion. The women who have these issues also need to look at themselves.

I am a licensed professional in a demanding line of work. I have demands on my time. But on more occasions than I care to count, I have dated professional women who are so occupied with their careers/jobs that they can only see me sporadically. It can take me weeks, sometimes months, to get on their calendars. These are great, sweet, attractive women. But to various degrees it is difficult for me to get to know them. I can't consider relationships with women I see only 6 times out of the year, maybe.

It was worse in my 20s. This is because many 20something women with high career potential and/or disposable income and free time desire a lot of the things similarly situated men do. They want to see the world, hang out, party, and date casually. This means that relationship-minded guys have a tough time finding that soulmate at that age.

Guys with these experiences usually react in 2 ways. They will simply play the field, thinking they have little alternative, or they will search for good women who can make time to date them. Many times, those women might not be professionals. So when Dowd opines that these pairings of successful men/non-professional women are because of men's desires, I have to laugh. Maybe there are other reasons. Maybe, just maybe, some of those great, powerful women -- those obvious "catches" -- put off seriously looking for a mate for too long, leaving the secretary or customer service rep down the hall with the pick of the litter.

Anyway, what's wrong with the secretary? My grandmothers worked in clerical and manufacturing jobs. So did many of my aunts. They were just as good as the degreed women. I sense a bit of snobbery in Dowd's comments.

I know, I know . . .

To be sure, a lot of women might have blown me off for different reasons. Maybe . . . ugh . . . they just weren't that into me. Maybe I ignored many other great compatible professional mates and pined for the ones I couldn't have. All that is true to a degree.

But I think in many cases women need to take responsibility for this issue. I know such professional women have unique challenges, pressures and demands, but they need to examine their own patterns and choices before blaming the man for wanting his mommy. If the girlies don't come out to play, the boys are going back to the house.

I know I am making sweeping generalizations, but so is Dowd. I know one size doesn't fit all. I am just offering my


[Edited 1/19/05 9:58am]

Could it possibly be something as simple as we have a natural tendency to develop more intimate feelings, real or superficial, towards those who "care" for our needs??...Not necessarily that it's a "man just wanting a mommy", but that when interacting with someone of the opposite sex in a way in which they are already displaying a certain level of care and concern about your success (secretary, personal assistant, etc.), your comfort(waitress, nurse, etc.), what have you...that these types of people in our lives give us a particular type of feeling that is attractive, as if we already know we're in good hands with them...

Compare that to, say, a woman who's a bank manager and doesn't interact with you other than on a level of mutual interests and common aquaintances thru business. While those aspects can and do certainly lead to relationships and love, it might be that the nurse who cares for your health, holds your hand while she takes your blood pressure and is there in your more vunerable moments will have an emotional headstart on the bank manager...something like that might be in play moreso that men wanting "mommy" (which using that term, "mommy" instead of "mother", gives an air of judgement from the get-go)..

Just a random thought...nothing more.

i'm almost positive the man i married chose me because i am very much like his mother,sounds a bit wierd i know but we look a like,my motherinlaw and i get mistaken for being sisters all the time,we have the same jobs(both hairdressers)we have even both suffered with the same illness for a long period of time,we are the best of friends because we are so alike,except i refuse to be a house wife who does all the cooking and cleaning and i am not as soft natured as my mother in law which after 9 years together has now(well obviously amongst other things)has bought my marriage to an end,however my mother in law and i are still very good friends and probably always will be.anyway what i'm saying is i think a lot of men do go after a mother figure when searching for the right woman,and they do want to be taken care of in the same way their mothers did,but hell it would take a pretty selfless woman to live upto that expectation from a man!