by Dr. Christine B. Whelan
Conventional wisdom - and more than a few hysterical headlines - would have us believe that the odds are stacked against smart, high-achieving women when it comes to marriage. Men don't want to marry women who are ambitious in their careers, the naysayers declare. Or women who make as much, or more, money as they do. Once a successful woman hits 30, her chances of finding a husband are limited, if not dire.
Nothing could be further from the truth! My new book, Why Men Marry Smart Women, explodes the ongoing myths about high-achieving women and marriage. The good news is backed by solid statistics from U.S. Census data, a Harris Interactive survey commissioned specifically for this book, and more than 100 interviews with high-achieving women and men in nine cities nationwide.
This groundbreaking new study corrects the bad-news lies widely perpetuated on television talk shows and in the pages of bedrock publications such as Newsweek and Forbes.com and shatters widespread myths:
Myth: Men want to marry subordinate women.Reality: 90% of high-achieving men want a woman who is as or more intelligent than they are. And more than 80% of high-achieving men said they want a woman who is as or more accomplished and educated than they areMyth: Successful career women aren't good mothers.
Reality: 68% of high-achieving men agree with the statement: "Smart women make better mothers." And two-thirds of high-achieving men said they believed a woman could be just as good of a mother if she worked outside the home.
Why Men Marry Smart Women is packed with personal stories and advice for smart, ambitious women who are worried that their career success is holding them back in their quest for love and happiness. Among the advice:
* Stop perpetuating the myth that men are intimidated by smart women. There's a high cost to the conventional wisdom that accomplished women don't get married - and it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy for you if you have a bad attitude toward dating.
* Don't downplay your career or educational success. One-third of the high-achieving women are hesitant to tell a man about their job or their educational background for fear it will intimidate him. But 71% of men say a woman's career or educational success makes her more desirable as a wife, so be proud of your accomplishments.
It's all about having the right attitude: For more information, visit http://www.whysmartmenmarrysmartwomen.com/ and buy your copy today!
9 comments:
I love this, can't wait to go find it at the bookstore!
I really enjoyed reading this article and the older posts as well! Please keep them coming!
but honestly this stuff is so boring. I mean who cares about statistics on whether men marry smart or dumb women? I mean, really, why is this information useful? Don't people simply marry who they like? And what a revelation, that smart men marry smart women!!! Why isn't this just obvious? Anyway, I'm sorry, but I'm just being honest.
wellll....I think if you've been paying attention to media over the last few years, the question of whether men want the stereotypical bimbo vs. a smart, successful woman as their life partner has come up many times and been the subject of heated debate on NPR, the NY Times, Time magazine, etc. Maybe in your world, things are so simple that people just "marry who they like" ... but that's not the world I live in. There are a lot more elements that factor into the equation, not least of them social class, educational background, appearance, occupation, and personality, where marriage is involved. I'd love to hear some anecdotes from your life of couples who embody the type of pairing that Ms. Whelan talks about.
I take issue with the question as formulated - do men want to be with a bimbo or with a woman who is smart and articulate? To me, this question is platitudinous and contrived. Guess what? Men want neither or, depending on how you look at it, they want both. What troubles me (and frankly also bores me to tears) about these debates is that they are premised on constructing simplistic dilemmas that rarely if ever materialize in real life. In more cases that not being with a smart woman does not exclude the possibility of being with a woman who is also beautiful, desirable, unpredictable, fickle and spontaneous. And being with a woman who looks and even behaves like Pamela Anderson doesn't mean you don't also want Pamela to be smart and ambitious (sorry Pamela if you're reading this but, for all I know, contrary to the stereotype attributed to you, you are in fact smarter than most of us ...). My point is simply that you marry someone that you are drawn to and, at least in your best estimation, with whom you are most compatible. That draw or compatibility will be a function of many things, including the elements mentioned in the preceding post (social class, educational background, appearance, occupation and personality). But when does the decision come down to deciding between bimbo and smart/ambitious? Probably never. And that's exactly my issue with this approach, namely, that in order to make our ideas (or our books) more marketable, we have to simplify those ideas to the point of artifice.
So yes, you're absolutely right. Many factors come into play when deciding who to marry. Far more factors than I think this book cares to consider. Surely a discussion of all these factors would be far more interesting than yet another study of whether bimbos are more marriageable than career women. Time to move on to thrings that really matter.
So then what do you make of the hoards of professionally accomplished, 'smart' women who want to meet a partner and cannot?? Does that imply that they must be undesirable for other reasons? Personality? Appearance? What if they are professionally successful and beautiful and still cannot find a husband? What about when the men they are drawn to (also professionally successful, smart, etc.) are not interested in dating them? You seem to deny that this happens but I have seen the scenario many, many times. How often do you meet men who are educated and successful by traditional standards (doctors, lawyers, financiers, etc.) who are married to lower-level service providers (lower paying and requiring less education) such as teachers, secretaries, paraprofessionals, etc. How often do you see female doctors, lawyers, bankers, etc. in parallel situations? I think it's more than just a personal decision (I just like the secretary more than the lawyer) but constitutes something of a phenomenon. How do you explain the phenomenon? Obviously there are men out there who like/love smart women, and marry them. But there are also a lot of men who choose to marry less (professionally) accomplished women. Why?
If you're right that smart, professional women find it more difficult to find husbands than unsmart, unprofessional women (I continue to dispute whether this is corroborated by fact), the reason might be that the smart, professional women simply have less time and energy to devote to the search by virtue of their careers. Not an earth shattering observation, but it has to be true, no? Everthing has an opportunity cost, so if you're busy developing a career, the cost to you might be that you have less time to compete against other women for Mr. Right. The same can likely be said of men - the busier they are, the less likely they are to be married. This cause-effect is far more probable, and it's applicable to all of life generally.
Oh, and in case you didn't know, smart has always been sexy, and sexy has always been smart. And I speak for the vast majority of men in saying this.
Huma, I'm afraid I need to be skeptical of this too. I have found, in my ongoing research in attempting to understand women, that we all live in the circumstances of our own creation. The reason that 1/3 of smart women don't want to talk about their education or career ambitions is because they're talking to the 90% of men who aren't smart. The smart men who want to (eventually) marry a smart women are the ones that many women don't talk to - either by choice or statistical reasons.
At the end of the day though, I think this book doesn't sound like it really talk about how men and women interact with each other - which is the center of the problem. Actual reported preferences mostly doesn't translate into practiced behaviors. So the book sounds less interesting from that standpoint.
Hi-nice post
I am very much in favor of an educated intelligent wife ,over a dumb one.
I need help with my situation ,because although as a husband I am educated to the Bachelor level, my wife had not gone to secondary school and is not making ANY EFFORT EVER to educate her self.Even after 8 years of marriage.
I feel trap.I would have never marry her if I had the slightest idea that after all these years she will be a liability .
Call me selfish.But because I am outgoing,I does be around high profile persons who wives are either a university tutor,financial analyst ,etc and I dread introducing my wife as a cashier.She let me down.
Post a Comment