“He turned to Miss Minerva. “I’m relying on you, at any rate. You’ve got a good mind. Anybody can see that.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“As good as a man’s,” he added.
“Oh, now you’ve spoiled it!”
― Earl Derr Biggers, The House Without a Key
Let’s admit it guys prefer women who are kind, delicate and fragile because they want to feel strong by their side and help in tough times.
Here is why strong, powerful women often have difficulties finding a long-term partner. And this is not something new. Men have been thinking this way since prehistoric times when people lived in caves, and the men went out hunting while the women stayed in the cave and looked after the kids.
Other examples that show men feel attracted to innocent women who need protection may also be found in fairy tales. Their plot is almost always the same – a brave male hero who wants to save a princess or an innocent girl who is in peril. To do that he bravely fights against dangerous enemies such as villains, dragons, evil witches, or even a wicked stepmother. In the end, he marries the lady he has managed to save from her enemies and lives with her happily ever after.
But why do men think this way?
The truth is that fairy tales cannot provide a credible answer to this question. Science, however, can.
In 2015 Scientists from the University of Texas, Buffalo and the California Lutheran University carried out a study to solve this problem, and their results only confirmed what we already know.
The researchers asked a group of men if the latter would go on a date with a woman who is more intelligent than they are.
Almost 90% of the participants in the study replied positively. However, once the researchers asked the participants to meet with women who had done better than them on an intelligence test the men’s opinions drastically changed. Surprisingly, when challenged to come face to face with intelligent women, guys would find smart ladies much less attractive. And their desire to go on a date with one of them seemed significantly lower.
So it turns out that men can feel attracted to smarter women or women who are better than them in some fields, but this is not a love interest.
When it comes to flirting and dating, men prefer to feel and be smarter than the woman.
Another study on the same topic also confirmed the conclusions mentioned above and explained why men feel this way.
The researchers who conducted the study asked a group of men to think of how they would feel about their masculinity if their date, girlfriend or wife outsmarted them. The results revealed that the men were attracted to smarter ladies only if the women in question were psychologically far from them. If the men were psychologically near to a more intelligent woman, they would lose any interest in dating her.
The men reacted this way because they felt threatened by ladies who are smarter and more powerful than themselves. Their ego was hurt because they had to admit a woman could outsmart them.
Here is why they tried to distance themselves from very intelligent ladies.
