INSIDE THE REAL MEN'S ROOM v2: "INTELLIGENT WOMEN"
TWO RESPONSES from TWO OF OUR REAL MEN @ The Real Men's Room; 1, Personal Taste; and 2, Factual Touch
1. Real Man / Founder - KDM
Lauren Martin, “intelligent women" need to bring sexy back.
Lauren Martin states, "Basically, they want someone who isn’t ever going to let her career come before making dinner and pleasing them first. They want a woman who is dumb enough to make them a priority and, unfortunately, for all those sane, rational and intelligent women out there, there’s a hefty number of these women out there.” Lauren, this isn’t the 1950’s.
When are we going to trust science? This issue about “relationships" and cannot be measured by 120 test subjects from Britain, John Carney with The Wire, or David Willetts with The Daily Mail saying men want dumb women. Science gets proven wrong every year, and new theories arise over and over again from multiple acclaimed universities. Rather than science, I take it to the streets, go Inside The Real Men's Room to tell you what “intelligent" women need to stop being single. This kind science experiment isn’t for the “book smart” people to write about because they're too lazy to get out on streets, lick the shoes of the bloody sidewalk, and do some real field research on their own. It's better than science, it's more of a feeling from real men that won’t open up for you or won't find in a test tube.
Intelligence in a woman is really sexy! Just as men need to work on their skills approaching women, so do “intelligent" women. What is intelligence? Is it an IQ? Chemistry professor from Germany? Someone who can hold deep conversations, recite one of Shakespeare's sonnets? The periodic table?
George Clooney found the love of his life after dating numerous models. Lauren, are you saying that those models are dumb or Clooney is smart?
Being “intelligent" is all about being sexy. I found my intelligence in a woman when I laid eyes and every other sense I had on Maria. Brazilian, law degree, brilliant mind in fashion, outspoken opinion, challenging with a sexy taste, she makes me laugh and puts life on a spinning carousel without knowing when we are going to stop. I also know first hand, a lot of “intelligent” men who are looking for the same, and aren’t trapped behind the computer or laboratory door and they are doing something about it.
Us Real Men, and oh there’s a lot of us, want women who are brilliant, passionate about what they do, open to new experiences in the world, understanding, able to banter, and of course - are sexy! It’s also one of the last sensibilities found called, “fulfillment."
Men want to be adored, challenged in the right way, and feel like they have an intelligent, sexy woman that makes them feel valued.
Lauren, you are very intelligent. I’ve read your articles: you are better than a fart columnist and my guess is, you want a real man that wants you for who you are. But please don't denounce men like you do without checking all angles of the controversy of a relationship. Relationships are difficult and cannot be measured by science nor in front of a computer in this culture today. I’m not going to take anymore of your time. Ladies, if you want to know what goes on inside the real men’s room, find the real men.
2. Real Man / Wing Man - Michael Conlon
While very well intentioned, Lauren Martin's polarizing diatribe on the difficulties of ambitious and intelligent women in the dating world falls short of any sufficient data, significant rationalization, or measurable specificity. What we are presented with instead is a sea of generalities and vague perceptions that which leads this author to believe that "Rational and educated women are being ignored" in Martin's article, which is laden with mostly tired, subjectively driven emotional volleys of Oprah Network-lite proportions.
Let's begin to unravel these claims. First: can anyone please tell me which demographic of women is the primary control group of this article? In its present form "intelligent women" could be any woman, lets say from age 18+, who is a) single, and b) intelligent, which constitutes a humongous percentage of women in America, let alone the world. There is no mention of a specific age or ethnicity analyzed in this article, nor any remote control group used to drive Martin's point. But let's concentrate on women's intelligence first as a quantifiable measure. Generally, (as the the trend invites) I invite you to discover that logically, women have, of course, always been intelligent and have demonstrated success and ingenuity in a number of fields that utilize the different types of intelligence, which is known by any college freshman psychology major who has read Howard Gardner's "Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences." There are around 7-9 intelligences, and women are capable of all of them, naturally. It is an undeniable truth that it has taken this world a woefully long period of time to give women widespread recognition. Today they gaining more widespread notoriety for success and ingenuity; for all the contributions that should have been purported since day one of human history.
However, Martin's whole hypothesis hangs on the notion that there is one singular, overarching image of an "intelligent woman," and her definition of intelligent is...nowhere to be found in the article whatsoever. Except for a brief mention of the archaically unfunny and fictitious MRS college degree (aka college husband finding), Martin does not mention a single example academic subject or skillful vocation in this article, which, is perhaps an insult unto itself when considering the thousands of different subject areas to which millions of women have found success. The only remotely intelligent lead that we receive in this article in reference to the dominant "intelligence" of women is found very casually and arbitrarily in the mentioning of two diametrically opposed 19th European writers, Friedrich Nietzsche ("In woman, a slave and a tyrant have all too long been concealed") and Marcel Proust, ("Let us leave pretty women to men with no imagination"). Is this the only kind of intelligence sought after for women? Are all women supposed to have the acute verbosity and obsessive erudition keen enough to decipher these literary figures? Absolutely not. No, women have a plurality of intelligence that may drive them to be more successful at biomedical engineering or criminology or aerospace physics or the multitude of possibilities. Here: instead of throwing some impossibly labyrinthine academic article to support that claim, just please take a gander at this basic link that will show you some of the data that shows the increasing success of women today:
http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/cps/womenlaborforce_2013.pdf
Did you actually look at some of the data? Yes, it is a long PDF but if you are an intelligent person you should at least skim and quizzically say "hmmm" to yourself. Yes, I know there is a statistical gender pay gap. Yes, indeed there is a global pay gap. You can read about that as well. But the fact remains that women have been, and are, of course, multifaceted in their intelligences and labor capabilities. There are, for instance, several industries and correlating occupations that have a majority of female labor in the United States, including Accounting, Financial Services, Education and Health Services, and Hospitality, seen here (http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/cps/womenlaborforce_2013.pdf). Women are great contributors to the US and World Economy, and yes, in sectors that require a great deal of higher thinking and theoretical fields.
But what about dating, dating, dating? Dating seems to be the other central theme of this article, for which Martin really brings out the vitriol; she reveals the realm dating as a seemingly hopeless, skeptical vacuum (no sexist pun intended) that is sucking the life force out of modern, straight women. Ah yes, the classic inability to have it all, the relationship, the job, the name your worldly desire. You have heard this before. Please refer to any movie about women in upwardly 1980's Manhattan workplaces for further inquiry.
I aim to preserve my own sense of resolve in not attempting to merely deliver a polemic on dating when I can bring attention to the fact that women as a plural group are intelligent, successful; this is a value that can stand strong on it's own. Likewise, I will not attempt to give an equally faceted rant on what "men," another broad demographic, really "want" in "women". Somewhere inside us all, we know that when it comes to relationships, people seek out other people of like mind and intelligence. This practice is widespread, especially in places like university and the workplace. Women are capable of finding other people of like interest and absolutely not complete victims of their own success and intelligence. Men love (love!) women of all different types of intelligence; especially in this time where women are increasingly getting more recognition for their intelligence rather than their success in the dating pool, for which, as we all know, and Lauren Martin proclaims, has always, and will always, remain shallow for all involved to wade upon in irrational dismay.
