Scaring Smart Women: NYT Says Successful Women are their own Worst Enemies

Yes, this again, now from the New York Times (here):

Dating sites seem to suggest that highly educated women have more trouble finding a partner than women in more traditionally female jobs. “Care and social professions work well; the really educated profiles are more difficult,” said Gesine Haag, 43, who used to run match.com in Germany. An elite dating portal at the company, trying to match up highly educated men and women, was abandoned and refocused more broadly, said Ms. Haag, who now manages her own Internet marketing agency.

“Men don’t want successful women, men want to be admired,” she said. “It’s important to them that the woman is full of energy at night and not playing with her BlackBerry in bed.”

Bernard Prieur, a psychoanalyst and author of “Money in Couples,” says men who earn less than their partners struggle with two insecurities: “They feel socially and personally vulnerable. Socially, they go against millennia of beliefs and stereotypes that see them as the breadwinner. And the success of their partner also often gives them a feeling of personal failure,” Mr. Prieur said in the November issue of the French magazine Marie-Claire.

So are ambitious women condemned to singledom? Or are things changing as the number of female high achievers inches higher?

This New York Times article grossly misunderstands both men and women, I think.  There are plenty of highly-educated, successful males and females in happy relationships with each other.  Some people indeed prefer highly-educated, successful romantic partners– of the opposite sex or the same sex, let’s not forget.

When will the media stop trying to scare women — and degrade both men and women — with this type of hype ?

-Bridget Crawford