Dumb it down? Heck no!

In a recent article in the NY Times by Maureen Dowd, "Should Hillary pretend to be a flight attendant?" there was a premise that first was shocking to me. As with evolution of digesting the information, I concluded it so wasn't shocking after all as I realized among my facebook buddies whom I shared the piece: it's actually empowering.

There it was in black and white print. A Columbia University economics professor conducted a two-year study on dating. The results, even in the 21st century, show that men still pigeonhole women into stereotypes. In other words, it's like the Sex and the City episode where Miranda went speed-dating. When she tells them she's a lawyer, men lost interest. When she says she was a flight attendant, however, they became more interested.

The piece goes onto say: We found that men did put significantly more weight on their assessment of a partner’s beauty, when choosing, than women did. We also found that women got more dates when they won high marks for looks.” Apparently men avoided women who they perceived to be smarter than themselves. And when it came to career ambition, a woman could be ambitious, just not more ambitious than the man considering her for a date.

So the piece was disconcerting and unfortunately showed the blatant truth: overall men may not value ambitions and career-driven women, you know what? I realize this doesn't impact who I am. Am I going to "hide" my career accomplishments in fear that someone won't like me? Heck no! If anything it's time to be proud. After all, who would want to be with an insecure guy anyway who can't handle a woman's success? My friends and colleagues who I discussed this with shared the same conclusion: the more things change, the more they stay the same. As for what we can control, well, it's our very own actions so that said, it's not time to give in and become a fictitious flight attendant.