"Apparently, Men Are Threatened by Smart Women, Because of Course They Are"

"At first, the results were somewhat encouraging: The men "are attracted to women who are smarter than them when she is psychologically distant," lead author Lora Park told Mic. The "psychologically distant" jargon in this context means that the men found the smart targets (i.e. women) attractive in the abstract, i.e. from a distance. Which is great. These men appreciated a girl with a brain. Awesome.

But now for the depressing twist! "Men show less attraction to a woman when she is psychologically near and outperforms him in the intellectual domain," Park said. "Some preliminary evidence suggested that this was due to men feeling more threatened — in terms of feeling less masculine — after the woman outsmarted them when she was closer to him."...

A 2013 study determined that some straight men were uncomfortable with their female partners' successes. "This research found evidence that men automatically interpret a partner's success as their own failure," lead researcher Kate Ratliff said. "Even when they're not in direct competition."

http://m.mic.com/articles/126971/new-study-shows-men-are-threatened-by-smart-women?utm_source=policymicFB&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=social

Sigh. I feel like we're in this major, icky growing pains stage where we've recognized the benefits and goods of letting go of a lot of gendered expectations, but our society still instills them in us and we can't do anything about it. So, like, maybe if we manage to put together another few generations, we'll finally get to a place where everything isn't terrible.

(credit to AA)

Related: That study Devin sent me; the smart women don't have dating prospects one