New study says men want subordinate women

I don’t want anyone to think we’re getting marriage fever over here at Feministing, but this was too crazy not to write about.
According to a new study from the University of Michigan, men looking for long-term relationships and marriage would prefer to be with women in subordinate jobs, rather than women who are supervisors.
Lead author of the study, Dr. Stephanie Brown, said in the NY Times that the findings “provide empirical support for the widespread belief that powerful women are at a disadvantage in the marriage market because men may prefer to marry less accomplished women.” (Did anyone else cringe hearing the term ‘marriage market’?)
And why do men supposedly feel this way? According to Dr. Brown it’s the “pressures associated with the threat of paternal uncertainty.” So essentially they’re saying that men think that women who are in subordinate positions aren’t as likely to cheat on them and have other men’s babies. Which I would assume is why the men in the study didn’t show a preference when asked about having a one-night stand with women. (Cool to be powerful if you’re just getting fucked, but a big no-no as a wife…)
Now I’m not saying these finding are entirely untrue, but they sound fishy to me. All of these evolutionary biology/psychology arguments are problematic to begin with, but even just thinking about it logically: if this was really the case, wouldn’t straight powerful women around the country be mate-less?
Given my hesitation about the study, I was glad to see that the NY Time piece quoted Dr. Ellen Berscheid, a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, who is also wary of “these florid psychoevolutionary interpretations of human behavior that wholly ignore the influence of contemporary, mundane social institutional forces.” (She just says it all fancy-like.)
Thanks to Christopher for pointing out the story!

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