We all know the stereotype: brainy girls are the homely sidekicks of the buxom, brainless blondes whom boys can’t get enough of. Watch the TV series, Big Bang, for a classic example. The pairing of beauty with the brain dead isn’t in accordance with nature, however. (Click) Despite the culture norms, the human brain does make a correlation between being attractive and being smart. Diane Keaton grapples with this nexus of brains and looks in her autobiography, Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty, and concludes the beauty and brains are important — the latter more so as we age. (“Smart Is the New Beautiful,” by Judith Newman, More, September 2015, pg. 32.)
While women have spent fortunes reaching for good looks to attract a partner, a shift in society has occurred which places a growing value on brains. Women, who now make up over half of all U.S. postgraduate students, are being valued as potential breadwinners, an asset which makes having brains part of the sexual equation. (Ibid pg. 31) There’s a new word for the phenomena: Sapiosexua. It identifies a person who is sexually attracted to intelligence. (Think George Clooney)
Women have long used breadwinning as a factor in choosing a mate, but not until women became breadwinners themselves was a new standard for sexual attraction given a word. The term first appeared on the dating service Match.com after 5000 men were surveyed about what they desired in a partner. 87% responded they’d date someone smarter and better educated than they were and who made more money. (Ibid pg. 32)
Who knew? In the new paradigm, a woman’s I.Q. is becoming as important as her bra size.
Unfortunately, brains aren’t as easy to obtain as beauty. Cosmetics and a good plastic surgeon can work magic on the body. Those remedies aren’t the route to better brains. Fortunately there’s a cheap, easy way to create the illusion of intelligence. Buy a set of catchy eye ware.
Diane Keaton courtesy of yahoo.com
