If it's true that men are less attracted to intelligent women, what's the solution?

In the boardroom we’re told to ‘lean in’ and ‘man up’, and now apparently in our love lives we have to ‘woman down’

Is she too clever for him? (Corbis)

A study has been dominating the headlines this week which purports to prove that men like the idea of intelligent women, but just don’t want to date them in reality. In quick summary: the men were told about a woman with an IQ higher than theirs, but then, when presented with an in-the-flesh human being, produced some interesting body language. In essence, they unconsciously moved their body language further away – and researchers concluded that that meant they found them less attractive.

As it turns out, then, we may have the vote, we may have gotten at least halfway through the corporate glass ceiling, but we have unfortunately left behind our possibilities of catching a husband and living the Good Housekeeping dream. We are destined, if the study’s claims are true, to become a generation of Bridget Joneses, who only manage to ensnare a man by playing party to his inferiority complex.

One ponders the reasoning behind the purpose of this study as a whole. Because why was it necessary to conduct a study to see if this is an active variable within men’s decision-making towards deciding whether he finds someone attractive or not? Are women supposed to take the findings on board and ‘improve’ (a.k.a dumb down) as a result? Are we going to start factoring IQ tests in to speed-dating, with women always matched with someone a little higher up the intellectual ladder than them? Or are we supposed to believe that man, that malicious species, can no longer subordinate woman in the workplace so is turning his hand to relationships?

Announcing that a woman has a smaller chance of maintaining a successful relationship (or even a date) if she is the smarter partner is downright damaging. In the boardroom we’re told to ‘lean in’ and ‘man up’, and now apparently in our love lives we have to ‘woman down’. If young girls start to believe that they can succeed in their academic pursuits but not their relationships, they are faced with a stark choice: achievements or attention. This is a choice that no girl – indeed, no person - should ever have to ponder.

The conductors of the study have managed to simultaneously disappoint women’s outlook and insult men (many of whom I’d sure would take issue with the idea that their egos are just too fragile to cope with a real life female who scores higher than them in tests to do with verbal and spatial ability.)

Besides, intelligence – like gender – is a sliding scale. Perhaps we should stop trying to find the method in the madness and accept that relationships are complicated, attraction is nuanced and prejudice is being challenged more than ever before. Implying that men might be predisposed in some way to finding their female counterparts less pretty if they’re good with calculus does nobody any favours.