Maureen Dowd wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post about a study done at the University of Michigan that suggests men want to marry women who are less powerful than they are– in essence, men want to marry the nanny or the secretary. It’s a study that has been published in a journal of evolution and I just heard it on NPR, so it’s getting a lot of attention.

Whoa! A study using college undergraduates? Um, these “scientists” are aware that college males’ mate selection often boils down the drunkest girl left at the party at the end of the night, right? Of course college boys don’t want to marry CEOs. College boys can’t even begin to identify with women, much less successful, motivated women. It’s hard to blame them, too; why would you identify yourself as someone who wants certain characteristics in a mate when you can’t imagine that anyone with those characteristics could possibly ever want you?

Are you seriously going to base a discussion on what “men” want by looking at undergraduate males? And MAUREEN FUCKING DOWD, who I think is awesome, is giving creedence to this line of thought? Look, if you were to survey a healthy cross-section of men from a number of age groups, demographics, and cultures, and you had the same findings (and would that suprise me?– no), then Maureen Dowd should write about it and it should be on “On Point.”

But people, this was a study that looked at 120 college boys. I call that a frat party, not a serious research study. BOO, American media, for reporting this kind of crap.