Let's first examine us men. As mentioned before, men appear to be very strong on the surface, all of them are gladiators, with a hero complex. In reality, however, they are a kind of wild animal that is superficially arrogant but deep down very insecure. The thing he fears most is that the woman beside him will surpass him. The more capable a woman is, the better her conditions, the more panicked and at a loss the man becomes. His sense of accomplishment and satisfaction will become like a tree without roots or water without a source, and his hero complex will have nowhere to be released. Because men love face-saving, they fear appearing incompetent in front of capable women the most.
Two professors from the University of Michigan and the University of California, Los Angeles once conducted research on mate selection among over 300 college students, 120 of whom were male. Researchers observed whether a sense of superiority would affect the willingness to choose a mate. This sense of superiority has nothing to do with personality, it mainly refers to status, position, and income. It was found that most men tend to choose their assistants at work as mates, while showing little interest in their colleagues and superiors. Women, on the other hand, do not particularly consider a sense of superiority. Therefore, it is quite common for male bosses to marry female subordinates, or for a young and beautiful secretary to marry a successful male boss. Conversely, cases of male subordinates marrying female superiors are as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns, and there seem to be few cases of a "white bone spirit" marrying a "Tang Monk" (men like Tang Monk seem to be more easily subdued by vixens in real life). Moreover, I have noticed that the more successful a man is, the more he keeps his distance from "three-high women" who are equally successful.
I know a private business owner, wealthy and handsome, well-mannered and knowledgeable. Many female masters, managers, and entrepreneurs were secretly interested in him, but he ended up marrying a small accountant with only a secondary vocational school diploma, jokingly referred to as a "three-low wife" (low education, low status, low income). One day, while having dinner with him, I asked him why he chose someone lower than himself. He laughed heartily and calmly summarized three advantages of marrying a "three-low wife":
One, a "three-low wife" spiritually admires and looks up to her husband. A man can be the pillar of the family at home and doesn't have to endure委屈. On the other hand, if you marry a strong woman, you're in trouble. She gives orders at work every day and will surely do the same at home, leaving the man with no chance to shine.
Two, a "three-low wife" often has no desire for career advancement and goes home right after work, making her good material for a virtuous wife and good mother. Strong women are different. They frequently socialize outside, leaving the house unattended. The man ends up being both father and mother, becoming a "model husband" at home. Eventually, friends around him can't help but ridicule: "Look, he's not even as successful as his wife, truly useless!"
Three, a "three-low wife" economically depends on her husband, which helps maintain family harmony and stability. Strong women earn more than their husbands, are too independent and self-reliant, naturally thinking highly of themselves. Who knows when things might change, and the husband gets kicked out!
Men's preference for "three-low wives", in the eyes of self-respecting and self-reliant women, is undoubtedly a thoroughly patriarchal mindset. But if we look at it from the traditional male-dominant and female-submissive model of marriage, it seems quite common. A man's love for a woman must be based on his being sufficiently powerful and advantageous in front of her. This power and advantage are reflected not only in age, height, and physical fitness but also in authority, money, and psychology. If a man feels inferior everywhere in front of the woman he loves, his masculine desire for conquest cannot be released, leading to severe insecurity, and even double "impotence" physiologically and psychologically, never recovering.
Therefore, men's choice of mates has always been a "looking-down mentality": she must be younger than me, shorter than me, have a lower education level than me, and earn less than me...
Men, after all, have limited achievements. Please remember one sentence - imperialism and all big men are paper tigers!
And from a man's perspective, a strong woman is comparable to Mount Everest, tall and mysterious. Although men all want to be gladiators, have a desire to conquer, and yearn to conquer famous mountains and great rivers, Mount Everest is too high in altitude and too cold in climate to climb, unless you're part of the Everest team. Nowadays, Chinese men all value their lives dearly, have short-sightedness, find climbing Mount Huang and Mount Tai exhausting, who would willingly spend a lot of energy on an unreachable giant peak? This is probably the fundamental reason why Chinese-style strong women mostly make the men around them flee in fear, leaving them in the awkward situation of self-admiration.