What women really want (UK)

Rarely do social theorists cause a public furore outside their ivory towers -- except for Catherine Hakim, feminist foe and author of such provocative works as Mummy, I Want to be a Housewife. Last year, in Erotic Capital, she claimed that women's looks, sexuality and charm should be as highly valued as assets usually held in higher regard, such as brains - and she cited prostitutes, model Katie Price, wives and girlfriends of sportsmen, princess Diana and Madonna. Now she has done it again. Hakim argues, in a new paper called Feminist Myths and Magic Medicine, that women still want to "marry up": to marry men who are richer and cleverer than them. She says "most of the theories and ideas built up around gender equality in the past few decades are wrong" and that "despite feminist claims, the truth is that most men and women have different career aspirations and priorities".