It's a tough question but someone has to answer it – what matters more to blokes, the size of a woman’s chest or the potency of her brain?
Of course, men are always being accused of being more interested in a woman’s looks rather than her mind.
And now the debate has been given fresh life by evolutionary biologist Prof David Bainbridge’s finding that men desire brainy women because a high intellect suggests she will be a better mother.
First of all, the ‘clever woman/better mother’ sounds inherently dodgy as cleverness only rarely translates into responsibility.
And how truthful a survey can it possibly be with men unlikely to admit to preferring dim women?
My own impression is that it’s women who get a kick out of intelligent men whereas for men a massive brain in a woman is, er, a massive turn off.
In all my years of chatting to pals in the pub I have never heard one of them say: “Wow! Look at the brain cells on her ...”
And while I’ve been out with a headteacher, the chief executive of a council and, bizarrely, a Ryvita director, none of them were what I would call exceptionally intelligent and they were certainly more bothered about their looks than their minds.
In fact, the only woman I have ever met who was a genuine bluestocking kind of girl, a senior officer with a Yorkshire council, was so scary both men and women kept her way past arms’ length.
My experience is that men like women who are attractive, bright, kind and responsive.
Add in an alluring quality, an ability to cook and host dinner parties with a good sense of humour and you’re almost there.
Truth is men and women look for slightly different things in partners. Frances Wilson, an Oxford English graduate, told the Daily Mail she has no interest in what a man looks like – in fact the more bedraggled the better as long as he has a massive brain.
No man will ever say that about a woman.
