What Women Want - What Men Want: Why the Sexes Still See Love & Commitment So Differently

John Marshall Townsend's seminal book answers Freud's famous question "What do women want?" In ten chapters Mr. Townsend addresses various topics pertaining to male-female relationships: sexual differences between the two genders; what is sex what is love; what is sexually attractive to women in men; when choosing partners for marriage what men and women look for; men's criteria for choosing partners; whether there is a shortage of available men for dating; as women age and achieve professional success why their chances of dating decline; what both genders seek in marriage; whether women can have sex like men without emotional commitment; who does majority of household chores; whether women like dominant men; why male medical students don't date female medical students; whether men and women are alike in other parts of the world and, lastly, how to cope with evolutionary differences between the two genders. While responding to the above questions, Mr. Townsend convincingly debunks the notion that men and women contribute equally to the relationship and demonstrates there is always an overlap in terms of contribution and how it benefits the relationship. His analysis underscores the difficulty with egalitarianism and how fanciful expectations often undermine relationships. To wit, if something is rational doesn't mean it's preferable. The book counsels the readers to be committed to their relationship; to do things together; accept gender differences in task preferences; ignore the idea grass is greener on the other side; have lower expectations; know each partner must sacrifice some aspects of their personality for the success of relationship; remember in marriage some conflict and disappointment is inevitable and to restrict the desires to stray by avoiding to vent them. An engrossing book with potential to help a lot of people!

Mr.Townsend is both an accomplished writer and an able social scientist. This book states that there are some basic evolutionary traits that are particular to each one of the sexes. For example, men want to "score" as often as possible with the most beautiful and desirable women. To do so, they resort to different tactics ranging from false commitment promises to actual commitment at some degree. One typical trait of women is that they won't "marry down" in most instances. No matter how successful women may become, they rather be uncommitted than sharing their lives with an economically "unsuitable" man. These are but two examples of the series of traits that are associated, according to Mr. Townsend (and to other authors to be fair), to either sex. By reading the book you will find out those other interesting traits. The book postulates arise from interviews and similar studies on these peculiar gender related traits. The book have case stories that are lively written and make the book more pleasant to read. If you want to learn about men's and women's outlooks and psychological traits, this book will not disappoint you.

Townsend first describes gender differences in attractiveness, that men seek physical beauty in a sex partner while women seek a man with high status. Then he gives a cogent argument that these tendencies are built into our species. While not the last work on this subject, here is an intelligent and provocative presentation of facts and theory.

Townsend makes a plausible case for the evolution of sex differences in mate selection. Women seek high status partners, he says, while men seek physically attractive partners. There will always be doubts about the correctness of such explanations, but here there is fun in the telling.

Dr. Townsend's book provides a useful review of what Evolutionary Psychologists (as well as every intellectually honest lay observer) already know about the forces that account for the way men and women relate. To this he adds some useful and evocative interview-based research. I am sending copies to all my educated single female friends, and am keeping a copy for my hoped-for future daughter.Criticisms: Dr. Townsend focuses almost exclusively on the educated top of society, while the mechanisms he describes are causing the most rapid destruction of traditional family values at the uneducated bottom. Also, he ignores the impact of demographics, especially the change in gender ratios that ending death in childbirth has caused in the last few hundred years in the advanced (and not-so-advanced) nations.