Did you know? Men usually over-state how smart they are, and women often dumb themselves down. Not like we needed a study to believe this, but at least it's now a scientific fact. In the Belfast Telegraph, What Makes Women Happy author Fay Weldon pontificates on this in what we can only call a jumblefuck. Or as Salon put its, "another bassackward, barely intelligible diatribe on one of [Weldon's] favorite topics: how women should adapt to men's sexism."

Male hubris is useful enough outside the home. When it comes to getting through interviews, demanding promotion and getting the girl, confidence and a bit of swagger wins. Female humility? Well, it's useful in Darwinian terms, in as much as it tends to get her the man. Men in theory prefer to marry women less intelligent than they are, a little younger than they are, a little lower down the social scale.

The mating instinct tells a woman that humility pays off. So tuck in the chin, lower the eyes, and pretend. Here I am, take me, little helpless me. If he beats his chest like a gorilla over his promotion, and she declines hers because she feels she can't cope, her home life and probably her sex life will benefit. As will her children, in a contented home. Darwin wins again.

On the other hand, humility won't pay off in the work world because that's one of socialisation, not species instinct. It doesn't get you equal pay. The ones who get and accept the promotion are the minority of self-aware, bright young professional women who decline to show humility, and think themselves the equal of any man. In eschewing humility they have found their dignity. [Belfast Telegraph]