Of men, women and their interchanged identities

In the 1964 classic movie My Fair Lady, Professor Henry Higgins memorably asked his friend Colonel Pickering, "Why can’t a woman be more like a man?" — a comment that in these gender-sensitive times would be vigorously decried as unacceptably misogynist, not to mention sexist. However, 60 years on, data collated from a matrimonial website implies an equally sexist bias on the part of Eliza Doolittle’s current co-genderists, as they appear to want partners who are quite the opposite of the unreconstructed males Prof Higgins lionised. They want men who can cook and are not inextricably attached to gadgets, particularly in a domestic setting — though being utterly devoid of gizmos is also considered a no-no. So, to (mis)quote the curmudgeonly Edwardian phonetics expert, today’s women seem to be saying, "Why can’t a man be like me?"

Of course, the women’s curious allergy to men obsessively taking photos of eatables and uploading them instantly to social media sites points to probably well-founded suspicions regarding the real objects of their prospective mates’ desire — food or themselves, rather than their companions. But considering this is not exclusively male behaviour, it also underlines a very significant phenomenon of our times: the ascent of edibility over eligibility.