Jane Austen on the Loveliness of the Bimbo

An Essay on Catherine Moreland in Northanger Abbey

Perhaps no question enthrals women as much as the answers frustrate them than this: what do men find attractive in women? In the unending battle of the sexes wages in the digital arena, one debate stands out as something that is so easily resolved with a brief matter of distinguishing temperament and competence. Many would expect me, personally, as an “intelligent woman” some may argue, to side with the girls on this one...but what “team girl” diagnoses as internalised misogyny is simply just my willingness to understand that human relationships are not always based in utility but in feelings.

The question, as you may glean from the title is this: are men more attracted to dumb girls than to intelligent ones? Is intelligence a liability to a woman in matters of attraction? In other words, do men truly love bimbos?

Jane Austen can help us best understand the answer to this question in her novel Northanger Abbey.