The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

The Superior Man:
He seems brilliant, skilled, strong, and stable. He
radiates confidence and power. He could be a high-powered
businessman, a professor, an artist, a guru. Even though he may be
older and not so physically attractive, his self-assurance gives him an
attractive aura. For the woman attracted to this type, a relationship
with him would give her an indirect feeling of strength and superiority.
In the novel Middlemarch (1872) by George Eliot, the main
character, Dorothea Brooke, is a nineteen-year-old orphan raised by
her wealthy uncle. Dorothea is quite beautiful and would be a desirable
match for marriage. In fact, a local young man named Sir James
Chettam is actively courting her. But one evening she meets the much
older Edward Causabon, a wealthy landowner who has devoted his life
to scholarly pursuits, and he intrigues her. She starts to pay him
attention and he courts her, much to the horror of her sister and uncle.
To them he is ugly, with moles on his face and a sallow complexion. He
slurps his food and talks very little. But to Dorothea his face is full of a
spiritual quality. He is too above people to care about etiquette. He
talks little because no one would understand him. Being married to
him would be like being married to Pascal or Kant. She’ll learn Greek
and Latin and help him complete his great masterpiece, The Key to All
Mythologies. And he will help educate and elevate her. He will be the
father she has been unconsciously missing. Only after being married to
him does she discover the truth—he’s dead inside, and very controlling.

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He sees her as a glorified secretary. She becomes trapped in a loveless
marriage.
Although the relationship details might be quite different now, this
type of projection is all too common among women. It stems from
feelings of inferiority. The woman in this case has internalized the
voices of the father and others who have been so critical of her, who
have lowered her self-esteem by telling her who she is and how she
should behave. Not having ever developed her own strength or
confidence, she will tend to search for these qualities in men and
exaggerate any traces of them. Many of the men who respond to her
sense her low self-esteem and find this alluring. They like the adoring
attention of a woman, often younger, whom they can lord over and
control. This would be the classic professor seducing the student.
Because such men are rarely as brilliant, clever, and self-assured as she
imagines, the woman either is disappointed and leaves or is trapped in
her low self-esteem, bending to his manipulations and blaming herself
for any problems.
What such a woman needs to do is first realize that the source of her
insecurity is the critical opinions of others, which she has accepted and
internalized. It does not stem from her inherent lack of intelligence or
worthiness. She must actively work at developing her assertiveness and
self-confidence through her actions—taking on projects, starting a
business, mastering a craft. With men, she must see herself as their
natural equal, as potentially strong and creative as they are, or even
more so. With genuine self-confidence she will then be able to gauge
the true worth and character of the men she meets.