Northern Exposure, Season 3

Mary:
I just don't know what men want.

Roselyn:
Mary, if it's of any consolation, you are not alone. Women had been asking that same question since Eve and Adam.

Mary:
Really?

Roselyn:
See, men are confused. They are conflicted. They want a woman who is their intellectual equal, but they are afraid of women like that. They want a woman they can dominate, but then they hate her for being weak. It's an ambivalence that goes back to a man's relationship with his mother: source of his life, center of his universe, object of both his fear and his love.

Mary:
Uh, I've never though of it like that.

Roselyn:
You see, the question is: do you really want a man? For a man to love a woman, this comes naturally because of his love for his mother, but for a woman to love a man , she has to transfer her natural affinity for the female to the male. It's a very difficult process, and in my experience it usually fails. Fortunately, there are alternatives. Just remember one thing. You don't ever need to make yourself into any man's image. People are like shoes, everybody's got a mate somewhere.