southern seduction

Is there something unique about the way Southern women date?

When I prepared to move to Georgia three years ago, my California friends sang the praises of a Southern boyfriend over and over. These were people who had never even been to the South...yet they were still somehow convinced the men here are the greatest national embodiment of chivalry.

Ask an outsider whether you should date a Southern woman, however, and you likely won't get as convincing an endorsement.

Here, YourTango interviews one woman whose memoir of growing up in the South coined the term "Cracker Queen" -- the Southern belle's antithesis. The Southern woman is tough, and boasts a no-nonsense attitude toward men, the author says.

It's a good image, and one I'd like to believe. But I just can't accept it as Northerners' dominant image of a Southern woman.

More than anything, my friends from other states have images of women here getting married at 16 and having kids by 18.

But maybe I'm just a naive Northerner.

Tell me: How does the outside world perceive Southern women? More importantly, how should the outside perceive Southern women?