From an early age, we teach them, despite the evidence to the contrary, that all it takes to make a bad boy a perfect, chivalrous father and husband is for a special woman to enter his life. Regardless of what is really to blame for this, be it romantic thinking or just another area that the myth of the "essential goodness of humanity" has completely wrecked the average person's thinking about human nature, it's a load of rubbish that sets many girls up for pain and suffering later in life. This comment from Dr. Helen's blog sums it up quite well, in my opinion:

Let's also keep in mind what we teach girls, starting when they are in the crib, about dating.

When they are still in diapers, someone may read "the frog prince" to them, about how princes are hidden among the toads and just need a special girl to kiss them.

Then they'll watch "Lady and the Tramp," learning that a self-confessed "chicken thief" and scoundrel is a good match for good girls.

Then they'll see "Beauty and the Beast" and "Alladin," learning that jerks and thiefs are really loving souls, diamonds in the rough, and will show you the world, if only a special woman would give them a chance.

Then we'll move on to soap operas, where the best men always ride in on a motorcycle and fight their way to them. They have good hearts, and make the best, most loving men, criminal history and gang-affliations will fade, and only a special woman can bring it out.

Then we'll see the same stories repeated through chick flicks and romantic comedies. The person will be disconnected, criminal, rude, already married, engaged (how many movies had romantic climax of someone being left at the alter?), or even living in a different dimension.

Of course, I'm not saying men have better judgment. I know more than enough men who seem to prefer the stuck up witch as much as women seem to prefer the arrogant jerk. What it boils down to is their views of masculinity and femininity. If the witch acts more feminine than the nice girl, she'll be more appealing to men and if the jerk acts more masculine than the nice guy (as they normally do), he'll be more appealing.

Girls would be far better served being taught to avoid men who have these character flaws in the first place, as well as being taught how subtle differences can be misconstrued by them. For instance, there is a difference between a man who flaunts the law because he is, by nature, prone to being a criminal, and a man who occasionally flaunts the law because it has become overly bureaucratic, unjust and generally useless for promoting a public good. One is a serious character flaw, the other is a mark of independence.

One other thing that girls are also not taught is that even a complete repentance and 180^o turn from their bad old ways may not be enough to make up for the past. It's not enough to live with what a man has become, rather a woman must also look at a man's past and see if she is able to deal with it. The problem with a lot of "bad boys" is that for many women, if they honestly looked at the man's past, and saw what it might cause in the present and future, they would have to conclude that he's not worth the trouble.