On Women and Desire
This morning I was teaching my delightful students from a Slovak bank for the fourth morning in a row. Two men and one woman. They are supposed to be 'intermediate' in their knowledge. While I can accept this because of their dodgy knowledge of our elaborate yet beautiful tense system, I find it challenging to remember (and often even to believe) that they are at this level, given the wonderfully interesting discussions we have been having.
Yesterday was particularly fruity on account of the absence of Samantha (not her real name). Would we have traversed the old question (focussed famously upon by Freud in 1933) – "what do women want", if she had been present? Perhaps not, though we have vaguely determined to bring her into the debate tomorrow, our final day together.
Apparently, those who shun complexity will be happy to know, there really is no mystery at all, not at least to Ferdinand and Jason. Both, unlike me, are attached, Jason being married, Ferdinand having had his girlfriend for a significantly long period. Apparently, so they concluded, what women primarily want is to be protected by a man, because women are "weak". Secondarily, what they want is for their men to be devoted to them. Jason was happy to accept as a third ingredient in this soup of desire the need for a man to satisfy their needs for emotional dependency, which is what Susie Orbach and Luise Eichenbaum, the authors of "What do women want" seemed to be saying when I looked at that book (much to Amy's withering amusement) in the mid 90s.
Jason told me that though he had long accepted the strength of the desire for a 'protector' in women, he said that this had now been proven for him in a recent survey he'd read.
Hmmm. So what do we all think of this then, boys and girls?
As a man raised in a matriarchal family, wherein the three females (my Mum, and two sisters) have always been dominant, to my perception anyway, it goes against the grain to think that women are weak enough to need protecting. Personally, of all those people whom I have felt seeking to wield power over me, most have been women. This, in one sense makes me constitutionally very feminist since I assert and uphold the reality of female power. I do not consider women to be weak at all. But in another sense my feminism is rather strange, since feminism's primary axiom, that women have been oppressed and are still oppressed, doesn't ring true to me when I reflect on the experience of my own life. Indeed, if anything, I wonder if sometimes, or even often, particularly nowadays, it is from the reality of female power that men need to protect themselves.
On the other hand I can grant that my Family may be a little unusual, much though I love it (perhaps the unusualness is partly why I love it). And I do see that a patriarchal dispensation has been in place and dominant for most of recent history (by recent I mean the past few thousand years); and, also, that in many parts of the world today men still act and feel like stilted, puffed up peacocks in their attitudes towards women, in their belief in the alleged stupidity, untrustworthiness, duplicity, carnality, over-emotionalism and basic irrationality of the ladies.
Anyway for both of these reasons - because a) I believe that women are not weak and b) because I resent arrogant male oppression of women – I found myself reluctant and unwilling to accept the proffered undoubtable wisdom of Jason and Ferdinand.
But I'm not really interested in what I think. What I really want to know is what women think about Jason and Ferdinand's ideas. I should make it plain that they are very nice, gentle and charming men, by all accounts.
In any case, we shall perhaps hear from Samantha tomorrow.
Yesterday was particularly fruity on account of the absence of Samantha (not her real name). Would we have traversed the old question (focussed famously upon by Freud in 1933) – "what do women want", if she had been present? Perhaps not, though we have vaguely determined to bring her into the debate tomorrow, our final day together.
Apparently, those who shun complexity will be happy to know, there really is no mystery at all, not at least to Ferdinand and Jason. Both, unlike me, are attached, Jason being married, Ferdinand having had his girlfriend for a significantly long period. Apparently, so they concluded, what women primarily want is to be protected by a man, because women are "weak". Secondarily, what they want is for their men to be devoted to them. Jason was happy to accept as a third ingredient in this soup of desire the need for a man to satisfy their needs for emotional dependency, which is what Susie Orbach and Luise Eichenbaum, the authors of "What do women want" seemed to be saying when I looked at that book (much to Amy's withering amusement) in the mid 90s.
Jason told me that though he had long accepted the strength of the desire for a 'protector' in women, he said that this had now been proven for him in a recent survey he'd read.
Hmmm. So what do we all think of this then, boys and girls?
As a man raised in a matriarchal family, wherein the three females (my Mum, and two sisters) have always been dominant, to my perception anyway, it goes against the grain to think that women are weak enough to need protecting. Personally, of all those people whom I have felt seeking to wield power over me, most have been women. This, in one sense makes me constitutionally very feminist since I assert and uphold the reality of female power. I do not consider women to be weak at all. But in another sense my feminism is rather strange, since feminism's primary axiom, that women have been oppressed and are still oppressed, doesn't ring true to me when I reflect on the experience of my own life. Indeed, if anything, I wonder if sometimes, or even often, particularly nowadays, it is from the reality of female power that men need to protect themselves.
On the other hand I can grant that my Family may be a little unusual, much though I love it (perhaps the unusualness is partly why I love it). And I do see that a patriarchal dispensation has been in place and dominant for most of recent history (by recent I mean the past few thousand years); and, also, that in many parts of the world today men still act and feel like stilted, puffed up peacocks in their attitudes towards women, in their belief in the alleged stupidity, untrustworthiness, duplicity, carnality, over-emotionalism and basic irrationality of the ladies.
Anyway for both of these reasons - because a) I believe that women are not weak and b) because I resent arrogant male oppression of women – I found myself reluctant and unwilling to accept the proffered undoubtable wisdom of Jason and Ferdinand.
But I'm not really interested in what I think. What I really want to know is what women think about Jason and Ferdinand's ideas. I should make it plain that they are very nice, gentle and charming men, by all accounts.
In any case, we shall perhaps hear from Samantha tomorrow.
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