Female psyche

A pile of linen, neatly ironed, lies in the closet. The roast is nicely browned all over. A curl falls in exactly the right place over the forehead. The pink of the nail varnish matches exactly the pink of the lipstick. The laundry, clean and fresh, is fluttering in the breeze. Ten pairs of shoes stand clean and shiny in a row, The windows are polished till they make the passers-by blink. The husband went off to work on time. The children are playing in the sun. Everything is perfect, and woman's world is one hundred percent in order. At such time their sense of pleasure and happiness reaches its zenith. And just to make sure this exhilaration lasts, a woman will quickly bake another cake, water the rubber plant near the living-room window, or get on with knitting a sweater for her youngest child.

Those who do not work have very different pleasures from those who do. A woman does not laze around on a Couch. surrounded by newspapers. Man's idea of idleness is quite different (and that is why she appears so industrious to him). A woman does not want to stay at home just to rest (what has she, after all, to rest from?) - but she is addicted to pleasure and she needs time for her pleasures. And what are they? Baking cakes, ironing the laundry, making clothes, cleaning windows, curling her hair, painting her toenails and sometimes even - and we will come to this later - doing a little shorthand and typing. And just to make sure that no one recognizes the fact that for her all this is pleasure, she calls these pleasures `housework.'

She is only indulging in orgies of `personal hygiene' to please her partner. And if one of her silly little pleasures is to sit at a desk in an outer office, translating ready-made thoughts (ready-made since they are provided by professional men) into a visual medium, well, let her call it `stimulating mental work.' In this way woman and her coterie indulge in a great, permanent party and live in a world of freedom and rationalized happiness, removed from any responsibility. They occupy a realm man would never dare to dream of, a world he believes to be the domain of hippies, a life to be found, perhaps, in the carefree South Sea Islands - but never so close to home.

Of course, there would be nothing to object to in these harmless orgies of pleasure if only men recognized them for what they really are. But it is a pity that they ruin their own lives believing that women's lot is worse. It is quite impossible for a man to imagine that this represents happiness to the opposite sex. They would have to realize that it is woman's nature to he able to enjoy amusements at the lowest and most monotonous level, and such boundless idiocy is beyond male comprehension.

Not even psychologists can grasp it, although they spend their lives studying the female mind. Being men, they must find it more interesting than their own. But it would never occur to them for a minute that woman's so-called psyche is unfathomable merely because of the absence of intelligence; that feminine work appears unattractive to the male only because he is incapable of imagining the required degree of stupidity necessary to be able to enjoy it. These experts have discovered that most schoolgirls do Well in subjects that do not require thought, that can be memorized, such as languages (to have a good memory can, as is well known, also be a sign of feeble-mindedness) or that, like mathematics, follow strict rules which again are learned by rote, while other subjects (physics, chemistry, biology) are beyond them.

From this it does not follow that these girls lack intelligence but that there is a `typical feminine' intelligence: that this kind of `intelligence' is a developed (not innate) kind of stupidity. The last original thought the average female child utters will be around age five. After that, her completely imbecile mother takes care to suppress any sign of budding intelligence.

Most men will never admit the depth of their wives' stupidity'. They agree that women are not terribly clever, but grant them `intuition' or instinct instead. And they like to call this a feminine instinct as opposed to that of an animal. Unfortunately, this famous feminine instinct is really nothing but a euphemism for statistical probability. Women interfere and give opinions about everything and, since they are so stupid, they don't realize that they are making fools of themselves. According to the law of averages, their forecasts will be correct now and again. In any case, most of their predictions are negative or vague. Banalities such as: `It can only end in disaster,' or `I´d steer clear of that, if I were you,' or `Your so-called friends will only let you down in the end' are meaningless. Anyone would be safe making such generalizations. And if, occasionally, women do see more clearly than men, it is only because their feelings, unlike those of men, are never involved.

Women's silliness is but the natural result of their attitude to life. By the age of five, any girl will have been persuaded that she wants to get married and have a home and children; and when girls are ten, fifteen, or twenty, they still want the same things. So if a woman decides, even as a child, to live at man's expense, what good will intelligence and reasoning be to her? She must keep her mind free for her future man, otherwise she could not respond to all his inclinations and interests and praise him for them. As a child, how can she determine what type of man she will marry? What use would it be if she opted to become a socialist - demonstrating female students are usually associated with demonstrating male students - when later on she might decide to marry a well-to-do manufacturer? Suppose she became a vegetarian (sensitive being that she is) - what happens if she later marries an Australian cattle farmer? What is the use of a woman becoming an atheist when she may spend her life within the rose-covered walls of a vicarage?

[...]Women's stupidity is so overwhelming that anyone who comes into contact with it will become, in a way, infected by it. That this is not obvious is solely because everybody has been exposed to it from birth and, as a result, has become inured to it. In previous years men either ignored it or believed it to be a typically feminine characteristic which harmed no one. But with the increase in leisure and money to spend, woman's need for entertainment has grown. Consequently, her imbecility is spreading into public life as well, reflected not just in vases, bedroom pictures, brocade curtains, cocktail parties, and Sunday sermons. The mass media have become more involved in it. Women's programs are gaining ground in radio and television. And even respectable newspapers print society gossip, crime features, and fashion news, horoscopes, and cooking recipes. And women's magazines become every day more numerous and sumptuous on the stands. Step by step, not only the private sphere of men but all of public life has become infected by this stupidity.

There are periodicals and books which deal with politics, philosophy, science, economics, and psychology. There are also those dealing with fashion, cosmetics, interior decoration, society gossip, cookery, crime, and love affairs. Men read almost exclusively the first kind, women exclusively the second. Both groups consider each other's reading matter so repulsive and dreary that they would rather be bored to death than indulge in it. The fact is, men are more interested in whether there is life on Mars or whose arguments are more valid in the Sino-Russian frontier dispute than women are. Women only want to know how to embroider little brown bunny-rabbits, how to crochet a dress, or whether a certain film star is getting a divorce. So the sexes continue along their separate paths, each with his or her own horizon, never establishing real contact with the other.

There is only one subject which will arouse the interest of both, and that is the subject of women. Naturally some men are not spared the task of reading special women's publications. Although fashion does not interest most men, it is designed chiefly by male slaves: and yet women have the nerve to say they bow to the dictates of the great couturiers. Men also think up other media for female pastimes. In order to be sure such efforts will be a success, they have to lower themselves to women's mental level to find out what they like. Since this is nearly impossible for men, they rely very often on a staff of female editors, who are quite happy to tell them what a woman likes - but from then on it is the man's responsibility- his tasks will be an attractive layout, better distribution, and sales promotion.

Magazines serve many purposes in the female world. Some are for entertainment, others satisfy the craving for gossip, still others give advice on which mask to choose (Vogue and Harper's Bazaar). There are even magazines which unite the various spheres of interest (such as Cosmopolitan, Mademoiselle, and Elle). All these magazines have one thing in common: they ignore men. The subject of men's magazines, on the other hand, is almost exclusively women. If man is mentioned at all in a woman's publication, it is only to enumerate his supposed preferences in women, home, and food: `Wear flesh-colored underwear this summer - men love it'; `Natural make-up is preferable for your first date'; `Use candlelight - it makes him feel romantic'; `Three recipes to make him love you'- and so on. And because such wholesale lists of male preferences can only serve to help women catch and hold any given man, they are really no more than recipes.

Readers of such advice are either still unmarried and therefore shopping for a good worker, or they are married and thus dependent on keeping what they have already conquered in the way of manpower. These are directives telling women how to get the best out of the most reliable robots in the world, for that is how they regard men. It is not uncommon to see an article entitled `How to Catch Mr. Right,' `Ten Hints on How to Keep Him in a Good Mood,' and `Advice for the First Three Years of Married Life.' There is nothing oblique about articles of this kind: they are as clear and lucid as if they were tips about buying a car, or washing and caring for a cashmere sweater.

Since the range of subjects likely to interest women is necessarily limited, editors are frequently at a loss for copy. As a result they have to fall back on the so-called male themes and, since men's interests are so wide, there are plenty of them. These go through a complete metamorphosis to suit female readers, the main rule of which is simple: each article must create the impression that it is basically a report about women. For example, an account of the life of a former heavyweight champion must read: Women ruined me.' If a composer is interviewed for an article, he must say at least once that women are his inspiration, that a melody is `like a pretty girl' - only not quite so beautiful. With skill, even the most unlikely subjects can he camouflaged to appeal to women. One can arouse their interest in the defence budget. providing one dresses up the report as an account of the family life of the Secretary of Defence. It goes without saying that sufficient space must be allowed for pictures of his wife and children.

[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]