Real women

Since I’ve got a pretty awesome record for procrastination this week, I figure, what the heck, I might as well continue with it and blog rather than work on the journal entry and Bible essay (just two hundred words, no biggy) that are due tomorrow.

Make that two journal entries, since I never did do the one that was supposed to be turned in, oh, two weeks ago. It’s hard to be motivated to write the same stuff I wrote for philosophy class, and Theory of Knowledge, and oh, anything else Mr. Chambers taught. Sigh.

But I was thinking today—yes, I know, this shocks everyone and considering how much sleep I’ve been getting, shocks me too—about what makes a man a man. You know, a Real Man, in that gruff Texas accent that conjures up images of grizzly males in ten-gallon hats and cowboy boots and chewing a huge chaw of “terbaccer.” And then I thought, People spend an awful lot of time thinking about what makes a man a Real Man, and there’s all kinds of talk about that—Real Men are leaders, Real Men are not pansies, Real Men stand up for what they believe in, Real Men are blah blah blah. You’ve all heard enough of this you could probably spout it back word for word, and by the end of this spouting all of my male readers would probably hate me for the obnoxiously high standards and would never read my blog again.

But you’re in luck, because my question is—what makes a Real Woman?

From everything I’ve seen, our society has a pretty good idea of what a man is supposed to be (even if there are about as many Real Men left as Chinese river dolphins, these days). But when it comes to women, there seems to be a grey area, or at least way too many conflicting viewpoints. Here are a few of the different “ideal” women that our society projects:

1. The good housewife one. Traditionally a product of Leave It to Beaver and other fifties sit-coms, this figure has evolved into something recognizably similar yet different in a few key ways. If any of you have watched shows like Everybody Loves Raymond and King of Queens or other similar shows, you have the modern version of June Cleaver—successful, motivated, eternally in-shape, wholly dedicated to her vertically mobile job and at the same time just as dedicated to her family… and to a dead-beat husband, as well. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a man-hater on any scale—most of my best friends are guys and I love and respect them very very much—but it simply annoys me that some of the most popular comedies involve men who just sit around watching television all day while their women take care of everything, and whenever they get annoyed with the men they just kiss and then everything is fine. And this is supposed to be funny and good. Just… no. (Another fellow English major blogger put the whole thing pretty aptly in this post, if you want more on this subject.)
2. The frigid ruthless hot one. (Gotta love the paradox.) You know what I’m talking about. Practically every secret agent movie has the femme fatale with the ice-queen exterior who nonetheless ends up causing the protagonist to fall in love with her. I don’t have a lot to say about her except I’m pretty sure she doesn’t exist and she is very scary and she gives men unrealistic expectations of women. Thanks much, Hollywood.
3. The terrifyingly feminist one. If you’ve never met this stereotype, dear friends, you have missed out on a fearsome being, particularly if you’ve never had her as a teacher. (Recovering IBers, I just want you to know that I am absolutely not referring to anyone specific in this context, and I don’t know why you would assume that, because that would be certainly ridiculous.) This is the woman who writes rather terrifying manifestos that somehow end up in American literature textbooks, teaches her female students that they need to subjugate men to their vastly superior willpower and intellect, carries picketing signs in her backseat, and generally believes that women should take over the entire earth. Look out, Male-Dominated World, because you’re about to meet your match, and it comes in spiky high heels, a business suit, and a bone to pick with anyone with more than four hundred nanograms of testosterone in their bloodstream.

Now, females, let us be honest. Do you want to be any of these women? Aside from those occasional moments we all experience when we sort of want to look like Vogue models just for kicks, we don’t. For the most part, anyway. I don’t want to be the person wearing the pants in the relationship, I don’t want to be so freakishly aloof and abnormally beautiful that everyone but the most arrogant morons will even talk to me, and I certainly don’t want to be a frightening feminist who sends even five-year-old little boys scurrying under the bed. 

So where does that leave us? 

I’ll open up the floor. I already have some ideas but I’d love to hear from all of you, dear readers—for once I’m going to listen/read instead of talking/writing. So… give it a go. I’m curious.

And if you say anything along the lines of “The perfect woman just needs to submit!”, I will personally make sure that your worst fears come true, and it will involve rusty forks, electrodes, and clown fish. Just use your imagination.