In this season of goodwill, it behoves Men to pay a full and generous tribute to Women and I wish to make my own modest (and prudent) contribution. Men and Women are so unlike, yet are so bound together. One writer has said Men are from Mars and Women from Venus, but I do not go quite that far. I know little of Linnaean taxonomy defining kingdom, class, order, family, genus and species and I concede that both Men and Women are mammals but I like the familiar analogy with cats and dogs – feline Women, subtle, graceful, light-footed, contrasting with canine Men, brave, loyal and, alas, often stupid. They are too different for me easily to accept they even belong to the same species, but in all events, Vive la Difference!
A wonderful animal magnetism draws us together, mad carnal passion strengthens that intimacy and we are bound together by habit with hoops of steel. Unlike Men who can be stolid and boring, Women are always on the go, always dynamic, always inventive. Many Men are academically clever, but Women have instinctive knowledge and a brilliant ear for the nuances of relationships, even leading to the unworthy suspicion of witchcraft. Women are simply irresistible, with their natural elegance, tinkling laughter, enchanting smiles and seductive aroma – what fabulous creatures! In short, Women bring radiant beams of warm sunshine into Men’s prosaic and chilly lives.
And yet…..It would be untruthful to say that every Woman is perfection. Even Women have their little foibles. Maybe it is a touch of vanity – that insistence on acquiring that little black Chanel number, that wildly overpriced Hermes Birkin bag or those tight but chic Jimmy Choo boots. But these are tiny faults in the great scheme of things. Sometimes Men simply misunderstand the workings of Women’s logic – whatever she acquires is a wonderful bargain, irrespective of cost – and Men can only stand by in speechless, if baffled, confusion. Moreover, whatever happens Women are always in the right and it is one of Men’s functions to apologise at the end of any little disagreement. Always to be wrong is Man’s inescapable fate and privilege.
The tremendous accomplishments of Women resound down the ages; few of them are shrinking violets. Thus Eve outsmarted Adam, Jezebel ran rings around King Ahab, Delilah seduced and destroyed mighty Samson, Cleopatra scored a double whammy over Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony, Boadicea made short shrift of Colchester, London and St Albans, low-born yet imperious Theodora led Justinian by the nose and stunning blonde Lucretia Borgia allegedly dispensed deadly poisons from her hollow ring to the Italian aristocracy during a glittering career. History also tells us of Britain’s choice Women, wildly indiscreet Mary, Queen of Scots, formidable if enigmatic Queen Bess and opinionated but passionate Queen Victoria. What a gallery of talent, perhaps lending some little weight to Kipling’s phrase that “the female of the species is more deadly than the male!”
Women’s power over Men, exercised with such ease and insouciance, has always been their trump card. Indeed for some, exercising this power became a profession. They were of course the grandes horizontales those hard-headed Women like Madame de Pompadour, Madame du Barry, Lillie Langtry, Mata Hari or La Belle Otero who bathed in jewels provided by their many admirers, kings, rich moguls and well-born idiots. The later worship of media celebrities like Grace Kelly, Jackie Kennedy and Princess Diana was the 20th century version of a similarly glamorous café-society.
But you do not need to be a queen of beauty or a Botox-pumped celebrity to be an enormously successful Woman – Golda Meir, Maggie Thatcher and Angela Merkel prove that point instantly. Most Women, at least in the West, live their fascinating lives in circumstances of comfortable domesticity. They captivate their husbands, organise their households, pursue their careers, control and manipulate their children with total aplomb. Their inner lives are often private and mysteriously impenetrable to mere Men. Only their soul-mates, often female friends, understand their real ambitions and motivations. Their self assurance is very evident; gone for ever are the bad old days of the “innocent” bottom-pinch, the sure-fire male chat-up line, the patronising phrase like “the little dears”: even old fashioned good manners are now deplored – not long ago I chivalrously offered my seat on the Underground to a young Woman, who spat back “Sit down, Grandpa!” her lip curling menacingly. It is all in the great good cause of female emancipation, the smashing of glass ceilings and wholly deserved equality.
Very rarely, discordant alarm calls emanate from Women. The first is a low moaning noise, known as a “whinge”, usually set off by being denied some desired object: the other is, to return to the feline analogy, the shrill “caterwaul” often used in an emotional emergency and, in a common ploy, accompanied by tears before which Men are helpless. These little stratagems simply add spice to all our lives together, usually conducted amid harmonious celestial music. I do however recall many years ago drinking with a friend one Christmas Night and politely asking him if his family Christmas lunch had gone well. He answered “It was rather a mixed occasion – my sister tried to kill my father – she threw her knife at him!” This alarming event had been set off by some heavy seasonal banter at the sister’s expense from the rumbustuous father. Women’s emotions can easily spill over.
Apart from tiny contretemps of this kind, Men exist at peace with Women. My own dear father, taking the line of least resistance in the thrall of my gloriously assertive mother, lived the life of the happily hen-pecked. I have the great good fortune to have a beautiful Greek wife, and if she sometimes leaps to the wilder shores of female logic, I am thrilled to be bamboozled and toyed over by her in her dynamic and shimmering elegance. The battle of the sexes can only have one winner and I ask you all to lift a glass to toast all-conquering Womankind!
SMD
17.12.11
Copyright Sidney Donald 2011
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