I recently came across two books which suggest that attitudes for some have changed a lot over the years.
First for an older style, here are a few extracts from Stephen Potter (1965) Anti-woo: (Gambits for non-lovers) London: Heinemann....
Potter is, inter alia, the author of the Lifemanship books, the most well known being Gamesmanship. This is another in the series.
A "non-doer" is a woman who has no paid employment:
"My friend Morton Overdrive always had a soft spot for this kind of woman. He himself came from a vaguely humble family. ... Overdrive's first brush with a non-doer came when he met Sandgate. She believed that woman could attract by quick powers of comprehension. Nobody could have been easier to comprehend quickly than Overdrive, but Sandgate became so intuitive, she anticipated his mood so sensitively, that she practically ran the whole mood herself.
SANDGATE: This weekend, you'll want to get right outside yourself.
OVERDRIVE: Will I?
SANDGATE: Mentally, you've been sitting in the same position too long." (pp.20-21)
And on another character: "She was certainly a splendid listener; when she turned her head to pay attention it was like being caught in the beams from a distant lighthouse, gentle yet clear." (p.37)
"Women are quicker than men at recognizing unwooworthiness in the opposite sex. They are less affected by outward appearance. They know from internal evidence that beauty and handsomeness, so far from being only skin deep, permeate the whole character. Good looks are a primary one-upness in human relationships, and create a personal confidence and composure, in company, which will compare badly with their effectiveness in more private and less romantic circumstances." (p.42)
Warnings for women:
"She should remember that in some men marriage acts as a sort of fertilizer of their eccentricities. Fixed character traits, instead of being washed away, seem to stand out in relief." (pp.53-4)
"Watch also the man who confuses being a man, with being manly. This is very often obvious in the wooing period. The young man will be surprisingly in charge at the ticket office, with the taxi driver, or with the waiter ... Much more serious may be an intensification of a need to be manly later in marriage. If anything of seriousness happens of a news kind, or of minor importance in the house, then comes the pronouncement. The slighly slower speech, the firmness, which you will first find lovable, then funny, then boring, then just background noises.." (pp.55-6)
"Why is it that as yet no volume has been written about Lifemenship and Women? For the same reason that no book has been writen about *Gamesmanship and Cricket*. Because just as all cricket *is* gamesmanship so are all women natural lifewomen." (p.57)
In discussion: "If as a move towards placation, or out of some real largeness of spirit, you openly acknowledge that there is something to be said on both sides, the woman will never then say, as would ordinarily be expected, 'Oh but there's a lot on your side too.' But thus:
MAN (smiling warmly): I see your point, now, and I think there's a lot in what you say.
WOMAN: Quite so. And then there's *another* thing...
In other words women triumph by disregarding ingrained male rules of argument." (p.58)
"It is the women of fine appearance who must most industriously be kept in their place, or the familiar state of wooing through weakness, i.e., falling in love in order to fill up a gap in the conversation, will supervene." (p.62)
"Women are at their most deft when a good looking rival needs counterblasting. They can say smilingly 'you're looking different' or 'You've done something to your hair, haven't you?' with an intonation which suggests that rival is about to cross the borders of Shangri-la and that a thousand cracks are already appearing in the edifice of her 'amazing youthfulness.'" (p.65)
And for another theme:
"It is often very useful in the man v. woman situation, if the man has something wrong with him." (p.70)
Indicating that there may still be some affection for the faults and weaknesses of the opposite sex, the above point is stated in another way in Penne N and LaRose L (1996) The Code, London: Hodder and Stoughton:
"Girls love it when blokes seem somehow inexplicably wounded. You *are* bruised. Learn this invaluable truth, and learn it well. *The person with the most problems controls the relationship.*" (p.77)
But there is also a newer style, harsher and less even-handed, as seen in Maureen MacDonough and James Rutherford (1995) Women call, men respond: secrets of passion and pleasure, Auckland: HarperCollins:
"The one-trick pony
So early on here, we have to confirm a suspicion you may have had from time to time. Men are stupid. Relative to women's minds, men's minds are not with the programme. Your authors are aware that the word "stupid" sounds extreme. But we mean it. Your man's brain is extremely logical, linear and problem-solving, but it is limited. Women's brains are a great deal more complex and multi-faceted. They are able to operate at much higher levels of sophistication, tolerating and processing a broad range of diverse information.
Before we delve further into this particular feature of men and women, however, we have to emphasise something: if a man is not winning and producing, he is losing. He has no middle ground. He cannot hover somewhere between win and lose. We're sorry you had to wait so long to find this out, but that's it on men. Of course, some may think this description robbed men of their "dignity". Men have to be more complicated, you know. We actually feel that men have tremendous dignity, but it is not dignity born of complexity. Men are one-trick (well, two-trick) ponies. Winning and producing are everything.
Something else follows from this, however: men will go where they win. This is where you come in. We don't care how many inches you have on your thighs, how great your clothes look, if the features of your face are arranged so that they resemble magazine models, or if you're old or young or blonde or bald ... if your man is winning with you, you will have no problem with him." (pp.38-9)
Stuart Birks
20 April 2000
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