I don’t know if you know this song, but it’s a new song (I’m Your Man). It’s a song that is a response to a question that has been perplexing men for 5 or 6,000 years. That is the question: “What does a woman want?”. I really was taken by this question, and I devoted twenty years of research to discovering what a woman wants and finally I didn’t find out what a woman wants and I abandoned the question. It is with a certain sense of vindication now that I see that women are asking the question “What does a woman want?”. I feel now we are truly in the same boat. None of us knows what a woman wants. I myself have decided to abandon the inquiry.’
Leonard Cohen
For many years, decades, centuries, probably not more given how women have historically been thought of. Even ‘progressive’ societies like Sparta, famed for their treatment of women, were not very progressive, the question has been asked. What do women want? And, dear friends, I am here to answer this for you and to then raise a more serious question.
The astronomer Carl Sagan said that there are billions upon billions of stars in the universe. There are, like stars, billions of women in the world (at least three billion) and women know this, they are not stupid, but what they want is someone who can make them believe, not falsely, that they are the brightest, most wonderful star in the universe, if only to that one person. In this it would be easy to think about illusions and wilful disbelief however, we all are (unfortunately) emotion beings which are driven by forces beyond our understanding. Whether emotion is real or, as I hypothesis, a bi-product is irrelevant for even if it is a bi-product, it still comes from something deeper than we can know and, what is more, this thing, for lack of a better word, is real therefore if a man makes a woman believe that she is indeed the brightest star then this will be true, even if only for one man within billions upon billions of other men. What more can one want?
The problem is that girls and boys are brought up to value the superficial, to not yearn for something real but to compromise. Browse social media and you will see girls of all ages in various states of undress presenting themselves literally saying ‘please follow me’ (aka validate me) and those that follow them are usually the most disturbingly creepy people you could meet not on a subway. In the UK if a 14-year-old asks for contraceptives and the doctor thinks there is a genuine reason for them then they can be prescribed without parental knowledge. I can’t say for sure but I can assume that the boys involved are generally older than 14 (and running for congress in America, Mr Moore) and yet the girls, it seems, are being told that what matters is not how brightly they twinkle in who they are but rather whether or not older men wish to engage in sexual intercourse with them. Japanese culture is surreal as you have bands such as AKB48 who are pop stars and sing little songs and appear on tv in that sickly ‘what is wrong with them?’ sweetness yet are displayed around the world in various states of undress. The dichotomy of bouncing on stage in a pink frilly dress and singing about doing homework and then staring up into the camera in underwear is wholly disturbing but just goes to illustrate the problem. The girls want to be girls and to develop naturally but are educated that to be desired is the highest echelon of being and the only way to be desired is sexually and if they are desired/loved/admired/respected for being who they are and not on sexual grounds then they are not equipped to deal with this as they have never been taught to respect who they are and how to be respected for being who they are. The real question is: how can girls be made to feel/know that all that truly matters is who they are and not how they look?
So, to reiterate my point there are billions upon billions of stars in the universe and what women truly want is to be someone’s brightest star not in a form of worship but rather as the gateway to a healthy, loving, equal relationship built upon who people are and not an illusion of how they think they should be.
‘till next time
thegreaterfool2016 