Tuesday, August 12, 2008

What Do Women Want? I'd like to think this is an age-old question, but according to my historical source, Mad Men, Don Draper only starts to mull over the issue in the form of "What is wrong with my depressive wife?" during Episode #9 (so circa 1959-ish?) of the first season. It's like watching Lars realize his sexy real doll is in fact NOT a real girl, only here Draper is realizing that hot to trot, doll-like Betty is more real than he had fathomed. Before Draper graced our televisions and the whole feminist movement came to fruition, for the most part asking what women want was like pondering what your Manimal pajamas want. Those were the kind of questions you pawned off on your awesome assistant, Peggy.

Peggy knows the mysterious desires of both women and Manimals..... and she's only a little afraid to present them.



Case in point: Peggy's ad pitch for Belle Jolie lipstick, which she presents to a room full of mocking men, is the damn truth: "Women want to feel beautiful and unique, like they're the only girl in the room. Sometimes they want to MasterB on the washing machine. They want their birth control to really prevent unintended pregnancy. They want respect at the workplace, and also the attentions of their now married ex-hook up. And on a more personal note, Don, we all want to have sex with you."

The females are the most well-rounded characters on Mad Men, and I'm not just talking about their insane bodies. I love them. Especially the Ginger.

The What Do Women Want? question really came to a head with Mel Gibson's 2000 thriller, confidently titled What Women Want. Once Mel is endowed with the ultimate power of hearing the trashy thoughts of females all around him, he's finally able to understand the complicated species that is Sexus Womanius, and ultimately fall in love with Helen Hunt. Which makes it blaringly obvious that instead of slaving away trying to rid the world of the menstrual cycle, scientists should be concentrating on giving dudes mind reading powers. If they can save Mel Gibson, surely it could help McCain to hear what the cunty trollops around him are thinking?

Mel knows the secret of what women want, and that secret is to be called "Sugar Tits".

"What do you think you're looking at, sugar tits?"

Only there was some sort of mistranslation in this particular mind reading-- probably due to wireless interference from a cancer-phone-- because women don't want to be called sugar tits, they just want tits that taste like sugar.


Mmmmmm...sugar tits.

Yesterday I was emailed this blog, which I could have sworn was called What Women Really Want, but I guess it's What Women Never Hear. Hence the long, overdrawn postulation on the former question. But, eh, it really doesn't matter what shit is called because it all smells the same. This particular blog is an attack on the state of modern womanity, authored by A. Guy. Maligned. (of course), that assumes modern women hate sex but succumb to it just for male attention, and this is an ill choice, as a male only wants to marry a respectful virgin.

Nuggets of Wisdom include:

--Women make unmarried sex so easy that men don’t have to pay attention to her needs, drives, and desires. But doubts arise about her history and worth for marriage, if she’s too easily conquered.

--Accepting sex as fun matches his nature perfectly, but it violates her own. She adopts masculine as more important than female values and learns to act more like a guy. Her identity becomes embedded in masculine fun, fun, fun.

--Hunter-conquerors appreciate tantalizing, challenging, and hard-to-capture prey. This motivates men to investigate a woman intensively instead of just for sex.

--Women abandon femininity, modesty, high moral standards, and other female strengths just to have a boyfriend or husband they can’t keep.

According to A. Maligned Guy, women only want:

1.) Marriage

2.) Kids

At this point, who thinks A. Guy. Maligned is Midge Decter's blog alias? I do!

Of course this is just another addition to the look what feminism has done to you fear-mongering of late. The kind of argument that assumes women are made unhappy by their freedoms (despite the studies that have shown women under 50 are happier than their male counterparts), and that reduces one to sound off like an idiot by having to argue such a basic premise: Lots of women want lots of different things. Like, duh.

This is just the beginning of What Women Want:

Kashi GoLean, a lunch with Amy Klobuchar, the transcript of Sarah Silverman's and Jimmy Kimmel's break up, never to hear "You Make A Better Door, Than a Window Maureeeeen", calamari, the complete DVD collection of SportsNight.

Best Show Ever:


To violate Michael Cera, to see Tropic Thunder, to snag an even-tempered boyfriend, tickets to Neil Diamond live in concert, for Kirby Puckett never to have sexually harassed those women in a Minneapolis restaurant bathroom, to understand why China is so kooky:

Like just, WHY dub?


A Noxema exfoliator for prurient uses, a Jewish schlub, world peace, the latest Dr. Dog album, perfect bangs like Feist, a baseball stadium hot dog, an international Facebook friend, a copy of War & Peace, the new translation:

When Will I Be Done? I Await the Day With Dread.

8 comments:

WendyB said...

Chaucer answered the question of what women want in his Wife of Bath tale: sovereignty.

Molly Lambert said...

kittens, a taser, a rapex, health insurance that pays for tampons, a book deal, a record deal, and a backstairsly homosocial e-friendship with a bloggeurress even more magnificent than herself

Lauren Bans said...

Mmmmm ...

TaserRapex: Show Your Vagina The Power Of Shock TM.

liz said...

This list is so good. Except 2 things.

Actually, 1) I am SO GLAD you are loving Mad Men. Dear God it's so wonderful.

Okay, but also, my family says the door/window thing all the time. Do we secretly all hate each other? Was I born into the wrong family?

And. Have we discussed this? The way the Dana/Casey relationship was handled was a travesty. A travesty. And the S2 makeovers, particularly on the ladies, are kind of hard to take. But overall, yes. Sports Night is so wonderful. I have all the eps on my external hard drive, and they lull me to sleep many nights. I'm hoping it will make me a wittier conversationalist - osmosis or something.

Lauren Bans said...

The Sports Night back and forth is like LISTENING TO PURE POETRY. They got rhythm.

Mike said...

I'm just thrilled to hear there are other people who loved Sports Night as much as I do. I'm addicted to your blog btw. Keep it up.

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