By David Quinn
Looking Beneath Her Make-Up
It is necessary to dispel a few myths about woman. She is wonderful at giving the appearance of possessing qualities she does not in fact have. Many a man has lost his soul to her, only to find later, when it too late, that he had been duped. The illusion is incredibly powerful and requires the utmost sincerity of purpose to see completely through it. Just observing the way women present themselves is enough to convince one that something's afoot. Their otherworldliness positively reeks out of the light frilly dresses, the lipstick and eyeshadow, the diamonds and ornaments, the flowing movements, the happiness on tap. They seem to have no place in Nature's realm of blood and guts and faeces. The closest they come to tangibility is by way of abstraction - thought-stuff is what they are made of and nothing more. How on earth did the relentless unforgiving process of natural selection produce such daintiness?
It was the males who formed a buffer between the females and the dangerous world outside. It was their role to deal with the life threatening situations that regularly cropped up. So while men evolved the necessary courage and strength to succeed in this role, the females were left free to develop the delicate charms of femininity.
The tribe, and later, civilization, became islands of security, relatively free of the forces of natural selection. Female evolution went off at a tangent thereby; she became weaker, more fragile, less equipped to deal with physical threats. At the same time, she evolved a more subtle kind of power, one whose evolutionary purpose was to enchant man and place him under her power.
And to this very day, woman continues to weave her magic spell in the safety of her cocoon. Man provides her with this cocoon because he loves her so, and a woman instinctively knows that it is her primary task in life to preserve this state of affairs by ensuring he remains satisfied with her. That is, she must remain feminine.
Now, femininity is not something which springs spontaneously into existence with the birth of a female. No, it is the result of long years of training in which the female must shed vast tracts of her mind in order to be able to submit, defer, acquiesce, giggle, flirt, cajole, stroke, pamper - and remain happy about the whole thing. What else can this be called but a long drawn out labotomy in which the mind dies a slow death? One can only feel for those few spirited females who must go through torture in this process.
What little there is left of her mind must be employed with great cunning. Her feminine skills must be used discriminately to ensure maximum reward, for she has little else to call upon should they fail. Her years as a teenager are ones of constant endeavour in the perfecting of this art. Appearances, gossip, and boys are the lifeblood of her existence. It is vital she thoroughly learn the art of influencing the male world to her own ends. Failure here can only mean one thing: to endure the most horrible of all punishments - that of being unwanted.
Seduction forms the frontline of her being. With skill and confidence it can prove a most effective weapon. Yet it is fragile, and works only in a narrow range of conditions. Woman needs a role and a stage in order to function, and so it is lucky for her that theatre actually rules the world and there is little else in our culture apart from seduction.
Outside of these necessary conditions, the bubble of woman is easily burst. Yet, paradoxically, she is always infinitely secure. She possesses an impregnable line of defense which can be called upon at any time, under any circumstance: that of caving-in completely. By thrusting her mind into the chaos of her emotions she can escape into a realm in which nothing exists. Deep in her heart, woman knows this; indeed, it almost seems a source of inspiration to her. "Smug" is the adjective that first comes to mind when one observes woman, albeit it is a smugness born of unconsciousness rather than arrogance. The most determined of feminists and the most pathetic of waifs are both equally - smug.
Behind the glitter and dazzle of woman lies an emptiness which goes nowhere. The great skill of woman - her art par excellence! - is her ability to point beyond herself. All her movements suggest a source hidden deep within her. Man looks and looks - but finds nothing. He exclaims, "Woman is a mystery!" And no wonder! Nothing exists there to be found! Woman is purely the superficial, whose superficiality so skillfully persuades to the contrary. For she has no depth - there is not one bit, not one tiniest fraction, not even one slither of this fraction of anything other than the superficial.
Her powers of deception here ultimately originate in her not actually possessing a self, for woman is completely selfless. This is not the selflessness of the fully enlightened sage, but that of a child or an animal - that is, of a being who has not yet formed reflective consciousness to any significant degree. Having no self, she is able to respond spontaneously to her circumstances without the all the baggage that comes with existing. She never experiences the need to conform her actions to ethical principles, and this gives her a confidence and an inner glow that is looked upon enviously by men.
***
Given the limited range of options open to her, and the necessity for success within them, it should be clear that the notion of woman being somehow less competitive and selfish than man is completely false. She is as every bit as egotistical as man, and her competitive nature would do any man proud. It is just that her egotism is shaped differently to man's. Indeed, part of her egotism consists precisely of giving the impression that she possesses little or no egotism.
A woman is continually locked into fierce struggle with other women. It is easy to be fooled into thinking otherwise, that women are above such petty activity, but if you look closely enough you will see it. Their one and only concern is status. Their one true happiness lies in being seen to be superior to other women. Marriage, children, houses, looks, clothes, lovers, ornaments, wealth, politics, social and artistic activities - these are just some of the things she can call upon as visible signs of success in the great game of womanhood.
At the same time, she is always scrutinizing other women for the presence or absence of these same visible signs. When two women meet, embrace, smile and have a chat, you can be sure they spend their time in conversation secretly analyzing one another. The man perched on the other's arm is scrutinized for his looks and wealth; children are examined and compared as to whose is brighter, cleaner, happier; there is the crucial matter of clothes, hair, wrinkles, and fat - the list is endless. It all involves looking for a sign that the other woman might have something over her.
However, it is love which is dear to a woman's heart, and in love she has the security of knowing that her position occupies the highest rungs of femininity. In this rarified atmosphere, the world is transformed, she has transcended the game, and there is nothing above her. She no longer has any need to look out to the world and anxiously check her current standing. Instead, her whole being reeks of the knowledge of her own superiority.
Her lover is mostly unaware of these processes occurring in her mind. He is just flattered that a woman of her beauty and virtue is devoting herself to him. He wouldn't like to think he is little more than a tool for her feminine aims. Although she lavishes all her attention upon him and dotes on him constantly, never wearying of observing him in all kinds of intimate detail, her happiness ultimately lies not in him but in being in love itself. The man himself is of secondary importance, a means to a higher end.
[..]
Woman is an habitual worrier. She feels that her world is continually on the verge of falling apart. Her hair tends to keep falling out from the desired shape. Her clothes always seem crooked, her house untidy, her children hungry. There are a thousand little things for her to attend to. Accordingly, she has an eye for detail that the man does not. And because her brain has to incorporate this continual flux of detail and process it into a manageable shape, the woman's mind generally thinks at a much faster rate than the man's. Behind her composure, her mind is alight with thousands of tiny flashes of thought. In contrast, the male mind entertains fewer thoughts that come through less quickly and less urgently, but are capable of penetration as a result.
Her skill, as woman, is in manipulating the countless details of existence to her own ends. She is an expert in subtlety. Tinkering and prodding, using an apparent minimum of effort, is her art. She specializes in the subtlest of facial expressions and bodily movements, and the shaded nuances of emotion underlying her speech - so subtle, so natural, so effective at manipulating others. Man, by comparison, is a clumsy and cloddish brute who attempts everything with a sledge-hammer.
[..]
If the art of winning lies in the ability to conceal one's tactics and intentions, then it is no wonder that woman is so good at conquering man. She has honed to perfection the skilled use of contradiction and disguise. Just look at how she presents herself, for example, with her elaborate attire, make-up, ornaments, shapely dresses, tight-fitting clothes, together with her childlike personality - what is the meaning of all this? Is it simply a desire to be attractive? Yes indeed, but the purpose is always to conquer and control man.