Stereotypical Answers

Stereotypical Answers

The boys are telling the classic jokes: "Why doesn't a woman need a watch?" "Because there's a clock above the oven!" "Why doesn't a woman need an umbrella?" "Because it never rains between the kitchen and the bedroom!"

Last year those jokes would have really bothered me. But now, it doesn't mean much at all. Am I maturing? Am I slowly seeing that these stupid jokes are just the way the boys exert what little authority they have left, the way they remind me that men used to be superior? Or am I just resigned to the fact that men are, by definition, men?

I'm gonna go with the last one.

This week's journal: What do women want?

Well, heck if I know.

Yes, I'm a (young) woman. And yes, I want things. And I know the stereotypical answers, the "right" answers. But that doesn't mean I know the right answers.

Do we want acceptance? Do we want love? Do we want a friendly body?

According to Chaucer's character (the Wife of Bath), " 'a woman wants the self-same sovereignty/ Over her husband as over her lover/ And master him; he must not be above her./ That is your greatest wish.' "

I think this is definitely true: women want a little authority for themselves, they want a say in the world, they want equality in everything.

You've heard the arguements, you know what we desire. We don't want to be drafted, but we want to be draftable. We want to have a female president who can represent us as a woman, but so few of us have any desire to hold the position (the presidency is a man's job, I'm convinced). We want sovereignty, but we don't want sovereignty.

Do we want sympathy (is that what I'm asking for with this column?)? Do we want attention (or am I asking for this?)? I don't know. Maybe we want those things. Or maybe not.

My best friend, who happens to be a (young) man, says that women want (expect) "mind reading capabilities" and "perfection" from men (he also says we want "clothes and shoes" -- his deep and thoughtful answers baffle my mind). I can totally see where he's coming from, though. No, we don't expect men to read our minds. But we do expect them to try to understand us, to think about what we want -- and sometimes we expect too much feeling from a gender that tries not to feel (please, just bear with me as I try to understand what my guy-friends do for and tell to me. My apparent stereotypical analyses of men are really just confusion and immaturity. Really.)

But hey, I'm not asking for much from you guys. A little effort, please? Maybe that's what we want.

I sit at a lunch table with five boys (just me and five boys, how fun...), and I asked them this question today. It was funny -- their faces were hilarious. I think they thought they were being quizzed or something: "Get this question wrong and I'll spread it through the infamous female communication system that you have no idea how to deal with a girl."

So the six of us discussed (joked about) the question for a while (they had no idea what to say to me) and then one of the boys asked me what the answer was.

There's no answer, boys.

We can't give you a definitive "I want a tall redhead with a good sense of humor and nice teeth. I want to have a best friend who always knows when I need a hug, and I want to have a boyfriend who will buy me stupid stuffed animals for stupid anniversaries. I want to be beautiful, I want others to be jealous of me. I want a slice of cheesecake and a pony."

I (we) can't tell you those things. For one thing, they aren't true for all of us. For another, we simply don't know what we want. And when we do know, it's only for the ten minutes before we change our minds.

So the question remains: what do women want? Maybe, maybe all we want is to not be generalized, to fall outside of the stereotype. Maybe this whole question and topic is hypocritical because it is asking what we want as a group, when what we really want is to not be a group.

I can't believe I've just spent 789 words trying to figure out what women want. Today, during second period, one of my (male) friends summarized what men want in just five words: "football, pizza, beer, and women."

You know what I want? I want my life to be that simple.