Brigham’s Cultural Corner - The Weaker Sex

Playing last night’s rugby match with George Mason University was an interesting experience. First of all, it was cold - in the low 40’s/high 30’s with gusts. It was mentally very difficult for me to strip off the Boathouse jacket and sweatpants to get on the pitch.

At one point somebody pointed out, “You know what GMU has that we don’t? Women.” Indeed, there were college girls all over the place.

One pair especially caught my attention. One had on a hugely oversized green GMU jacket; I think this was Cutie’s girlfriend, who was charmingly wearing his jacket. (Cutie used to play with us before enrolling at GMU; his real name is Keith Webb.) The other was her friend. But they were the two loudest GMU supporters on the sidelines, squealing with glee whenever an especially heavy tackle was performed. “We like them going down HARD!”, one of them said. This reminded me of a quote:

"Women encourage killers. They do it by falling in love with warriors and heroes. Men know it and respond with enthusiasm. The Crusaders marched off to war with ladies favors in their helmets. The heroes sliced up adults and baked infants on spits, all the while thinking of how the damsels back home would admire their bravery." - Howard Bloom

It also made me think about what some of the American Civil War soldier-diarists wrote about their womenfolk (especially Southern women) during the war, to the effect of, “We’d pretty much be able to part as nations with some vestige of good feeling remaining were it not for the Northern and Southern women, who seem to fan the fires of discord.”

An interesting female archetype found in film noir is the beautiful woman who advances the action of the plot by manipulating a gullible or sexually-attracted male (a “sap”). The French have a name for her: the femme fatale (“fatal woman”), so called because to love her is to risk dying. Ava Gardner in “the Killers” was a notable example.

I intend no insult to the enthusiastic young women on the sidelines or to women in general. But I think, in simply being themselves, that they were giving us all an interesting lesson in sexual politics. I am pretty sure that you can safely ignore all the current rhetoric about women wanting men to be more sensitive, more apt to talk about feelings and more, well, feminine. Some organizations’ spokespeople may be calling for this kind of thing, but I am pretty sure that’s not actually what women want. By and large, women in America prefer men to be men. I see this again and again by observing my teenaged kids and their friends, and talking to my good lady wife. (Whenever I do something boorish, loud or otherwise male, and she reprimands me, I respond with, “Oh I’m sorry - I thought you wanted to marry a male.” She has pretty much conceded that this is indeed the case… however maintaining a request that I display a little more finesse.)

Some genius compressed my previous six analytical paragraphs into seven simple words: “Chicks dig us ‘cause we play rugby!”