Letter to My Body, or, How To Flood The Internet With Tortured Missives to Our Thighs

In the past year or two, bloggers have posted long, emotional, excruciatingly long letters to their saggy buttocks. I refer, of course, to the ubiquitous "Letter to my Body" that has spread like a raging case of genital warts throughout the white, liberal, affluent, and most importantly, FEMALE sector of the blogosphere. Blame Blogher and NOW for this pestilence of self-indulgent, self-pitying navel-gazing.

A typical Letter inventories the scribe's "relationship" with her carcass. Most often, as a teenager, that carcass was strong and supple, yet the scribe had no particular appreciation of this. The Wench chalks this up to being Young and Stupid. However, most Letters elevate the failure to appreciate one's body to the level of tragedy, Hamlet to the fifth power.

The Letters go on to catalogue the aging of the scribe's carcass in stomach-churning detail. Dimpled cellulite. Intertubes of rubbery fat that spill over the waistband. Arms that flap. Post-pregnancy sacks of crinkled skin. The reader cannot help but recoil at this fleshy Hall of Horrors. The reader also cannot help but ditch the donut and hop on the Stairmaster, toute suite.

But this misses the all-consuming, dreadful point of the Letter to my Body: To love one's carcass. It's not enough to resign yourself to the grim fact that saddlebags and wrinkles are an inevitable part of aging. No. One has embrace the porky thighs, cherish the crow's feet, luuuuurve the breast that droops two inches lower than the other.

The Wench has read many of these Letters. The writers insist the very act of addressing their bodies gave them great peace. The Wench considered the possibility that she was missing something. So she sat down and tried to compose a letter to her body, as well:

Dear Body:

What the hell happened to you? You disgust me.

P.S. You should really shave more often.

The Wench reiterates: How do women expect men to treat them with seriousness when they act with such silliness? Really, now. Do men write tearful poems to their flaccid penises, then post them on the Internet for millions to see? Do men waste bandwidth trying to conjure up hot-and-heavy love for their balding skulls?

'Course not. For all his flaws, the average male clings to his dignity.

The Wench asked her husband what he would write to his body about. The Wench confesses, she secretly hoped her husband would berate his body for all that nose hair. But her husband responded: "I don't need to write to my body. We're very close."

'Nuff said.

Fat Girls Finish First

NY Post reporter Maureen Callahan reports a correlation between Oprah's weight and her ratings -- namely, the more Oprah, the more viewers.


The Wench seems to recall another popular female talk show host whose popularity only increased with her waistline, as well as her nauseatingly proclivity for discussing her flabbiness with viewers:





The Wench submits that the baffling popularity of Oprah Winfrey and Rosie O'Donnell among women is really not so baffling at all. Their success owes much to a tragic, insidious flaw in the female psyche: The preference for self-indulgence over self-mastery, victimhood over tough-minded heroism.

A thin Oprah is utterly without appeal to many women. A thin Oprah says: "No excuses. No wallowing with Eckhart Tolle/Elizabeth Gilbert/Dr. Phil. Suck it up and do what you have to do." A thin Oprah has none of the soft, fleshy comfort of failure. Female self-discipline, after all, is so not "relatable" or "humanizing". Some women take it as a rebuke.

The Wench asks her female readers: How many times have you noticed a subtle "cooling off" or even outright snideness on the part of your fellow females, following some stroke of good fortune or hard-earned success on your part? And how many times have you noticed a sudden affection or even outpouring of goodwill on the part of the same females, after you fall flat on your face or suffer some crippling event?

The Wench surmises that Oprah knows exactly what she's doing when she laments her scale-tipping physique. And The Wench has to admire her business acumen. Hand the good woman another bag of chips.

The Estrogen Office, or, Employer Beware

The Wench is back, after a lengthy hiatus. Fear not: Daily drudgery may have prevented The Wench from blogging, but she remains as embittered towards her sex as ever.

This post is prompted by a recent catfight that The Wench's husband was forced to quell in his office. You see, being self-employed, The Wench's husband found it necessary to hire several qualified individuals to help him -- all of whom, incidentally, are female.

The Wench's husband assumed that his employees would simply show up each morning, do the job required of them, and go home. This is how The Wench's husband works, and he considers it a reasonable approach.

Foolish, foolish husband.

His Vulcanite rationality rendered him clueless to the perils posed by an abundance of estrogen in the workplace. He was unaware that female employees generally demand more hand-holding and encouragement than their male counterparts. He was completely oblivious that comments he routinely makes to male employees are considered by female employees to be curt, hurtful and rude.

Most tragically, he was under the delusion that female employees approach any issues with one another directly and pragmatically. He had no inkling of the back-biting and passive-agressiveness that females use to establish dominance over one another . . . of all the slighted feelings that eventually fester to an ugly head and explode.

The Wench's husband was finally made aware of his ignorance when confronted by two sobbing female employees . . . and The Wench can affirm from personal experience that her husband is quite uncomfortable with tears.

The Wench's advice to the self-employed: Avoid the estrogen-heavy office, if possible. Consider the cumulative effect of female hormones raging in tandem. Counteract the indirection, the hushed snarking and sniping, with a dose of testosterone. Hire a male.

When Genitalia Take The Stage

The Wench was delighted at the recent henfest over Jane Fonda's casual dropping of the C-Bomb on The Today Show. Ms. Fonda's potty-mouth was cringe-worthy, although not half so cringe-worthy as Meredith Viera's lock-jawed, steely smile as she registered the gaffe.

The Wench professes confusion over the whole fiasco, however. In her humble opinion, the word "vagina" is equally, if not more offensive than the c-word; at the very least, "vagina" never fails to make The Wench shudder, as does "labial folds".

While "cunt" has the guttural punch of a good anglo-saxonism, "vagina" conjures full-color medical textbook illustrations of the whole banana, as it were. Combine "vagina" with "monologues", and The Wench cannot help but envision a disembodied female hooch, standing on a nightclub stage before a microphone, taking long drags on a cigarette (don't ask The Wench to explain the mechanics). Then the hooch growls into the microphone, sounding exactly like Tony Clifton (don't ask The Wench why the voice is male): "You hear the one about the rabbi, the priest and the mariachi band?"

What amazes The Wench is that neither Ms. Ensler, Ms. Fonda or any other actress associated with The Vagina Monologues seem to appreciate the utter ridiculousness of genitalia, male or female. Put the issue of desire aside. The Good Lord made our private bits goofy-looking for a reason: so that we would never, ever take them so seriously that we would construct an entire dramatic happening around them.

You doubt The Wench? Then try treating other sexual anatomy with the same artistic earnestness. How about The Vulva Confessions? Memoirs of a Scrotum? The Life of (a) Johnson?

Silly, no?

Why is it that the women who demand to be taken seriously are all too often the women begging to be mocked?

Marriage: The Sub-Text

Disclaimer: The Wench is positive that Daniel Jones and Cathi Hanauer are a lovely couple. They are both accomplished writers and editors, and no doubt loving and involved parents. They are just cute as a button, to boot.

Nevertheless, The Wench thinks that the Hanauer-Jones unit really should have given that article they co-wrote for this month's Real Simple another look. A good, long, hard one. Because unintentionally, the article reads like a passive-agressive laundry list of buried resentments and long-held grievances. It absolutely seethes with subtext.

You doubt The Wench?

Take a look for yourself. The Wench gives you excerpts from the piece, with the accompanying subtext:

Hanauer: "So there we were: house, novel, kids. . . I envisioned you donning an apron and serving a delicious stew to us all, then writing the holiday cards to the kids' teachers and babysitters while I worked brilliantly in the next room. OK, I'm exaggerating. But still."

Still. Would it have killed you to get the kids to bed by yourself every once in awhile, motherfucker? You really are the Bastard on the Couch.

Hanauer: "I had always been concerned with fairness, and I felt, as so many women with jobs and small children do, that more of the burden fell on me, even though you were working hard, too -- rigging up our computers, unsticking the windows."

So you know how to stick a plug in a socket and open a window! Nice work, genius. Bet you really broke a sweat on that one.

Hanauer: "And I sometimes got angry, which made you feel defensive and nagged."

Suck it up, big guy. That's how I roll.

Hanauer: "At our low point, we tried marital therapy, but that mostly provided comic relief. I'd yap nonstop about myself and the kids while you stared at the floor hoping she wouldn't "call on" you. She'd say, "Well, Cathi, I think that's something you'll want to bring up in individual therapy". Which I wasn't in, because who had the money, the time?"

But now I do, don't I sweetheart? Lots more money, for lots and lots of therapy. And you're going with me, too. You're going to sit there and listen to me describe in minute detail your shortcomings and failings and what a general dickhead you are: and you're gonna like it, bitch.

Jones: ". . . which is how our conversations have been ever since, your words outnumbering mine five to one. Not that I've minded. My mother claims I didn't talk until I was three. My older brother spoke for me. It seems I traded him for you."

Please, God, put a muzzle on her, already. She's like a yapping, high-strung Pekingnese in need of sedation. Christ, I haven't got a word in edgewise for the past twenty years. Why the hell do you think I lost all my hair????

Jones: "Yet this independence has sometimes been a double-edged sword, at odds with the caretaking and shared responsibility of marriage. You erected walls of self-sufficiency -- 'I can do it myself!' - then felt abandoned when I didn't come to your rescue.

Well, do you need my fucking help or not? Are you the big, strong independent woman or the needy, spoiled princess? Or are you just batshit crazy? Pick a side.

Jones: "We began our engagement by arguing over our wedding vows, which you wanted to amend with 'Ill try' (to stand by me in sickness and health, etc.)."

I should have seen it coming right then and there. And by the way: it's Jones-Hanauer, thanks.

Asperger's and Women: A Match Made In Hell

The Wench recently finished reading Look Me In The Eye by John Elder Robison, and hereby recommends it to anyone wanting a funny and poignant first-hand account of growing up with Asperger's, before there was an awareness of Asperger's.

Robison had tremendous difficulties forging relationships with others, and suffered much rejection and abuse as a young man. Things seemed to turn for him when he began working in the music industry (among other things, creating cutting-edge guitars for KISS) and in engineering.

Certainly, these fields are populated with a fair share of eccentrics and "misfits". But more importantly, in The Wench's view, these fields are populated with men.

The Wench firmly believes that on the whole, men are more willing to accommodate and tolerate differences in other men than women are willing to accommodate and tolerate differences in other women.

And if you're a female and you disagree, your junior high experience was obviously much nicer than The Wench's.

Case in point: The Wench's husband once worked with a very bright, very successful patent attorney with an engineering background. This man possessed an amazing rational mind -- as well as an array of strange facial gestures and other social tics. His voice was never modulated quite right. He failed to meet you in the eye. He sometimes burst out in laughter at inappropriate moments.

And yet: the male attorneys in the office frequently took him out for a beer. Perhaps they made a few jokes at his expense. But they rather thought his eccentricities were endearing.

Contrast this with a female teacher at the nursery school where The Wench sent her spawn. She was a financial whiz who formerly worked in the stock market. She also failed to meet you in the eye, and was rarely seen smiling. Her speech often seemed stilted and she was incapable of exchanging small talk. She would greet a simple "How are you?" with a non-sequitur, like "You need to fill out the permission slip for the field trip."

She worked solely with female teachers, and all of them made no attempt to hide their dislike and disdain for her. Likewise, the nursery school mothers professed to "hate" her -- especially her flat, affectless face. They gossiped that she was in clear need of medication: "massive amounts of Prozac."

(Interestingly, the three-year-olds which she assisted seemed to like her well enough, perhaps because they had not yet learned to judge others as mercilessly as adults.)

The Wench believes it's no accident that the patent attorney fared better than the teacher in terms of colleagues and peers. And gender had everything to do with it. Not one woman accepted the teacher as "eccentric" or a "bit of an oddball." Not one woman accommodated her behavior or tried to understand it. Some of these women had their stomachs tied up in knots with fear that their boys were autistic because they enjoyed machines. Yet amazingly, the possibility that this teacher -- who exhibited some classic Asperger's tendencies -- was on the autistic spectrum never once occured to them.

Sigh. For all our much-vaunted nurturing abilities, for all our much-lauded capacity to protect the weak and spread the love, women can be a vicious, vicious bunch.

All Talk, No Action

Old news, but The Wench frequently stumbles upon articles citing scientific research that reticence and repression are actually better for you than emoting. For example, Christina Hoff Sommers found that:

A small number of researchers are taking an empirical look at the general assumption that speaking out and declaring one’s feelings is better than holding them in. Jane Bybee, a Suffolk University psychologist, studied a group of high school students, classifying them as either "repressors," "sensitizers" (those keenly aware of their internal states), or "intermediates." She then had the students evaluate themselves and others using these distinctions. She also had the teachers evaluate the students. She found that the "repressors" were less anxious, more confident, and more successful academically and socially. Bybee’s conclusion is tentative: "In our day to day behavior it may be good not to be so emotional and needy. The moods of repressed people may be more balanced."

All of which leads The Wench to believe that her gender's insistence on "venting emotions" is not only misplaced, but ultimately counter-productive.

How many times, The Wench ponders, has she heard the same woman yammer on incessantly about the same issues with her spouse/children/coworkers, with no resolution in sight?

How many times, The Wench ponders, has she herself spent the better part of the day flapping her lips about this worry and that, to no avail?

The Wench believes that female "venting" does not, as the word suggests, expunge anxiety. Rather, venting feeds it. And unchecked, venting can become an uncontrollable nervous obsession.

The Wench further believes that female venting is a substitute for purposeful, useful -- and sometimes difficult -- action.

Here's to put up and shut up.

The Sisterhood of Martyrdom

The Wench finds that many of her sex profess to admire tough, unflappable, uber-competent women. Many of her sex likewise profess to want nothing more than to see tough, unflappable, uber-competent women in positions of power such as the presidency.

Bull-pucky, says The Wench.

There is oft-times a gaping divide between what women say they want and how they really feel. The reality is that most females are uncomfortable with tough, unflappable uber-competent women. They feel threatened by them -- in fact, they're threatened by all women who don't care about being "nice" or about ensuring that no one's feelings are hurt when expressing an opinion.

They do not always want to see a tough, unflappable, uber-competent woman succeed.

Case in point: The female voter who asked the question that drove Hillary Clinton to the brink of tears was actually won over by Hillary's emotional response:

"She's a human being," said Pernold-Young. "I know they say women shouldn't cry and neither should men, but so what?"

Likewise, another female voter declared that she was shifting her support from Obama to Clinton because of Hillary's tears:

"That was the clincher," she said.

The above echoes the meteoric rise in Ms. Clinton's popularity among women following the disclosure of her husband's dalliance with Ms. Lewinsky.

Women don't like strong women so much. They prefer female victims -- the more emotional, the better, but in a pinch, a gal who bravely suffers in silence will do, too.

Ladies, when will we stand behind and celebrate the unsentimental, decidedly un-warm-and-fuzzy battle-axes who can actually lead? Such as:

On Freakily Insane Women, AKA Sexual Harassment Suit Plaintiffs

The Wench recently overheard a male commenting that most females who file sexual harassment lawsuits are "bats*** crazy." Why is that, this male pondered.

The Wench agrees that many --although certainly not all -- women plaintiffs in sexual harassment cases are, indeed, bats*** crazy. Or, at the very least, more inclined to be mentally and emotionally . . . ahem! . . . fragile.

As for why this is so, sir -- why it's as plain as the male member in your shorts! It's simply the nature of the beast. And by "beast", I am not referring to the male member in your shorts. I am referring to the nature of sexual harassment itself.

Let's say you are a male sexual predator, out to grope, fondle, leer over, or otherwise harass a female employee. Do you prey upon the gal who responds to your innuendos by flipping you the bird? The no-nonsense gal who clearly and assertively informs you that she will not put up with your behavior, and that if you so much as touch her, she will gladly take a cheese grater to your scrotum?

No, silly. You prey upon the batsh** crazy gal! The one who's used all of her personal days suffering a nervous breakdown over her recent breakup. The one who spends a lot of time crying in the bathroom stall. The devotee of Marianne Williamson and The Secret, who's trying to work on her "positive energy."

Choose your victim wisely, and the harassment will go just ducky. Although it just might come back to bite you in the ass:
.

The Wench Resolves . . .

. . . to speak to her beloved husband more respectfully and humanely in the coming year.

The Wench did not intend to resolve this. The Wench only intended to lose the extra poundage of lard that clings to her thighs so tenaciously. But then The Wench spent the holiday season listening to various women snapping at their husbands, boyfriends and partners as if they were half-witted puppies, guilty of shitting all over the carpet.

The Wench lost count of the times she witnessed a female scolding her significant (male) other like an incompetent child: "I specifically asked you to do such-and-such . . . did you do it? Why isn't there . . .? Why haven't you . . .?"

It occurs to The Wench that, if the shoe were on the other foot, any male who spoke in the same manner to a female would be accused of bullying, brutishness, and abusiveness.

One cannot expect to be treated with dignity when one addresses one's beloved like a scullery maid. The Wench does not advocate simpering sweetness, nor suffering silence . . . merely civil exchange.

Lookie! Ah Made Mahself A Bay-Bay! or, "Girl Power!"

The Wench professes that she is annoyed with the central conceit of Waitress, which she recently viewed on DVD. The central conceit being: motherhood as salvation, the mother-child bond as all-nourishing and all-fulfilling.

Kerri Russell's character, the "Waitress" of the title, insists that she does not want her baby throughout the course of her pregnancy. In a letter to her unborn child, she reveals that she thinks very little of most people, and that she feels ambivalent bringing her into such a cold, mediocre world.

Yet the moment her newborn daughter is placed into her arms, Russell does a complete 360. She goes from being a cowering, abused wife to telling her evil hick husband to stick it where the sun don't shine. She abruptly breaks off an affair with a doctor who ostensibly was the only one who took interest in her or made her feel at all meaningful. All this before she's even wheeled out of the hospital. And all this, because all she needs is her bay-bay.

Balderdash, says The Wench. Where's the post-partum depression? The engorged breasts? Hell, where's the extra pregancy pounds? Where's the mind-blowing stress and strain of caring for an infant as a single, self-employed mother?

The Wench is also peeved that yet another female protagonist falls for yet another gainfully employed male. We've seen so many doctor and lawyer love interests (yet sadly, no Indian Chiefs), underscoring that a man's chief attraction to a woman is his earning power. Oh, yes -- and his ability to see the real woman behind the waitress/ugly chick/prostitute.

On to other films dealing with unplanned pregancy: The Wench confesses to being puzzled by recent claims that Knocked Up is sexist for portraying women as demanding and shrill. The character Debbie was indeed an angry, anxiety-ridden shrew, but no more so than many post-feminist wives and mothers The Wench has observed. These are women whose husbands work demanding jobs so that they have the privilege of staying at home with their chidlren, yet insist on splitting household chores evenly for the sake of "fairness".

How fair is it, The Wench asks, to expect one's husband to come home after a long day of sales calls/surgery/depositions and clean up? And really, why must Debbie's character insist on her husband buying "pink cupcakes" or otherwise participating in child-rearing to an equal extent as she?

The Wench suggests that Debbie and other women of her ilk do as all other women with small children have: run to the shrink and procure a scrip for Paxil, Wellbutrin or similar anti-anxiety drug. Surely, that "Waitress" will at some point -- and if she's lucky, her psychiatrist will be cute and charming and pie-loving, to boot.

On Oprah, or, The AntiChrist

The Wench was utterly delighted to stumble upon this enlightening NY Post piece by Maureen Callahan, in which the author examines the popularity of the latest female New Age tome, Eat, Pray, Love:

What is going on? Why is it that women, in overwhelming numbers, are now indulging in this silliness in a way that men are not? (To be fair, there was the equally unhinged “Iron John" movement in the '90s.) Oprah's audience has helped turn serious, artful literature like Cormac McCarthy's “The Road" and Elie Wiesel's “Night" into bestsellers. So why aren't they clamoring for more weight when it comes to Oprah's female authors? Where's the Joan Didion? Or Alice Munro?

Instead, we are saddled with this narcissistic New Age reading, curated by Winfrey (who is responsible for turning “The Secret" into the year's best-selling book) and newly abetted by Gilbert, whose own book is 2007's second best-selling title. During her most recent appearance on Winfrey's show, Gilbert beamed beatifically while spouting stuff like: “If you take the word ‘no' and put it backwards, it's almost ‘om.' " “When you fill up your own skin with yourself, that alone becomes your offering." “There are days when I look at that meditation mat in the corner of my room and say, ‘I'm gonna have to see you, like, Thursday, but I know you're there and we're coming back to each other."

The Wench considers Ms. Gilbert's bromides to be pure, unmitigated POOP. And POOP stinks just the same, whether spelled backwards or forwards.

Ms. Winfrey encourages women to slather themselves in unadulterated narcissism (Could one expect any less from a woman who features herself on every cover of her magazine?). She calls this brand of no-holds-barred self-love "finding your spirit" and "living your best life" -- euphemisms that conveniently absolve women from the yucky, inconvenient duties we all shoulder in this life.

Real personal and spiritual growth demands sacrifice and inner struggle. It involves learning to be content on less. It involves a battle with one's own temperament. It involves a hard, critical look at the values and beliefs one holds dear, and a hard, critical appraisal of the self.

Ms. Gilbert and Ms. Winfrey deny this is so. They tell women that personal and spiritual growth can be achieved by a patchouli-scented bubble bath, or by eating low-fat wraps with skim-milk cheese. Or, as Ms. Gilbert suggests, by getting a four-hour massage from a brown-skinned medicine woman. And a great many women swallow this Kool-Aid willingly and without question.

The Wench never ceases to be amazed at her gender's simultaneous, completely contrary impulses: To be taken seriously, and to be treated like little girls.

In Which The Spiteful Wench Is Shamed

Recently, The Wench's husband overheard her cackling over news of the latest rash in Thai penis-slashings by jealous women.

At which point, The Wench's husband asked her whether she would be laughing quite so hard if the issue were breast-slashings by jealous men.

Good point, sayeth The Wench. Although her cackling was primarily induced by the reporter's ill-advised use of a banana in the footage.

The Wench remains intrigued by the Thai surgeon's comment that, in cases where the penis has been "chopped up", he "builds a new" penis for the victim. The Wench asks: Does he have that capability? To make a better penis? Better . . . faster . . stronger?

The Wench will cease now.

Public School, also known as A Veritable Henfest

Disclaimer: The Wench has the utmost respect for teachers and the tireless dedication and service they provide, educating our young.

Now that we have that out of the way, allow The Wench to tell you how she really feels about her spawn's teachers.

The Wench's spawn attend public school in an affluent neighborhood. Their teachers, by all accounts, are hard-working and enthusiastic. They are also hell-bent on classifying The Wench's spawn with all manner of disorder, disability and dysfunction. One of the Wench's spawn does not pay attention and has difficulty completing work. The other has a short temper that occasionally flares when confronted with loss, such as losing a game of Chutes and Ladders. This particular spawn is a mite anxious, to boot.

The Wench thought these behaviors were symptomatic of being bored, lazy, six years old, and a general pain in the ass. Instead, the teachers assured her that they indicated potential ADD, OCD, LD and XYZD (The Wench made that last one up). The teachers urge evaluation and therapy. The teachers are aflutter with worry and concern. They simply buzz with nervous energy.

The teachers, without exception, are female.

Now, The Wench has not one beef with female teachers. They perform their jobs with heartfelt valor. However, from personal experience, The Wench notes that --on the whole -- the female gender is vastly more inclined to fret and fuss over the health and well-being of children. From a random sampling of friends, family and acquaintances, The Wench finds that:

(1) Women are twice as likely to troll the internet, reading up on possible developmental delays in their progency and developing hysteria (with concurrent insomnia) as a result.

(2) Women generally follow the recommendations of teachers or doctors to have their children evaluated for various disabilities. Men, however, react to such recommendations as follows: "Nuthin's the matter with that kid. This is bullsh**."

(3) Most affluent, hyper-educated women are taking Paxil, Wellbutrin, or another popular anti-anxiety medication.

The Wench can't help but wonder if the incredible surge in special education referrals is linked to the fact that every last damn teacher is a worrying, whinnying woman. At the last parent-teacher conference, The Wench felt as if she were sitting amongst a brood of Mother Hens, clucking with concern.

Whither art thou, male teachers? Or, for that matter, any teacher with a reasonable approach to child development, one grounded in experience and common sense?

The Wench urges her male readers to spend as much time as possible with their children as, more likely than not, their children spend almost the entirety of their day hovered-over by a bevy of Nervous Nellies.

And yes, The Wench understands that her spawn's teachers act only out of good intentions. But is not the Road to Hell paved with those?

On Women Who Want It Both Ways: The Pop Culture View

The Wench recently viewed The Nanny Diaries. The Wench was not pleased.

Let us put aside Laura Linney's abrupt character transformation at the end. Let us put aside the fact that Scarlett Johansson's character is whiny and weak of spine. The Wench's real beef is that the movie panders to the base female urge to have it both ways.

Case in point: throughout the course of the movie, Ms. Johansson learns that wealth does not mean happiness, and that she would rather pursue a less lucrative career in anthropology than make piles of dough in finance.

All very well and good, The Wench says. But if this character's epiphany, if the message behind it, is to have a shred of integrity at all, why have Ms. Johansson wind up with the filthy rich (and cute!) guy at the end?

Why? Because women want it both ways. They cling to the romantic ideal that money doesn't matter, that one should search for and find the one who fills the soul -- not the pocketbook. And yet. And yet. Wouldn't it be nice if your soul-mate was conveniently loaded? So that you'd never have to work again? Or so that you could pursue a low-paying but deeply satisfying career like anthropology without sweating it?

The makers of The Nanny Diaries understand this impulse. They also understand that women feel a little guilty about it. That's why they made Chris Evans's character a poor little rich boy whose mommy died when he was a toddler. Awwwwwwwww. See? She's not into him for his looks or money. She's into him because he's wounded.

This creative cop-out has been around for a long time. The Wench first took note of it as it pertained to these gals:

In the final scene of How To Marry A Millionaire, Lauren Bacall announces that she's through with gold-digging and satisfied to be with her very average new boyfriend. At which point, the boyfriend reveals that he is, in fact . . . don't faint, now . . . a millionaire! An updated version of this gag appears in the Broadway production of Thoroughly Modern Millie, wherein an entire show-stopping number is devoted to Millie's declaration of love for Jimmy, even though he hasn't so much as two sticks to rub together. And then, surprise! Turns out Jimmy's loaded, too.

The Wench thinks Lauren Bacall's boyfriend should have stayed an Average Joe. And Jimmy should have stayed a penniless schmuck. But that would risk losing the female audience.

This is one of the many, many reasons The Wench loves Jane Austen: When it comes to women and money, she does not resort to such cheap cynicism and gimmickry. On the contrary: Our girl Jane lays it on the line.

Consider Elizabeth Bennett's visit to Pemberley. Before, she's just not that into Darcy. In fact, she thinks he's kind of a creep. Then she sees this:

And then she gets the grand tour of the grounds, the palatial mansion, and Darcy's ginormous sculpture gallery. And all of a sudden, she goes from Ice Queen to Hot and Bothered:



Let's be honest, ladies. You can believe in love for its own sake, with all its limited-income frustrations. Or you can go for the guy with the deep pockets. If you're lucky, you might find that Mr. Soul-Mate and Mr. Deep Pockets are one and the same. If not -- well, then. Pick a side.