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:
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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.