What Does She Want!!!
By Encore Encore on June 6, 2008 at 8:35 PM in Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton
Sigmund Freud was reported to confess to Ernst Jones, while traveling on a passenger ship to America, that after forty years of studying the psyche of females within his new discipline of psychoanalysis, he still had no answer to the question, what do women want?
This of course sparked many responses. Jacques Lacan provoked the query further by observing that they won’t tell, if you ask them, they can’t say it. This led Lacan to conclude that whatever it is, it lies outside speech and further led him to develop his idea of a ‘beyond’ to feminine sexuality, that makes of woman something akin to the impossible.
Without needing to stress that this is a question, concerning women, posed by men, and isn’t a question generated from women, it’s not hard to notice that, as a question, it lives. Most recently Hillary Clinton, the first viable female candidate for president of the United States, has been asked, indirectly and directly, what is it you want?
(One might here observe that the question was put forth only after Barack Obama, her Democratic rival, had declared himself the victor, without waiting for her to concede, when it was safe enough to conclude, she can’t have it anyway so it can’t hurt to ask.)
Hillary answered with surprise, why what I’ve said all along, I want a Democrat to be elected president, I want the war to end, I want the destructive Bush policies reversed, I want all Americans to have health coverage…, like, what did you think? And while her answer was both consistent and obvious to women, it didn’t settle the question, it’s still being asked.
That men have a ‘woman’ question is undeniable. When any men’s group focuses on women, that question is in the fore. Perhaps a coordinate question, put by women, is, why do men lie? Why do that say they’ll do this or that, and then they don’t. Or, they can say they love you like water but they won’t give you what you ask. I’ll look at both these questions, in the light of marital difficulties, to see if there isn’t some light Hillary’s historic campaign and the organic revulsion of some women to Barack’s ‘win,’ might yield.
I have a male friend, a psychologist, who is married and likes his wife. He noticed that even he lies to his wife, of course not about anything ‘important,’ and that his lies seem reflexive. He concluded that men learn to lie when they’re little boys, living with their demanding and insatiable mothers. He recalled that his own mother, who was busy with his father, six other children, and extensive volunteer work, made such impossible demands on him that he learned to lie to her, in order to preserve his own inviolable space. (This led me to suspect that the male problem concerning what a woman wants has an early start, and isn’t necessarily related to reality.)
Couples often go into counseling when it’s pretty much too late. The woman may have asked him many times to come to counseling, and he may have instead promised to do better. She may have told him many times what was proving impossible for her to tolerate in their marriage, and he may have promised to change, for example, to stop drinking, or to stop cheating, or to help out with the kids, or to be nice to her in front of his male friends, or to take her out sometimes, or to be romantic sometimes, but until she leaves or threatens to leave, he doesn’t act. Then, once she’s had it, and gives him his walking papers, he’s all, what did I do? What is it you want? I’ll do it, just tell me.
When you ask the man what he does for her, he often say, everything, and he lists his attributes, however he sees them. And then he’s quick to list her shortcomings. Even men with serious drug addictions whose wives have been bringing home the paycheck and entirely maintaining the family have lists of her shortcomings.
If one can condense the male complaint, it would be something like; she doesn’t revere me and find me a masculine studly specimen. And the woman’s would be, he treats me like I’m his nagging mother and he’s a free spirited teenage boy.
But, you may say, I know couples like this, where she’s the responsible one and she takes on all the hard work and he’s a drunk or a total jerk, and they are still married. And I answer, unless a woman has an unconscious plan to be a doormat, and gets her jouissance from subverting herself to maintain her man’s ‘cover,’ it’s only a matter of time. At some point he will go too far, and when that happens, it’s nearly always too late.
The too far is often reserved for a time when it’s ‘her turn.’ For example, she may do all the home chores, and put up with him ducking out to play golf, or go drink beers with the boys. But the one time, when she has a ‘special’ need, for instance she’s sick, or there is a once-in-a-lifetime event that is very important to her, and even then he fails to come through, and a do-over is impossible, so this time he can’t just promise to ‘make it up to her, that may be the ‘too far,’ and then for her it may be the ‘too late.’
I know a woman whose husband was a serial cheat, and she always forgave him, but when he had an affair with a woman she had no respect for who openly mocked her, she could no longer stand him. At that point it’s organic, she can’t stomach the creep. And then all of his offenses, that had long been papered over or justified by his ‘special circumstances,’ come back with a vengeance, and he will never have another chance with her, however much he finally realizes he can’t live without her.
Sometimes these men become enraged and may become violent. Sometimes these men ‘touch’ this loss the rest of their lives. And some men quickly locate another woman, who they can repeat the process with.
Of course not all men are the same. But, for this purpose we can divide men into two categories; those who genuinely like women, and those who dislike most women but hold certain women in a ‘special status,’ as not like ‘most’ women, those he can’t stand. Men who like woman, enjoy their woman’s company, and appreciate her talents, interests and accomplishments, and these guys usually get a lot more ‘rope’ from their woman. Women are, by constitution, if I may say so, forgiving. If a woman loves a man, she can have great reserves of tolerance and good will toward him.
Women who ‘stay married’ to philanderers often really like them, and enjoy their company because they are always ‘free’ to be themselves and to follow their talents and interests without fear of their men acting like angry rivals, without fear of being ‘reassigned’ to that group of ‘women he can’t stand.’ There is no doubt that Hillary’s husband likes women and loves her. He has been the picture of a loving husband campaigning for her, doing his best to contain his anger over the way she was mashed by the media, by the party and by her Democratic rival, only because that wasn’t useful to her aspirations. But angry he has been, like any man who loves a woman and must watch her being savaged.
2008 was long hoped to be the ‘turn’ of women, who have been supporting the Democratic Party for decades and have been promised that if there were a well-qualified woman with a real chance of winning, the party would support her candidacy.
We picked Hillary, who we see as a woman who cares about women’s lives, and who might ‘show’ the world that women can run a nation effectively and with the perspective that could change the course of our lives. Women have been always the workers of the party, as well as the small financial contributors.
Women are widely underrepresented in all areas of power, and many had feared that no qualified woman would put herself forth for the job. Gerry Farraro ran for vice president with Walter Mondale, who had no real hope of winning. It seemed to women at that time that our party had given us a token, like putting in a clumsy little league player only late in the game, after it was already effectively lost. At the time many thought that if there had been a real chance, a woman would never have been selected.
Gerry managed to highlight a new problem for female candidates – husbands: It was her husband’s business interests that were used against her. And then many of us thought, well, how can a woman run for president if she’s married to a businessman? Hillary is married to the most vetted man on the face of the earth. She was the one woman whose husband’s ‘skeletons’ were too well known. She was our chance and it was now or never.
The end is now known; male party members and ‘special female’ party members, backed Barack, a black man with an equal or superior ‘claim’ to a turn for his race. Black Americans made this country, during years of slavery, and still ongoing years of oppression and exploitation. Our party has also ‘used’ the black voting block’ to mainly elect white men, with the promise that one day it would be the turn of African Americans, who have contributed so much and received so little. Black Americans are still the creative force in our nation, keeping us honest regarding our national pride, and yes, our unpleasant racial and entitlement ‘pride.’
It could have been a fair contest, with the winner winning fairly, based on issues, but it hasn’t been that way. Barack appealed to misogyny and our party did nothing to temper ubiquitous gross and ugly ‘characterizations’ of Hillary. These men who dislike women but like ‘certain special women,’ as well ‘certain special women’ who dislike women rallied against the female candidate, and they prevailed.
Two moments of the tragic comedy showed many of us the ‘real deal.’ The first was when Barack was free to assume that he was the superior of the two, and that mainly white women and ‘racists’ were voting for Hillary. This was shown most clearly when he ‘assumed’ Hillary hoped for the job over his dead body. The second was when the party ‘settled’ the Michigan delegates by ceding to Barack some of Hillary’s pledged delegates. When that happened, the contest was over; it was ‘fixed’ for Barack. He was given pledged delegates that had not voted for him, and a few extra pledged delegates that had voted for her. If we wanted to know what they thought of us, those two moments made it quite clear.
So, now, those of us who like women and who hoped that we’d get a fair turn are really angry. This is the ‘too far,’ for us and for some of us it’s also the ‘too late.’ While I’d venture to guess we’d all say we’re glad the party nominated a black man, we’d also add that he would not have been given this historic chance were it not for Hillary.
So, to get back to the ‘what does she want?’ I’d say the question is rhetorical, no answer from a woman will be credited, it’s not a question to us, but to other men. And may now properly be expressed as, ‘what more does she want?’
Perhaps if enough of us leave our party and won’t go back, they make more promises, they’ll ask us what we want and promise to give it to us. But it’s not a real question for us, we’ve told you, you blew it, it’s too late.
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
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