In Praise of Women

I am writing a book in praise of women, and I am a man.

 Nothing about this should seem out of place.  Women and men have been a single passion for millennia, and no other relationship could be more intimate, though intimacy, like freedom, has odd dangers.  I am also a feminist where the word signals a longing for the ascendancy of qualities traditionally considered feminine but which are also the birthright of men and which have been kept alive by the women while the men have been away. And although I am a feminist who is a man writing a book in praise of women, I cherish my masculinity, and would want no other destiny. Thus are you assured, gentlemen, that I do not come to bury us, though certain forms of masculine thought will later earn unpleasant mention. In any case it is unnecessary to slander the men on behalf of the women when the women are so easy to flatter. Still, some have found it startling that a man would write a book whose subject is women, or at least one that admires.  In fact, the reactions of the women and men with whom I first shared my intended work will serve as a fitting preface to it since these reactions contain within them a summary of what has been defining the relationship between women and men these past ten thousand years. All of the women were curious, most were interested, and many were pleased, but some were also suspicious.  I used to say that I was writing a book about women until I found that many women, while polite, would show a subtle change move across their faces (a light lost from the eye, or added, the color deepened on the cheek, the voice strangely altered) and I understood after a time that it was the word "about" which gave them pause.  It sounded to their ears like the blast from a poacher's rifle, full of arrogance and wounding surety: we had stalked her across most of history, and now, with a single book, we were set to bag her. I finally came to hear the second meaning that lurked behind the word "about" - it gave the impression of some mastery, as if I were a research biologist discussing a troop of exotic marsupials with whom I had lived for a year.  So I learned to say instead that I was writing a book about how I, as a man, felt about women.  This time the word "about" was softened by the word “felt", and the sentence now offered the proper humility.  However, my statement could still be seen to arouse quiet but uncomfortable passions in some, and so I decided to reveal my plan to women no longer, even though most of them had seemed flattered by the idea.  I would wait instead until I could advance towards them gently during the serene privacies of reading. The story of my discussion of this work with men, however, is even shorter, although this I had predicted.  A few of the men were supportive, but a more typical reaction was a wince of disbelief which gave evidence to the perhaps unsurprising though still disturbing truth that many men find it difficult to understand that another man would have anything authentically kind to say about women.  Part of this is purely rhetorical convention related to the boyish tradition of criticizing women when the subject comes up during a gathering of men.  While some of this is good natured, it has the effect of making anything favorable said of women sound so out of place that it is taken as sarcasm and given its share of appreciative laughter, and this, of course, is damaging to any hope of new traditions. But the more sinister part is harder to assess, more ominous, and too complex to be discussed in these opening remarks and so I will turn to it later.  Men, it is true, have been praising individual women all along ("my daughter is the smartest little thing…") as well as certain small specialized groups of women ("and we'd like to thank the ladies of the village auxiliary…").  But an entire book in praise of the entire sex?  Implicit in this question is the charge of treachery, but I answer: yes, of course, and it is long since earned - in such small sedition as this there is a vast and over-due devotion.  I understand that quick talks with small numbers of women and men do not constitute a reliable indication of how a larger audience will react upon reading the entire work.  I suspect that many women will be displeased, although this, of course, is not my wish.  Some of the more determined feminists will probably dislike the work on the grounds that no man of conscience would knowingly talk about women and that even a well-meaning exploration of her mysteries does her disservice by seeming to reveal them - another unwanted penetration.  And there will surely be conservative women who dislike the fact that yet another feminist is stirring up trouble.  The fact that the feminist is a man will do little to soothe their irritation and may indeed increase it since to them the idea of women telling them what to do and who they are is bad enough without men getting into the act.  And I do not even begin to know what the rest of the women will think of this.  I have moved from fantasies of a mild general acceptance which quickly forgets the book and leaves me feeling that I have dodged a cannon shot, to fantasies of large crowds, mixing women and men united happily at last by a common cause, gathering beneath my window and demanding that I jump.  We shall see.