No. 1330: The winners
Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for an enlightening verse reply to Freud's baffled question: 'What do women want?'
'Was will das Weib?' The original sug- gests exasperation still more vividly: one sees the bearded mouth wearily expelling those Teutonic labiodentals. Was it the first, second, or fourth word that received the major emphasis? Is any answer one attempts to give doomed to immediate refutation? The only way to judge this competition, I concluded, was to enlist the help of a passing sphinx. She knew what she wanted all right when it came to the choosing of prize-winners — out went the materialists whose desiderata were yachts, champagne or even husbands devoted to domestic science and paedotrophy; out went the punsters and the compulsive wags; and out went the 'soppy dates'. I can find no fault with her choice of the six winners below (who are awarded £8 apiece), though I argued in vain that Eve Ryman's application of the word 'silly' was unfairly sweeping. But I entirely agreed that the bonus bottle of Champagne Jules Mignon Brut (NV), presented by Christopher Moorsom and Michael Alex- ander of the Chelsea Wharf Restaurant, Lots Rd, SW10 (351 0861), should go to Mary Ann Moore as a reward for skilful sincerity. Peter Norman and Roger Wod- dis might have scored if the former's entry hadn't seemed to stray from the competi- tion's terms and the latter's hadn't arrived late.
Poor Doctor Freud, with theories overwrought! Women's desires are simpler than he thought. So far we bend, but we must not be broken; True gifts we prize, but spurn the fawner's token; We listen well, but claim the last word spoken• Gladly we move, but we should not be shaken; Our minds may change, but truth is not forsaken; We give love freely, but will not be taken. (Mary Ann Moore) Man and woman, being human, Both crave food and power and sex; The difference is that any woman Is a little more complex.
A man sees morals black and white. A woman uses them with skill; He has the will to do what's right. She claims the right to do her will.
What does she want that man does not?
Where lies her special appetite? In this: man fights to get the lot; She wants the lot without a fight. (Paul Griffin) The one thing that all women want, From Wife of Bath to Mary Quant, Is never hard to find; It isn't health or love or wealth, It's pleasing their own mind.
So let them think that they are right. Agree when they say black is white, And call the night the day. If you want life devoid of strife, Just let them have their way.
And so I hope, dear Doctor Freud, That this will help to fill the void That mars your education. May I suggest you learn the rest By patient application? (0. Smith) Now that you've thought to ask me, Doctor Freud, I'll tell you what I've always most desired: The independence of a Marie Lloyd Together with her wit; to be admired For my real qualities, quite unalloyed With praise for beauty, grace or charm. I'm tired Of always being treated as an object. Just now and then I'd like to be the subject.
I'd like the Vote (a trivial wish, you say, Probing my psyche for some deeper pain); To love my family, but not to lay My brothers and my father — you're insane! And as to phallic envy — just no way! You've got it ludicrously wrong again. Do you believe that I who'm shaped like Venus Want anything so silly as a penis? (Eve Ryman) What women want, Or so men say, Is utterly Their own sweet way.
We want far more ,, hear, dear shrink, Much less of what They think we think.
What do women want, mein Herr? Adler'd have told you to the letter, Shakespeare made it pretty clear, Your wife would tell you, if you'd let her, Mrs Gandhi, Thatcher too, Any Greenham girl for free, .1.,J.H. Lawrence (Oh he knew!), lYpist on her boss's knee . .
Victorians tried to put the lid On the truth, but now it's out, No one now can keep it hid There really isn't room for doubt.
Chaucer said it well enough.
And speaks for husbands generally -
Note he didn't mention Love: Wommen desiren . . sovereynetee.' (Bridget M. Rees) (T. Griffiths)
Previous page
