Owls and Orchids

image from http://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net

“I would rather trust a woman’s instinct than a man’s reason.”
― Stanley Baldwin

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I wasn’t sure if I would be writing tonight since my sudden decision to retire last night had its own strange carry over to this morning. In fact, it was more like lunch time before I really reached the point of being conscious. That is bad enough, at least from my perspective, after all that’s half a day wasted doing nothing but sleep or snooze in a semi catatonic state.

The truth is that the new medication the doctor prescribed is, what you might call, a trifle heavy handed. Great if you want to spend a day in delightful slumber, but if you are like me, then you spend all your time struggling against its soporific effects to wake up. So why on earth take the medication if I’m going to fight against it, and have a headache as a result?

The answer is incredibly simple. When the pain becomes bad enough that I’m in tears and I would desperately like nothing more than to go to the hospital for some help, I reach for these Dopey Dora tablets. Yes, they eventually make me too cotton woolly to think but I’m left with this strange urge to be doing something because it doesn’t hurt as much. As far as logical thought goes, it’s pretty ridiculous.

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Yet when I tuned in to my inner critic, I heard a song from a favourite movie, My Fair Lady. It was a slapstick piece of complaining from Dr Higgins to Colonel Pickering when Eliza has left after her success at the ball. It was that beautiful soliloquy: “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”

Because it’s been rattling around my head all day I decided to really listen to it and it’s quite funny. All of the ‘lovely’ attributes he is bemoaning woman of the era do not have and men do, are the very essence of the difference between men and women. Women are emotional, feeling creatures who feel things deeply in a different way to men. Men, of that era especially, are somewhat cold, unemotional and aloof, and definitely believe the ‘fairer sex’ should be seen as a trophy and not heard. Ugh! Not my cup of tea at all.

The same thing is apparent from the early twentieth century. At present we are being inundated by a plethora of movies and soapies about the late, great gangster imitations in Australia. The ‘underworld’ and organised crime have perpetuated this myth that there was something glamorous about being a ‘possession’ of one of these mobsters.

Now, I’ll admit to being one of those ’pioneering types’ and would more than likely have been carted away in handcuffs because I’d chained myself to the railings advocating voting for women. That’s a funny enough thought on its own, but doesn’t address the fundamental differences between men and women. Men are all for the rough and tumble, fists flying and if anyone else gets hurt, too bad mate, she’ll be right! Women on the other hand have all those nurturing abilities which see them sacrificing themselves, for their children and their miscreant husbands.

image from thegenealogycorner.wordpress.com –  The looks say it all.

So when Higgins asks, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man” it’s a simple case of nature versus nurture. Some men get it and some don’t. But don’t get me wrong, in an ironical twist, there are some wonderful men who are great at rearing children whilst the woman is great in the high pressure stakes of business.

In short, I believe there are blurred lines in the roles between men and women today. We are seeing a great upheaval in thought, attitude and cultural mores. It brings an added dimension to life, sometimes good and sometimes bad, but that is the tenor of life and learning. We have to take the good and the bad and learn from it.

So Mr Higgins, a woman should not be more like a man, life would be boring indeed, and at the end of the movie, if she wasn’t different, he would never be able to say, “I’ve grown accustomed to her ways”….. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be?

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I hope you enjoy my  wander down memory lane , mixing it up with today’s dilemma.

Blessings,  Susan x

© Susan Jamieson 2013