I'm an Ordinary Man

I find the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damn nuisance. I find the moment that I make friends with a woman I become selfish and tyrannical. So here I am, a confirmed old bachelor and likely to remain so. After all, Pickering,...

I'm an ordinary man,
Who desires nothing more than an ordinary chance,
To live exactly as he likes, and do precisely what he wants.
An average man am I, of no eccentric whim,
Who likes to live his life, free of strife,
Doing whatever he thinks is best for him.
Just an ordinary man...

But, let a woman in your life, and your serenity is through!
She'll redecorate your home, from the cellar to the dome,
Then go on to the enthralling fun of overhauling you!
Oh, let a woman in your life, and you're up against a wall,
Make a plan and you will find, she has something else in mind,
And so rather than do either you do something else that neither likes at all.
You want to talk of Keats and Milton, she only wants to talk of love,
You go to see a play or ballet, and spend it searching for her glove!
Let a woman in your life, and you invite eternal strife!
Let them buy their wedding bands for those anxious little hands--
I'd be equally as willing for a dentist to be drilling
Than to ever let a woman in my life!

I'm a very gentle man,
Even-tempered and good-natured, whom you never hear complain,
Who has the milk of human kindness by the quart in every vein.
A patient man am I, down to my fingertips,
The sort who never could, ever would,
Let an insulting remark escape his lips.
Just a very gentle man...

But, let a woman in your life, and patience hasn't got a chance!
She will beg you for advice, your reply will be concise,
And she'll listen very nicely, then go out and do precisely what she wants!
You are a man of grace and polish, who never spoke above a hush,
Now all at once you're using language that would make a sailor blush!
Oh, let a woman in your life, and you're plunging in a knife!
Let the others of my sex, tie the knot around their necks,
I prefer a new edition of the Spanish Inquisition
Than to ever let a woman in my life!

I'm a quiet living man,
Who prefers to spend the evening in the silence of his room,
Who likes an atmosphere as restful as an undiscovered tomb,
A pensive man am I, of philosophic joys,
Who likes to meditate, contemplate,
Free from humanity's mad inhuman noise,
Just a quiet living man....

But, let a woman in your life, and your sabbatical is through!
In a line that never ends comes an army of her friends,
Come to jabber and to chatter and to tell her what the matter is with you!
She'll have a booming boisterous family, who will descend on you en masse,
She'll have a large wagnarian mother, with a voice that shatters glass!
Let a woman in your life,
Let a woman in your life,
Let a woman in your life!
I shall never let a woman in my life!

-My Fair Lady

Superfluous Women

"Miss Climpson," said Lord Peter, "is a manifestation of the wasteful way in which this country is run. Look at electricity. Look at water-power. Look at the tides. Look at the sun. Millions of power units being given off into space every minute. Thousands of old maids, simply bursting with useful energy, forced by our stupid social system into hydros and hotels and communities and hostels and posts as companions, where their magnificent gossip-powers and units of inquisitiveness are allowed to dissipate themselves or even become harmful to the community, while the ratepayers' money is spent on getting work for which these women are providentially fitted, inefficiently carried out by ill-equipped policemen like you. My god! it's enough to make a man write to John Bull. And then bright young men write nasty little patronising books called 'Elderly Women,' and 'On the Edge of the Explosion'—and the drunkards make songs upon 'em, poor things.

"...Just think. People want questions asked. Whom do they send? A man with large flat feet and a notebook—the sort of man whose private life is conducted in a series of inarticulate grunts. I send a lady with a long, woolly jumper on knitting-needles and jingly things round her neck. Of course she asks questions—everyone expects it. Nobody is surprised. Nobody is alarmed. And so called superfluity is agreeably and usefully disposed of. One of these days you will put up a statue to me, with an inscription:

"'To the Man who Made
Thousands of Superfluous Women
Happy
without Injury to their Modesty
or Exertion to Himself.'"

-Dorothy Sayers, Unnatural Death, 25-26.

Trousers vs Braces

Let me give one simple illustration of the difference between the right and the wrong kind of feminism. Let us take this terrible business--so distressing to the minds of bishops--of the women who go about in trousers. We are asked: "Why do you want to go about in trousers? They are extremely unbecoming to most of you. You only do it to copy the men." To this we may very properly reply: "It is true that they are unbecoming. Even on men they are remarkably unattractive. But, as you men have discovered for yourselves, they are comfortable, they do not get in the way of one's activities like skirts and they protect the wearer from draughts about the ankles. As a human being, I like comfort and dislike draughts. If the trousers do not attract you, so much the worse; for the moment I do not want to attract you. I want to enjoy myself as a human being, and why not? As for copying you, certainly you thought of trousers first, and to that extent we must copy you. But we are not such abandoned copy-cats as to attach these useful garments to our bodies with braces. There we draw the line. These machines of leather and elastic are unnecessary and unsuited to the female form. They are, moreover, hideous beyond description. And as for indecency--of which you sometimes accuse the trousers--we at least can take our coats off without becoming the half-undressed bedroom spectacle thatt a man presents in his shirt and braces."

So that when we hear that women have once more laid hands upon somthing which was previously a man's sole privilege, I think we have to ask ourselves: is this trousers or is it braces? Is it something useful, convenient, and suitable to a human being as such? Or is it merely something unnecessary to us, ugly, and adopted merely for the sake of collaring the other fellow's property? These jobs and professions now. It is ridiculous to take on a man's job just in order to be able to say that "a woman has done it--yah!" The only decent reason for tackling any job is that it is your job, and you want to do it.

-Dorothy Sayers, Are Women Human?