Because men and women (er, guys and girls) are two distinct species, there are so many things we don’t know about each other. Girls, especially, are mysterious creatures, but lists can be handy teaching tools. Our spokeswoman, Jane Hoskyn, has leaked one such list to UK MSN: 53 secrets girls don’t want guys to know (aka Women are stupid, manipulative, easily confused and fragile).
If we don’t want guys to know, why are you telling them, Jane? To sabotage and undermine the rest of us as we try to earn a little respect in this world?
1. When we get whistled at in the street, we feel uncomfortable and we’ll always tut and roll our eyes. But we’re awesomely flattered and we’d be gutted if it stopped.
Nooooooooooo! This is why I think she’s trying to sabotage the rest of us. “But Jane Hoskyn said you secretly like it!”
4. We can be put off a guy by finding out that his ex-girlfriends are a bit ugly.
Because then we think we must be ugly, yeah yeah yeah.
7. Here’s how to make us fall for you. One day, come on to us so strong that we’re a bit weirded out by it. Then totally fail to ring us. We’ll wonder what we did wrong, and we won’t be able to stop thinking about you.
I won’t be able to stop thinking about what a creepy prick you are. Oh wait, there’s an addendum:
8. The above strategy isn’t foolproof. We may just lose interest. It depends on how much we liked you in the first place.
53 must be Hoskyn’s favorite number or something because there is no other explanation for the inclusion of those two.
10. Stop trying to understand how our minds work. Even we don’t understand how our minds work.
Women are alien even to themselves. We definitely can’t be trusted in positions of power, tee hee.
18. We say “we’re not manipulative” because we’re really good at being manipulative.
Right now we are manipulating you into viewing us as snakes.
25. We leave our legs unshaven on a first date so that we won’t end up in bed with you.
26. We wear big knickers on a first date so that we won’t end up in bed with you.
27. We spend entire first dates fancying the pants off you and worrying that we’ll end up in bed with you, all unshaven legs and big knickers.
To avoid looking like “sluts” we go out of our way to avoid fucking on the first date even when we want to. Like we said, we don’t know our own minds.
29. We suspect that you like our bodies more when we’re carrying a few extra pounds, but we always feel better about ourselves when we lose weight. However we hate that our boobs look deflated, and we’re disgusted by the injustice of it.
This deserves a whole separate post.
44. We want you to text us from your journey home [from our place] to say how you can’t stop smiling.
Make your car a no phone zone!
46. We’d happily sleep with your best mate to make you jealous.
I’m starting to feel sick.
50. We aren’t always sure when we’re faking it. In orgasms, the line between fact and fiction can be very thin.
Not only do we not know our minds, we don’t know what’s going on “down there.” So don’t bother.
53. We’re all little girls inside. You make us cry far more easily than you realise.
You’re all a bunch of pedophiles, basically.
But seriously, this is it? This top secret list of girlie truthiness reads more like a list of common stereotypes that could only titillate a group of tweens at the cafeteria lunch table. At least she didn’t mention anything about periods.
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We don’t know if we’re faking orgasm? What? All that tells me is that the author of this list has never actually had an orgasm.
Wow…great post. Is this author going for a gold medal in the Asshole Pleasing, Stereotype Affirming Olympics, or does she just honestly believe that her annoying neuroses are universal to the entire gender? Is this just the female version of “I’m incapable of monogamy, so therefore all men are incapable of monogamy”?
I am not exaggerating when I say I am completely brimming with bile right now. I want to click the link to see all 53 of these, but I need to calm down first. I don’t even think I can say anything intelligent about this right now. Off to go set something on fire.
“10. Stop trying to understand how our minds work. Even we don’t understand how our minds work.”
That has nothing to do with being a woman, that has to do with utterly lacking self-awareness. Both myself and my manpanion understand how my mind works quite well, thankyouverymuch (or, as well as can be expected for people in their early 20s, anyway). I would even venture to say that my mind is better understood between us than his.
“50. We aren’t always sure when we’re faking it. In orgasms, the line between fact and fiction can be very thin.”
Ah, Sarah, I think I’ve discovered her problem! Bad sex leads to misery and misery loves company, after all…
Reading the whole thing, I guess a couple of them are reasonable if random and of course over-generalized (I do know many, many women who are completely disgusted by feet) but most are just wtf. “We find your dark-coloured bedsheets a total turn-off.” Excuse me? I own dark-coloured bedsheets. I don’t understand why that would even be a concern.
I am going to save that link for the day I accidentally swallow something poisonous and need to induce vomiting right away.
1 and 7 in particular, have made me so angry, I’m actually shaking slightly.
This is dangerous. No, really. Because this is the thin shred of evidence that any “regular guy” can use to say “But I thought you women liked that kind of thing?!?!?”
Sadly, now that this in on the Internet, we will never be rid of it. Don’t be surprised when SpikeTV turns this into a MANswers special.
I feel a little dirty for agreeing with some of them that weren’t mentioned here…like this one:
“2. We will never grow out of our fascination with pop stars. A guy can be completely ordinary-looking, but we will fancy him if he’s in a band.” Guilty as charged. I mean, I’m no desperate screamer, but I am a fangirl. Granted, I prefer just plain old “musicians” to “pop stars.”
And this, definitely, “40. What you do with your tongue matters most of all.” The thing is, though, this would be so much better if Jane were out there actually asserting her needs in bed instead of being so bloody passive-aggressive about it. Some of the things she says, especially the ones quoted here, are genuinely vile, but others would be fine if it weren’t for the squick-making tone they’re delivered in.
Exactly Cat. Why are the few decent ones (like #40) closely guarded secrets?
Is it my imagination, or is there a lot of misogyny coming out of the UK lately? Mind you, I’m not calling the US some kind of feminist utopia but it seems like every article we read out of the British press these days reeks of chauvinism.
I dunno, Dillene…I’ve had that same thought myself but can’t tell if it’s true or not true or my US-colored spectacles or what.
If you can’t tell the difference between your own orgasm and a fake one, I’m pretty sure you’ve never had an orgasm. I mean, they’re awesome. You definitely know when they’re happening.
Secondly: Street Harassment is NOT flattering. Not even a little bit.
Oh, fucking hell. No, this is a not a list about women. This is a list about HER. I hate, hate, HATE people who think they get to speak for everyone else. She needs to grow up, learn to communicate with her partners, and stop projecting.
@Amanda: But if she doesn’t speak for all women, who will? I mean, she’s just trying to do a public service…
Ugh. This makes me really sad more than it makes me angry. Like. this is one sad, poison-koolaid drinking individual. It’s pretty awful that she’s trying to speak for all women, but in my experience that’s kind of the way it goes. Like, when you’ve internalized so much violence against you, as a matter of survival you need to believe that these are universal truths and just how things are. Does that make sense? It makes me sick and sad, but not angry.
Are we sure this isn’t a guy pretending to be a woman? I mean, jeez, what a bunch of absolutely enraging, insulting trash. Really, I don’t know which one is more offensive, the “we love being terrorized on the street” one or the “we’ll do anyone to make you jealous” one. *headdesk*
This sort of stereotype-enforcing, mean girlish, speaking for all women article is enraging. I truly don’t understand what compels women to write this kind of hateful drivel. And what bothers me the most is that, as women, we don’t have the luxury to have idiots and assholes make sweeping statements about “what all women do/are like” and not have the general public accept those statements as gospel truth.
If I wrote a piece declaring “All women would like to be liberated from patriarchy!” they’d be all “No, no, womanity is a rainbow! Women are individuals!”
OK, I am back from my destructive rampage. Stoopid hormones! Anyhoo, for me, numbers 14-16 are the most sad, because they feed directly into the mortal fear of going through life without the menz. I WILL DO ANYTHING TO KEEP YOU FROM LEAVING ME!!! So. Sad. I have ditched out of a lot of bad friendships because they were completely on the other person’s terms — and a romantic relationship should be held to an even higher standard.
On a related subject, in addition to the drivelous nature of the actual items on the list, I also take severe objection to the title of the list. Why exactly don’t we want men to know that we have mustache and hair problems? They seem to appreciate our mammalian nature otherwise. It all goes back to the ridiculous notion that women must be effortlessly perfect every second of the damn day or risk ending up alone, a fate worse than death. I for one would like it if these things were discussed at the next International Man Symposium. I guess that would be the “Him-posium.”
This isn’t a new thought by any stretch, but I always wonder: Why would guys satisfied with being in superficial relationships with women they barely know? I am definitely not a “man-hating feminazi” — many of my friends are guys, and almost all of them want to be in relationships with real women they actually like.
@SarahMC: That’s the insidious genius of the Patriarchy right there: it’s the ultimate catch-22.
@Katharsis – I think of that whenever I see straight, white, Christian men claiming that they shouldn’t have to be tarred with the same brush as their compatriots. “I’m not responsible for what other people this group do!” and so on. It’s like, excuse me, most people in the world don’t even have the option to disclaim that responsibility, because you don’t give it to them.
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Ha, looks like they pulled the article. Still, what a pile of horseshit. I really do feel sick.
Stuff like this just makes me sputtering mad. For some reason I’m especialy bugged at the present moment by the thing about the strippers. Now, there’s nothing wrong with same-sex attraction for either sex, of course, that is certainly not the problem I’m having with this item. Rather, my issue is that the item seems designed to (yet again, like it needs it) further the whole idea that objectification of women is fun for everyone, that women=sex (but only those women that fit the standard, not that anyone ever bothers mentioning that in these things, because unhot women do not exist), if you like sex, you must like objectified women, if not, you’re a prude. You should be into other women as objects and into yourself as an object. Though if you’re an honest-to-goodness bi or lesbian woman and you want to, like, have a relationship with a woman, you’re expected to either put on a show (provided you fit the standard) or keep out of everyone’s way. And if you are straight and actually sexually and aesthetically attracted to men’s bodies instead, that is somehow deviant or threatening, because it makes men into objects (though of course, you should still, despite the required lack of interest in their bodies, want to sexually service men for some reason). I’m not articulating this very well at all, but what was that line about women having sex with themselves through men, unable to view themselves as subjects of their sex lives rather than objects?
Also: “all little girls inside” YUCK
P.S. Um, Jane, you do realize there is no force preventing you from going to bed with a guy you have the hots for, just because your legs are hairy and your underwear leaves something to the imagination. I have done it and lived to tell the tale. If the fellow cannot handle it, he isn’t for me.
17. “I’m scared of being hurt” means “I don’t fancy you as much as I thought I did.” You know it, we know it, and that is all that will be said on the matter.
This is a nice one, too – If this would be the general idea, a girl who finally finds the courage to tell a guy why she’s keeping a distance – because she’s scared – will chase away the guy, being even more scared to share her feelings with the next. Wonderful.