“Oh, I know what happens to women once they get married. That’s the end. A girl might just as well drop dead and bury herself right then and there!”
“And just how do you know what happens to a girl when she gets married?” Studs asked.
“Well - From reading, for one thing.”
“Reading? Reading what?”
“Betty Friedan, for one thing.”
“Never heard of her. Who is she?”
“Only the author of The Feminine Mystique, probably the most important book for women written in this century. It’s every woman’s Emancipation Proclamation, but I Wouldn’t expect you to know about that.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve run across a feminist or two in my travels.”
“Run over them, more likely. That’s what men like you try to do to women. Well, you’re not going to do it to me! I plan to live my life right out of Sex and the Single Girl. Marriage indeed! I want to live—live! live! live!—not get married. No woman worth her salt would marry a man!”
“So who would she marry, then?”
“Very funny. But you know what I mean. Any woman worthy of the name values her independence.”
“You know, I’m beginning to resent this,” Studs said. “After all, my mother was a married woman.”
“Are you sure?” Penny asked sweetly.
“All right! Just cut that out! My mother was a damn good wife and mother, and what’s more she was very happy to be just that!”
“She was brainwashed, that’s all.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just like Betty Friedan says, women are hampered from the start because from the first they’re taught to accept their role in life. Psychologically, biologically and sociologically, our society puts them down from the day they’re born and does its utmost to hold them down.”
“You’ll have to elaborate on that.”
“All right. First, psychologically,”—Penny ticked off the points on her fingers-—“women are told that every single one of them suffers from penis envy. No exceptions. And who originated this new theory to convince them to stay in their place? Sigmund Freud—a man, naturally. Second, biologically, scientists, male of course, keep piling up evidence to prove that we’re the weaker sex. Man is physically stronger—not necessarily true, incidentally, since little girls are never given the opportunities to develop their muscles the way growing boys are -- and therefore he is entitled to dominate woman. Third, sociologically, the woman is relegated to the home. That’s her place. She’s fit only for the company of squawling brats and babies in manure-spread diapers. Any attempt to avoid this prison, or to break loose from it, results in the serious questioning of her femininity. Why does she want to compete with a man? Has she latent Lesbian tendencies? Doesn’t she realize that working women deprive some man of a job? And what’s more —"
“Wait!” Studs held up his hands. There was an icy glint in his eye and his voice was carefully under control. “I’ve heard it all before. And from dames even more belligerent about their deprived status than you. Oh, some of it’s true enough. But only from the most selfish viewpoint.”
“Selfish! Selfish! . . .” Penny sputtered.
“Yes, selfish. Not one of you dames ever tried applying the same ridiculous yardstick to men. If you did, you might think twice about all this whining.”
“We’re not whining! We’re just starting to demand our rights!”
“What about the man’s rights? What about his deprived status? What about the masculine mystique?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“No? Then I’ll tell you. Just sit and listen for a minute. You might learn something.”
“I doubt it,” Penny said haughtily.
“We’ll sec. All right. I.et’s start at the beginning. Let's consider the arbitrary masculine role thrust upon a man by society."
"There is no such thing.”
“Isn’t there? Just listen." Studs rook a deep breath. “A man takes the woman out, right? He picks her up and takes her home. He foots the bill. He brings her flowers, or candy. He has to ask her for a date—which puts him in the position of a beggar, and Milady in the position of bestowing upon him an act of charity. Just once I’d like some dame to take me home after a night on the town and try to edge her way into my apartment!”
“A fat lot of good it would do her if she did,” Penny interrupted pointedly.
Studs ignored her and continued. “And then take all these masculine activities that women are always complaining they’re barred from. Well, what about all the feminine activities that are off-limits to us men? I might like to go to a baby shower, or a sorority initiation. I might like to join the League of Women Voters. I might like to satisfy my curiosity about the Ladies’ Room at the Radio City Music Hall!”
“It’s quite a sight,” Penny admitted.
“I’ll bet. Anyway, you mentioned penis envy before. But what about bosom envy? Do you know that the most traumatic experience in an adolescent boy’s life is when he glances down at himself for the first time and realizes there’s something missing? Do you know what it feels like to be told you’ll never wear a brassiere?
“Psychology!” Studs warmed to his subject. “From the first men are barred from the woman’s world. They’re conditioned to accept the fact that no matter how they work toward it, they’ll never be chosen as ‘Playgirl of the Month’. No man’s picture will ever appear as the centerspread in Playboy. No man dares style his hair in a bouffant. Nobody whistles when a man adjusts his garters.”
“I didn’t know men still wore garters.”
“Sometimes they do.” Studs waved the question aside. “And biology! Oh, there’s a female-favoring field if there ever was one. Women are the weaker sex, they tell us, and we’re supposed to care for them. Weaker sex! Did you ever try to unscrew a bottletop screwed on by a woman?”
“I’m well aware of your screwing problems,” Penny told him.
Studs refused to be sidetracked into an exchange of sarcasms. “Weaker sex!” he repeated scathingly. “Every actuarial table ever figured tells us that women live longer than men and are generally healthier.
“And, oh, yes, sociology. Well, let’s just look at the sociological restrictions on man. He’s a victim of anatomical determinism. Right from birth, he’s sexually segregated. He can never be the mother when he plays house with his little friends. Later, society tells him he can’t join the Girl Scouts-—no matter how much more congenial he may find them than the Boy Scouts. When he grows up, an occupation which embraces one half of the country’s population is barred to him.”
“What’s that?” Penny asked.
Studs noticed that she asked it through clenched teeth. Obviously, his diatribe was making her pretty angry. But he was past caring. He was filled with the justness of his argument. “Housewife,” he explained. “And that’s not the half of it. Society dooms man to be always a taxpayer and never an exemption. His work may be a bore, but if he complains, the female-oriented sociologists tell him that this is his role in life and he must learn to accept it. Then one day he drops dead of a heart attack. But his wife lives on another twenty years, spending his insurance money and complaining to the end about how she never fulfilled her potential.”
“And she probably never has,” Penny insisted hotly.“
“Her potential? That’s a laugh! What about his potential? What about all the booties he never knitted? What about all the hen parties he never went to? What about all the babies he never had?”
“Are you kidding?” Penny was filled with scathing anger at the heresies to which she’d been listening. “No, you’re just naturally fat," she answered her own question sarcastically. “Of all the utter hogwash I’ve ever —"