by Chinweizu
Glamour - the artificial beautification of the body for erotic provocativeness - is serious business. When women discuss their appearance, they are talking shop, discussing the tricks of their most important trade. The aim of glamour, like all magic and enchantment, is to confuse the senses of the onlookers, to dull their reason, to induce in them beliefs which the sober mind would dismiss. When a woman arms herself with glamour, and goes looking for her Prince Charming in the swamp of frogs, her objective is to bewitch him out of his senses, so he can blissfully make with her a bargain most unfair to himself, to wit, a marriage contract.
A woman's glamour accessories are some of her most important possessions. That handbag with its mirrors, paintbrushes, paints, ointments, decorator pencils and all - it is her magician's tool box. Have {37} you wondered why it is about the last thing she will part with, even when she has to rush from a burning room? It is to her what his stethoscope is to the doctor, or his briefcase is to the executive, or his tool kit is to the mechanic. In it are the essential implements of her economic activity - namely, self-beautification for the purpose of luring men to serve her. So, when next you notice, at the end of lunch, a woman rushing off to the powder room; when she returns transformed, with every hair in place, with every patch of colour the correct hue; or when she does her repair job at the luncheon table, in full view of all, do not sneer. Take to heart what Ntozake Shange said about beauty being a set-up, and make sure the set-up does not catch you.
A woman undergoing glamorization is like a warrior kitting himself out for battle. In contemporary Western fashion, she will shave her legs and armpits; wear curlers in her wet hair; smear thick paint on her face, and let it dry and cake on her skin; stuff her feet into tight, high-heeled and ankle-snapping shoes; diet herself into an enervating twiggy slimness; and then set out to seek battle.
After her victim has been hauled home (or rather, after her victim has hauled her off to his home where she shall eat him), many a woman tends to abandon her pursuit of glamour. When the hunt is over, one must pack up and put away one's hunting gear, until it becomes necessary to hunt again. Such a woman ignores her looks, becomes unkempt, gets splendidly fat, turns discourteous, till her bewildered husband wonders if there is any living connection between the demure beauty he wedded and this raggedy harridan he must bear as the cross of his life.
Once upon a time, in London, I heard a British woman talk of having to fetch her flashy dresses out of mothball. When I asked her why, she said that she had to start looking for a new man! The one she once snared using those same clothes had recently gotten away. Her tone was quite business-like. It was that of a man saying: "It's time to bring out my baits and rods and go down to the stream. It's fishing season again."
Of course, woman's propensity to glamorization exploits man's weakness for the female body-beautiful: if men were not simple-minded dupes who are taken in by dabs of paint and whiffs of perfume, I wonder whether women would so dedicate themselves to glamour. I once teased a Nigerian woman about women's preoccupation with their looks. I suggested that men were far more interested in women's more solid qualities, and that women might do better by cultivating those. She {38} replied: "It's all well and good to cultivate all those solid qualities; but you first have to attract him, don't you? If you don't, how is he ever going to find out those other qualities?"
Once we remind ourselves that a woman's principal occupation is the winning and holding of at least one male slave; and that her looks are among her primary assets for this business, we must realize that man's condescending attitude to her obsession with her looks is obtuse. Not just obtuse; it is a sign of men's own folly. Would we look down on a hunter who spends time cleaning and oiling his gun; or on a fisherman who lavishes care on his fishing traps; or on any man who is carefully tending the tools of his particular trade? What would we think of a magician who neglected his appearance, or who failed to practice the little tricks he must use to manipulate his audience's attention? A soldier who regards his opponent's weapons with contempt, or who fails to recognize enemy weapons for what they are, risks his own defeat.
Men, clearly, do need protection, both from their own stupidity and from their susceptibility to female beauty. Indeed, one of the best laws ever passed by men, one of the few which male legislators have passed in the male interest, was an Act of the British Parliament of 1770. It said:
All women, of whatever age, rank, profession or degree who shall after this Act, impose upon, seduce, and betray into marriage any of His Majesty's subjects by virtue of scents, paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth or false hair, iron stays, bolstered hips, or high-heeled shoes, shall incur the penalty of the law now in force against witchcraft and like misdemeanours; and marriage under such circumstances, upon conviction of the offending parties, shall be null and void.33
Predictably, like most sensible laws in the male interest, it is not known to have been ever enforced. It was probably a dead letter before it arrived on the statute books. Had it been enforceable, the cosmetics giants of the world would never have built a thriving industry. Nor would the advertising industry daily use the glamorous female body to raid the pockets of men on behalf of vendors of all manner of goods and services.
Among feminists, there are puritan prudes who, in crying down "pornography”, object to advertisers' use of the female body-beautiful {39} on billboards, posters, magazines and television to sell products. They claim that such images "demean women". It is doubtful that images of beautiful and sexy girls demean women. It is probably only the plain Janes and ugly duckling who feel demeaned when they compare themselves with the beautiful images over which men drool and lose their self-control. The truth or falsity of that jealous complaint is for women to sort out among themselves; however, it should be noted that if public displays of images of the female body-beautiful do "demean women", then every woman who displays her own body-beautiful in public places (streets, parties, offices, beaches) also "demeans women". If certain images are to be banned for "demeaning women", so too must every woman's self-display of a similarly provocative sort.
Whatever the feelings of puritan prudes, the stark reality is that the female body-beautiful exercises over men the mighty power of erotic incitement. Advertisers have merely learnt from man-hunting women to use this piece of female witchcraft to derange and rob men. If men were smart enough to act in their own interest, they would seek protection, in both law and custom, from all public display of the female body-beautiful. They would follow the example of the Ayatollah's Iran and ban from streets, beaches, parties and other public gathering places all displays of the female body, especially in cock-teasing outfits and provocative positions. They would ban them, not because the displays "demean women", but because they derange men, bewitch men, and put men's cocks into the manipulating hands of women. {40}
5. Love: Male and Female
Love makes men lame and tame.34
- The Kiswahili of East Africa.
Love is not blind. It has four eyes; it has night vision; it sees well by day and night.
- Nigerian woman:
Male pundits usually talk as if love had the same effects on women as on men. They seem to overlook the small fact that men and women are not identical but complementary, and that the effect of a current on the opposite poles of a magnet may also be opposite. With a folly typical of those who imagine themselves as the norm, male pundits refuse to heed those few women who have told what love actually does to women; and they insist on projecting unto women what is true only of men. As a result, many famous sayings about love mislead by not indicating that they apply only to men.
For example, according to Ambrose Bierce, love is "a temporary insanity curable by marriage";35 for the sake of accuracy, he should have qualified that by the opening phrase "In men,". Similarly, when Francis Bacon remarked: "It is impossible to love and be wise,"36 he should have added the opening phrase "For a man,". Likewise, the saying "love is blind" should be
taken as shorthand for "a man in love is blind to his best interests". None of these remarks applies to women. A woman in love is far from insane; she is anything but unwise or blind to her interests. On the contrary, her first sigh of love is like a whiff of smelling salts which clears her head, leaving her with four eyes and night vision; it instigates her to a ruthless pursuit of what she wants. That woman is indeed most rare for whom love is a beclouder of the eyes or a confuser of the head. {41}
Love acts on men and women in opposite ways. To see that, let us compare examples of a man in love and a woman in love. When he was hit by some woman's love harpoon, Willie Carter Spann, nephew of the then US President, Jimmy Carter, put the following advert in a newspaper:
To Susan Lynn: I love you so much I would crawl thru 9 miles of broken glass and razor blades to sniff the truck tires that haul your drawers to the laundry. I would fist-fight a gut-shot polar bear with my hands tied behind my back for a few moments alone with you. I love you, marry me. Willie Carter Spann.37
A fellow's mind has to be unhinged to become a geyser of such foolishness! Hopefully, the marriage" he was asking for would cure him of his madness. In contrast to the mush-headedness of the love-smitten man, here is Barbra Streisand's portrait of a woman in love. In her hit song, "Woman in Love", she declared:
I am a woman in love
And I'll do anything
To get you into my world
And hold you within.38
Is that not a portrait of a clear-headed huntress, resolute and resourceful? Was there ever a clearer declaration of intent to hunt down and fetter and enslave? Is it any wonder that any man in his right mind would flee from a woman's love like freedom-loving Kunta Kinte from a slave catcher?
To compare Willie Carter Spann with Barbra Streisand is to realize that love is a disease of the heart terrible for man's liberty, but an excellent pep pill for a woman hunting for a slave: when love smites a man, it turns him into a dazed prey; when it possesses a woman, she becomes a clear-eyed, calculating huntress coolly stalking her befuddled prey.
Not only does love act differently on man and woman; the word itself means quite different things to each. When a woman tells a man "I love you", she means "I want you to feed me, house me, clothe me, fuck me, {42} get me great with child, and take me as your burden until I catch a better slave". This utilitarian view is aptly expressed in a moonlight song by Nigerian maidens in which they describe their lovers as "the axe with which I split wood", then as "the tree that bears money" , then as "the key with which I lock my door", then as "the girdle with which I girdle my loins".39
In contrast, when a man tells a woman "I love you", he means "I am eager to be your slave, and ready to do everything I can to make you satisfied and happy". Which is why, when a woman hears a man say to her "I love you", her joy is great, for she understands him to mean that he has been knocked out by her chloroform of romance, and she can safely tie him up with social ropes, tether him to her nest with legal chains and, while he is still sprawled out in love's delirium, begin to make a toiling jackass out of him.
The Kiswahili poets are among the few male pundits who have gotten things right: they specify that it is men who are made lame and tame by love. As one of their songs put it: "Love makes men lame and tame".
Commenting on that song, Jan Knappert writes:
In a few brief words, the song paints a vivid picture of what happens in the streets of Mombasa in the middle of the night. Painted girls wander about, looking for their prey. Woe unto the man who is caught in their snares by their enticing looks and their luring words. Love covers him like a rash, like shivers of fever. If he is rich, he will ruin himself to please that cheeky little creature; if he is a man of power and influence, he will humble himself for her, there in the open street, to win her favours, and receive little in return except impudent words. The men are like birds caught in a snare, struggling in vain to free themselves.40
Given that love makes a man lame and tame, is it any wonder that a woman fires the harpoon of love at a man when they meet in the cockpit of courtship?
A visitor- from Mars may be struck by the nonsense which a love-smitten man utters, and by the eagerness with which an otherwise sensible woman listens to such nonsense. For instance, he will tell a woman that she is the most beautiful woman in the world, and she will give every appearance of believing him. All you need do is "look at the ugly duckling to know that she is no such thing, and that not even in her {43} utmost vanity does she believe the deluded fool. Why then does she pretend to take his gibberish seriously? Well, when he tells her, with a shine in his eyes and heat in his throat, that she is the most beautiful woman in the world, she automatically translates him to mean that he considers her the most beautiful woman in his world. That he has been reduced to saying that shows her that he is sufficiently desperate with passion to become like putty in her manipulating fingers. And that, for her, is the vital aspect of the matter.
Another nonsense which is often spouted by love-smitten men, and is eagerly awaited by man-hunting women, is a declaration of everlasting love. Everlasting? Now, now, nothing is more absurd than-promising to feel love for anybody for ever. No woman in her right mind (and bear in mind that women are quite down-to-earth) believes that a man could feel love for her for ever, or even till death puts an end to his ability to feel love for anything or anybody. Women know the world is full of changes, and that the emotion of love is one of the most ephemeral. So, when a sensible woman craves a declaration of eternal love from a man, and gives every impression of believing it, what really does she understand by it?
A woman mentally translates this foolish man-talk into reasonable talk, and understands it to mean that, in the overcharged state of his psyche, the fellow is ready to promise her anything, even things over which he could have no possible control. This is what makes the statement delicious and exciting to her ears. If he can promise an eternal feeling of love, it means he is ready to pledge himself to do something much more within his control, namely, life-long voluntary servitude to her. Now, if she could only get him to make the latter declaration in public, before suitable witnesses, her man-hunt would be successfully concluded. For then the fellow would be publicly bound to husband (i.e. slave for) her for the rest of his days.
However foolish it may sound, a man's declaration of eternal love works on him like an oath of loyalty: it psychologically binds him to carry out the obligations imposed on him by his love for her. After all, a man is taught to take his oaths rather seriously, especially vows made to his mother or mother-surrogate. Assuming that his training by his mother is effective, he is not likely to abscond from his obligations to her surrogate, not even after the love he felt at the time of the declaration has long evaporated. {44}
When next we find a woman extracting love-struck nonsense from a man, we should not consider her absurd. No woman believes such nonsense literally. She knows perfectly well that they are lies, and exaggerations, but they give her proof that he is sufficiently out of his mind to promise her anything, including what she really wants from him: life-long nest slavery. Furthermore, feelings and oaths aside, we must note that, given what a man means by "I love you", his "I'll love you for ever" means "I'll slave for you for ever". And that is surely welcome music to a slave huntress' ears.
A Martian observer might also be amazed that men appear blind to the predatory core of bridal love. As any clear-headed observer can see, between puberty and menopause, a woman is driven by her nesting instinct. For nest-making, she needs the services of a hardworking, provider and strong protector. This biological need gives the nest-making woman's love for her chosen man its predatory and exploitative core. It is this uninviting core that the mush of sentimental love is designed to conceal. But conceal from whom? Certainly not from the woman, but rather from her intended victim who might otherwise flee for his dear liberty.
Man, in his sentimentality, may refuse to acknowledge that the love felt for him
by the woman who loves him is, at its core, a slaver's love for her slave. Those who doubt that should consider a woman's proverbial reaction to her spurned love, or to a mate who deserts her nest. When she cries "seduced and abandoned", her rage is that of a lioness whose intended dinner has run away. When she cries that her husband has deserted her, her fury is that of a slaveholder whose slave has run away. If he has run off with another woman, her rage at the other woman is that of one slaveholder at another slaveholder who has kidnapped' her property. Were men fully conscious of the predatory nature and exploitative purpose of a nesting woman's love for her man, they might be found each day praying: "God save man from the love of woman!” That men do not is a measure of how sentimentality thoroughly beclouds their eyes. {45}
6. Courtship: The Hunting of the. Love-smitten Man
A man always chases a woman until she catches him.41
- Anon.
The courtship scenario is reputedly as follows: boy sees girl, falls in love with her, courts her, wins her, weds her, and triumphantly carries her off to his home to be his housewife (or, in the eyes of some feminists, his domestic servant, resident sexpot, childbearer, child rearer, etc.). The reality is, however, rather more like this: girl sees boy and decides to make him her nest-slave. She contrives to attract his attention and to set his heart on fire with a coy glance, a come-hither smile, a painted face, an aloof elegance, the shimmering wriggle of a skirted waist, or a stylish walk that makes her buttocks throb.