Men write about Women

He had a guitar in his room. He had a notebook and stray bits of paper on his bed. He had a button fly and his hair in quiff. All warning signs that he was a sensitive soul who wrote his own lyrics. The next day there was a stray piece of paper in tight handwriting pushed under her door; folded in two and labelled For You.

She very nearly forgot to read it, but thought maybe it will be something lovely, offer an insight that would warm her. But it wasn’t really about her. It was about him and how cruelly she taunted him by having legs, hair and eyes. She thought she should be grateful that at least it didn’t mention her tits.

She put it in the box that she kept for her middle age and got on with her day.

In her middle age, she goes to the cinema. The film is charming, but the lingering sense is unnerving. Female-led, with a young lead actress. Written, directed and produced by men. Men write about women, but only one woman at a time.

She is flaky, unfocussed a little unpredictable. Her obvious poor mental health is re-framed as endearing. She is mysterious. She arrives and then leaves. She has no life between those episodes. She has no friends, because female friends would mean writing women talking to women and what would they have to say.

She wears make-up, but the men don’t notice and comment on her fresh-faced beauty. Of course, she falls in love with a much older man.

Her clothes – she has a style without a budget. She obviously doesn’t crave properly tailored clothes with proper fastenings. She does not wear underwear.

Her hair is thick, and piled upon her head with accidental tendrils curling at her neck. Her eyes are large. Her breasts are high. She wears a fringe. She smiles slowly. She hums as she walks.

She takes silly risks. It is so charming the way she asks questions that no-one feels compelled to answer.

She is witty, but it is always seen as incidental that he laughs. He always laughs in her company, but not necessarily at her words. He says clever things that make her cry. Her eyes brim, but there is no snot.

She is kind to animals. She is an animal. She is animalistic. She is feline. Look at her eyes. They fixate on their prey. She plays with her catch. It turns out he is a dog-man. A man who prefers faithful, dozy puppies.

Her body is unreliable. It bleeds. Her pregnancy is a plot point. Her miscarriage is silent.

Men write women and when men see things the writer didn’t mean you to see they are clever. They are critical thinkers with a sense of subtext. When women see the things we are not meant to see, women are cruel. Women lack a sense of humour. Humourless women make men deliberately angry. Angry women appear to show us how women are not fun, but will cross and uncross their legs just to show you what they’ve got.

Women read women, just to have some time when they can engage without having to face that slap, that cringe of knowing a woman is doing what she is doing because a man made her. Women become bookish to see a woman doing what needs to be done. She’s a bookworm because in a book she can be contradictory and flawed, feral and domesticated, interesting with a point of view. She has a mind and a mind’s eye.

Men write women who read. They are infertile. They are cynical. They smoke too much. They drink whisky. Their laugh is hard and brittle. They die alone.