I am currently reading the novel “I am Charlotte Simmons” by Tom Wolfe, which is not exactly a page-turner but quite okay overall. There are some good observations about women, albeit plenty is downright bizarre and tells you that the author does not seem to have a lot of first-hand experience. Nonetheless, I found the example of a spiteful woman in this book very well-written. It is a description of a woman who ruined her ex-husband completely, ignoring that doing so would negatively affect her as well.
One of the side characters of the book is a Jewish boy whose father is restaurateur and fraudster, and the mother a crass, uneducated yenta who nonetheless fills his son’s head with tales of Jewish supremacy. At some point, the father wants to leave his wife for a much younger woman, which his wife is not overly supportive of, for obvious reasons. However, instead of being content with a one-time settlement payment, alimony, and child support, she goes after him and exposes her husband’s excessive tax fraud. This financially ruins him completely and has the effect that she ends up getting no money at all in the end. Thus, she has to make ends meet by taking up some tedious work. This side story ends with the woman’s lawyer being perplexed over her actions.
There is of course the well-known saying that hell has no fury like a woman scorned. This aspect of women completely disregarding legal consequences of their actions is not at all uncommon, though. For instance, think of all the false rape accusations out there. Obviously, the legal system does not treat women as harshly as men, but if it did, plenty of women would still not think further ahead. In the moment, it would feel good to them to fuck the best friend of her ex-boyfriend, accuse an ex-lover of rape, or slash the tires of a guy who pumped-and-dumped her, and that is why she would still do it.
I think that Tom Wolfe did not want to depict realistic female behavior in the example above. Yet, he hit the bull’s eye as nothing seemed exaggerated to me. Sure, this is not the expected behavior, but it is not at all rare to bump into women who make grave missteps, not caring at all about it, or even having any awareness of it. I just recalled that I sat in a meeting at work a few years ago and some woman said that she has access to a whole cache of a competitor’s file because she used to work there and before she left, she just downloaded anything she could get her hands on. She even laughed, saying that “one obviously is not supposed to do this”. This is a clear breach of contract and it could get both her and her current employer into deep trouble. I wonder how many more such cases exist. In any case, I do not recall ever working with a guy who exhibited such a disregard of ethics and compliance rules.
Aaron,
“This aspect of women completely disregarding legal consequences of their actions is not at all uncommon, though.”
1. Cluster B women or all women?
2. Even in law enforcement many female officers disregard or underestimate quite few suspects and think they will be able to subdue them. Oddly enough, its us men that has to intervene and clean up the mess that they have created. The only thing that saves their ass is the radio needing backup. Women do not belong in law enforcement.
1) This is probably more of a Cluster-B issue, but I have also act seemingly normal women behave in highly irrational ways. On a related note, some men ten to flare up quickly and also calm down just as quickly. In contrast, women hold grudges and would spend weeks or months in an attempt to get their revenge.
2) This reminds me of the unintentionally hilarious clip that made the round a while ago in which a panicked woman shouts, “taser, taser, taser!” as she unloads a magazine of bullets into some guy. So, it seems they are not only inclined to underestimate the threat level of a situation, they may also use disproportionate force. The underlying problem in both cases is simply poor judgment.
Would you mind mentioning some of the worst offenders? Would they mostly fall under category of romantic idealization aka simping?
The angle is a bit different. The biggest problem is that the book mischaracterizes the behavior of women, and is also inconsistent about it. In one scene, women are depicted as going on the prowl, desperately trying to hook up. I cringed when the women exhibit comically exaggerated male behavior, such as shouting that they “need some ass”. In other scenes, though, the men are obviously the predators and trying to get their way with them.
After the halfway point, there is another bizarre story angle unfolding: The super-hot and also brilliant female main character goes out on dates with the scrawny, nerdy Jewish boy who gets bullied by all the jocks. She is fine with him holding her hand and happily gives him “long mercy kisses” while she secretly dreams of getting railed by the giants on the basketball team or the alpha frat boys who are also into her. Oh, and she really wants to fall in love with this guy.
There is a reason that after men orgasm they get the sudden urge to flee. It’s a self-preservation tactic. Male biology recognizes that women are very caustic and that no further time than required for conception should be spent around them.
Post-Nut Clarity,baby!