Call It Cultural Anthropology
Photo by Charlie Foster
Prada, Coach, and Louis Vuitton are beckoning. Signature features and prominent logos are on her mind as she heads for the latest from her favorite designers. Sometimes that special woman can go shopping alone. But it serves a two-fold mission in a woman’s world to bring along a friend: she can share the joy of discovering the latest fashions, and she can spy on (perhaps even sabotage) her competition in the race to be chic. She hasn’t been studying Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, but the tactic of bringing in your enemy close enough to destroy…comes natural to the fashion maven. Hunting and gathering the things that speak to her style create a palpable lust, a fierce look in the eye, a quicker gait, and deliberate and confident gestures. That woman on a quest for the best is about to leave her dwelling and her man.
So what does HE do when she goes shopping?
He cooks on his Char-Broil Professional Series Stainless Steel Gas Grill to impress his buddies and himself. He feels some anxiety about his perfectionism, his mortality, his middle age, and his humanness. It’s time for him to “cave.” He needs room and time to work through her latest demand-request, his latest career challenge, the needs of the children, the needs of parents coming into the autumn of their years, and the need he feels to express himself in a visceral way. He flips the power switch on his Line 6 guitar amplifier and plugs in his Paul Reed Smith Santana II guitar. While she is shopping he can be Steve Miller, Peter Frampton, Eddie Van Halen, Angus Young or Stevie Ray Vaughan. He can call his best friend to set a tee time because his TaylorMade golf clubs are leaning, looking unloved, in the corner of the garage. He takes the time to detail his car to remove the fine dirt of the crannies and crevices, where the detailer usually misses, and remembers the last speeding ticket he received and winces in pain.
As she cruises the mall proudly, she knows she is just as well off without him, but knows life is so much sweeter with him. She can provide for herself; excels in her career, enjoys the pretty things gracing the windows of her favorite stores, and although she doesn’t have kids yet, she knows she will be a good mommy. But yet, this does not complete her. She wants him to be the leader. A primal call to submit is heard, but does he get the message? The clothes and fancy things are merely acquisitions, and the stuff and fluff is just an accounting system in today’s competitive society.
Her roles have changed as she, Woman, has moved from submissive help meet [1950s housewife] to a stand-alone unit. A couple of years ago a television series, “Commander-in-Chief,” chronicled the professional and personal life of President Mackenzie Allen, the first female President of the United States. Geena Davis played the role masterfully, seeking to push a centrist agenda in the face of a snarling House Speaker played by Donald Sutherland. “I really find the parts of myself that the character has. So I believe that we all have everything within us, the ability to be a killer or the girlfriend of an insect,” states Davis in a USA Today article.
You see, women are smart, driven, have compelling life stories, and appeal to the core loyalists of their respective party bases. Their roles have shifted from gatherer, to hunter and gatherer. Political strategist Dick Morris even wrote a book entitled Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race, which detailed the strength of Condoleezza Rice and his view of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “calculated” run for the presidency.
For more of Call It Cultural Anthropology, order your copy of the August/September issue here.
Alan Gruver
Latest posts by Alan Gruver (see all)
- Call It Cultural Anthropology - July 29, 2014
