A Misogynist And A Womanizer Walk Into A Bar...The Drinks Are On Me, They Both Say, Women Are All The Same

Anson Phipps was a womanizer, whatever that is, he wondered.  A man who loves women? Who likes sexual variety? Who enjoys the give and take of battle? Or a misogynist at heart - a man who doesn't think much of women and for whom seduction is the most complete humiliation?

The Jack Nicholson character, a successful writer in As Good As It Gets is asked by an adoring young woman how he writes about women so well.  'I take a man', Nicholson says, 'and I take away all reason and accountability'. 

A bit harsh, thought Anson.  A lot of women he knew were both reasonable and accountable; but there was something innate in them which gave lie to those qualities.  Take Althea Roberts, a woman of means and not inconsiderable intelligence who simply could not resist a man who took her seriously; a man of sensitivity, insight, and respect who was willing - eager - to visit her inner rooms and find the real woman inside. 

Anson was that man.  Not that he cared one way or another what lay behind the purdah of her soul, but because empathy was the key to sexual conquest.  He sat with her over drinks at the Oak Bar and tea at the Russian Tea Room, took long walks with her in Central Park and fed the pigeons on Columbus Circle, listening to her story unfold more and more intimately until the sexual deal was done. 

Althea was a successful businesswoman who had made it in a man's world of high finance, armed with supreme self confidence and  with a mother like the one in Strindberg's Miss Julie who brought her up as strong, determined, and willful as a man, but scornful of male ambition and their sweaty, beer-swizzling ignorance. 

Julie's education took root and as a young adult ran roughshod over the men on her family estate, a vixenish mistress who took her superiority for granted.  At the same time, regardless of the behavioral adjustments made at the hands of her mother, her womanhood was still intact.  She finds Jean, her valet, sexually appealing, but true to form she must demean and unman him, make him her slave.  She makes him beg like a dog, sit up like a trained bear, and jump through hoops until she cannot resist his virility, and native seductiveness.  She becomes his slave, beholden to him, desperate for his love and attention. 

Jean is not so much attracted to her as a woman but a satisfying prey - bedding the mistress of the estate on his terms would be the social conquest he had always dreamed of, sex far above his station, a position of authority and respect.  He, like Anson Phipps understood women and saw beneath their pretense, show, and drama to their vulnerable, desirous feminine core. There was no love involved, just a desire to remove the veil, to enjoy the seduction, bond the woman forever to him, and move on. 

Yet to say that Anson was a misogynist would be going too far.  Although he did not prize women, or see them as a necessary complement to his life, he enjoyed them - the perfume, the high heels, the décolleté, the makeup, and the hours before the mirror.  How charming, how delightful, how fanciful and appealing.  Life would certainly be dull without their fanfare and sexual vaudeville.

And the seduction itself - the soulful conversations, the understanding, the empathy and compassion; and then the inevitable stairs to the bedroom, the undressing, and the marvel at the glories of the female body.  The woman was delighted by his attention for it was admiring, not prurient; patient, not hurried; appreciative not hungry.  

Women, despite his indifference to meaning, purpose, or higher value, were on his mind continually, and pursuit, seduction, and conquest were his modus operandi his ethos, and his meme. His reputation was well known - admired by men far less successful and challenging for attractive women who wanted to see just what was behind the myth. More importantly, they wanted to be the one to bring him to heel, to the altar, and to their bower. 

So, Anson was truly 'the man who loved women' as long as one did not probe for ulterior motives.  Sexual conquest for him had the same ineluctable appeal as any challenging sport.  In fact why on earth would men willingly risk their lives climbing Annapurna when the delights, adventures, and pure excitement of unveiling a woman's soul was there for the asking?

A real misogynist had run into the blades of a feminist sawmill - intimidating, threatening, bullying women moved up to middle management, taking their pound of flesh after so long in the typing pool, treating men like gofers and handmaiden, watching them founder in their wake, grasp for any handhold on a ship which was quite able to sail without them. 

Emil Fanning was one of these outclassed men.  A hard, dutiful worker, a child of solid middle class values and expectations; but one without much empathy or insight. He was no match for the women who had quickly risen above him, were uncomfortable in their presence, and had no defenses for their brazen scything of the male fields.  He was willing to give women the benefit of the doubt at first - he had always loved and admired his mother who had raised him and his five siblings on little, had been a faithful churchgoer and contributor to civic activities - but was unprepared for this incivility, callous disregard, and monumental ego.  

Yet even this was not pure misogyny, for it can be explained in socio-cultural terms.  Competition for scarce resources is not pretty and plays itself out in the most predictable ways, and it is quite natural for men who have been passed over in favor of a more 'diverse' workplace to feel left out and lost.

One needs to turn to the witch trials of Salem to explore true misogyny.  There hundreds of women, suspected witches and tools of the Devil were burned at the stake.  The clerics and burghers of the town were not threatened in any way by women who were servile, penitent, and obedient.  There was no inkling of feminism or suffrage.  Women were in their place. 

Yet the fervor of the Puritan clerics who tried and condemned these women was hateful, spiteful, vengeful, and absolute.  Every woman who went crackling up in the punitive fire at the stake was one less harridan on earth. 

Real misogynists are not unknown in literature.  Shakespeare was famous for them - Othello, Posthumus, Cymbeline, and others were quick to label women as evil, preternaturally corrupt beings, the death of men and the scourge of mankind.  'I did you a favor', Othello says to the male judges accusing him after having killed Desdemona - one less cheating, lying, scurrilous woman to contend with'. 

So when Anson and Emil met at the Blarney Stone for a shot and a beer, the struck up a congenial friendship. As men will often do, after a few drinks, they started talking about women, their conquests, their frustrations, and their ambitions.  Although they were definitely men of a different stripe, their attitudes towards women converged.  Emil wanted nothing to do with them, Anson wanted everything; but Anson's pursuit of women was as amorally dismissive of them as was Emil's overt hatred.  Women were a different species, a devilishly troubling one, unfortunately necessary and therefore tolerated, but...

But what? both men agreed.  'Women.  Can't get along with them, can't do without them'; but life is not fair and Emil had to return to a hectoring wife and a bitch of a boss while Anson moved from bed to bed, up and down Fifth Avenue and the Village until he had had his fill.  Even the playful, wonderful game of conquest and go home grew tiring and uninteresting.  He still watched the pretty young things on Lexington Avenue with interest, knew that even if he wanted, his days of sexual appeal and seduction were over. 

No regrets, he said to himself.  None whatsoever.  He was a man who loved women and thought little of them.  Who said that consistency was a higher value?  Holding two opposing thoughts at the same time was a sign of intelligence, no?