When a man loves a woman,
Can’t keep his mind on nothin’ else.
He’d trade the world for the good thing he’s found…
— from ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’ by Percy Sledge
Today, May 8, 2024, is my 38th anniversary of marriage to Mrs Beatty. I was married to my first wife for 10 years. Add to that co-habitating for a couple more years, and I’ve been living intimately with women for about half a century.
I also had a mother, have two sisters, three granddaughters and two great-granddaughters. Add assorted sisters-in -law. All of that exposure to the opposite sex has lead me to a few general observations.
I don’t pretend to understand women — that is impossible. I’m not sure I even want to. After all, as that great American philosopher Al Bundy explained, “Don’t try to understand women. Women understand women — and they hate each other!”
My observation #1: Women don’t dress to impress men — they dress to impress other women!
Ever seen a woman getting ready to go out with her female friends for a ‘girls night out’? She doesn’t just “throw something on”.
Ask her why all the effort to just be around women friends, and she’ll look at you like you have two heads and are speaking Martian.
I’ve seen men show up in sweats straight from the gym for gatherings of their male friends — and nobody cared. If men do put any extra effort into getting dressed up to go out with ‘the guys’, it’s either because where they are going has a dress code — or in case they may encounter women.
Apparently the female need to compete with other women’s appearance is a product of evolution.
“Kin, a mate, and affines share a mother’s genetic interests, whereas unrelated women constitute primary competitors. From early childhood onwards, girls compete using strategies that minimize the risk of retaliation and reduce the strength of other girls. Girls’ competitive strategies include avoiding direct interference with another girl’s goals, disguising competition, competing overtly only from a position of high status in the community, enforcing equality within the female community and socially excluding other girls…”
— from Joyce Berensen, The development of human female competition: allies and adversaries
Berensen’s study goes on to conclude:
“For both sexes, unrelated same-sex peers constitute primary competitors. Women are less likely than men to engage in cooperative group activities with unrelated same-sex peers beginning in childhood and continuing through adolescence into adulthood. In hunter–gatherer, agricultural and modern communities, young and middle-age men benefit from the support and skills of similarly aged men during hunting and warfare and other group pursuits. Men’s hunting success and intergroup victories increase the reproductive success of the whole community.
“By contrast, no study has demonstrated the reproductive benefits of cooperation with unrelated women as opposed to female kin.”
Writing in the Huffpost, about women ‘judging’ each others’ appearance, Emma Wood described Berensen’s findings this way:
“Although Benenson’s discoveries are a chilling read, it does explain a modern-day conflict: our sensibilities bind us together, but the darkest part of us is revealed when the most beautifully turned-out woman in the room arrives.”
A study published by the Royal Society in England reached the same conclusion.
“Human females have a particular proclivity for using indirect aggression, which is typically directed at other females, especially attractive and sexually available females”
— Tracy Valliancourt: Do human females use indirect aggression as an intrasexual competition strategy?
So it appears that evolution drives women to get all dolled up to go out with the girls. They can’t help it. It also appears to confirm Al Bundy’s advice.
Observation #2: Women don’t know what they want — until they see what another woman has.
This was best illustrated for me when we were remodeling our home. The contractor was a neighbor, so his wife and Mrs Beatty are acquainted. When Mrs B was showing the contractor’s wife our new bathroom vanity, she wanted one just like it in her bathroom – despite the fact her husband had remodeled their bathroom not that long before.
The contractor asked me if I could keep Mrs Beatty from showing his wife our remodeling – so she would not ask for the same. I told him asking a woman not to show something new to another woman would be like asking the planet to stop spinning on it’s axis!
But, of course, someone in academia has spent time (and a government grant, no doubt) to answer the age-old question, “What do women want?” According to Dr Martie Haselton, of UCLA, what women want can depend on the ‘time of the month’:
“Women sometimes get a bad rap for being fickle, but the changes they experience are not arbitrary. Women experience intricately patterned preference shifts even though they might not serve any function in the present.”
What do women want? It depends on time of month.
Well… Duh!
To me, the more intriguing question is why anyone needed a scholarly study to ‘discover’ what every man throughout human history who has ever lived with a woman already knows.
Somehow through karma, divine intervention — or dumb luck — I’ve been privileged to spend over half my life living with a woman who doesn’t seem to be completely controlled by her evolutionary nature. There is no one I can imagine I’d rather have spent it with.
Happy Anniversary, honey!
Gary Beatty lives between Florida and Pagosa Springs. He retired after 30 years as a prosecutor for the State of Florida, has a doctorate in law, is Board Certified in Criminal Trial law by the Florida Supreme Court, and is now a law professor.