Oh sweet Amazon love. I've been reading theory all day, you understand, and now I feel like even my interest in learning about Amazons has started to wane. School has robbed me, once again, of the joy that once filled my life.

Are you prepared for another investigation into the world of male/female relations? I blame it entirely on my schoolwork and my current paper, which revolves around identifying gendering characteristics in text (things that mark characters as male or female). It should be noted, though, that I've been complaining about male/female relations since I was about twelve and realized I could. Even in my youth I was a little feminist. I'm so proud of me.

What makes this interesting, though, is my idea that women (in media) cannot be both warrior and heterosexual woman. I know, how is that interesting? Work with me here. Attraction is based to some degree on the physical, but not nearly as much--I would argue--as we would all like to believe. I say "as we would all like to believe" because I think very few people want to admit why they are attracted to the types of people/things/characteristics they are, or look to deeply into the cause.

Case in point: in my English class we used to answer the following question--is a white man who is attracted only to Asian girls racist? He says it's purely physical. This erupts in discussion fairly quickly, after all, you can't help who you are attracted to, the guy said it's just physical, so on and so forth. By the end of the discussion several factors have complicated the situation; first, what is Asian? It's more than oriental and it seems to draw to mind a particular type of Asian girl. That's iffy. Second, why only Asians? Other ethnicities can have many of the same qualities; are they just not "Asian" enough, or does this guy have a particular bead on the "Asian" pheromone? For better or worse, this dude is carrying around preconceived notions of Asians, and--whether you consider him racist or not--that isn't a wholly "physical" matter.

So, if you'll follow me in agreeing that attraction is heavily socialized, it becomes interesting to ask the question, just what is attractive in a woman? Not physical--that's an old subject that can be answered with any number of magazines, but specifically mental; her attitude. If I were to guess (generalize) I would wage that men want a woman reasonably intelligent, reasonably strong, reasonably sane, and with a reasonably good sense of humor. However, bombarded as men are by the idea of "white knight" they also need a woman who "needs" them to "save" her--at least on occasion. She must still be feminine; soft in specific ways/places/mannerisms. Not masculine. Different than him.

One of the easiest ways this manifests itself, I would guess, is through what we call the "bunny boiler" syndrome. By we, I mean me. Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction serves as the basis for that term. Essentially it means someone who is crazier then crazy. I've observed a disturbing tendency in many guy friends through the years to date obviously crazy, obviously unstable women. And, as they inevitably end up calling me to drink with them after a fight and hold them while they cry, I keep asking "why?" My theory, at the moment, is that crazy personifies femininity is some extreme version.

This fits when you remember that hysterics was coined to define a completely feminine affliction, hence hysterectomy. The darned traveling womb just drove women crazy. Feminine can be strong, but it needs to also be fallible. Women can be warriors, but they must also be vulnerable. She can fight side by side with a man, but on occasion, she needs to be saved by a man (and that's a 20th century update, back in the day she wouldn't have even fought side by side with him after she gave in). Her need to be loved by him, conquered by him, penetrated by him must overrule her need for anything else. And so you have the paradox of the Amazon; something I think has carried through to modern times.

Women can be warriors, but not simultaneously feminine. If they manage to preserve their femininity while fighting, then they can never be wholly independent thus allowing their femininity to surpass their fighting ability. Even if she fights the whole way through, she still needs him to save her at the end. I would ask you, even if you know better and are thrilled when it ends differently, how often do you feel a second, a moment's disappointment when the man doesn't rush in and save the day at the end? Perhaps you don't even acknowledge it to yourself; perhaps you know better than to admit it. But if you were completely honest, how often does it happen, or did it happen before something in you changed?

This carries over into modern times with the problem strong, independent women face. And please, if I may throw this in, I'm saying I hate men or it is men's fault or anything extreme such as that. I'm merely pointing out what I see to be a state of society and inviting others to determine how much it applies to individual attitudes. If you are independent then you make a great friend and, in the eyes of almost everyone, you'll make someone else a great girlfriend some day. Or, you attract all manner of horrific men looking to debase you in whatever way they can. In some strange way I haven't wholly thought out, independence has taken the place of the virgin in the virgin/whore dichotomy. It seems like it might look something more like chaste-independent/whore now-a-days.

In any case, this is what I'm writing on for a paper right now and I've subjected all of you to my musings. It does bear asking, though: why do you like what you like?