What do women want?—Two replies

Press, 2 June 1984, Page 20

What do women want? —Two replies

What Do Women Want? By Dan Greenburg. Arrow, 1983. 428 pp. $6.95 (paperback)

(Reviews by

Diane Prout)

Much the same as men, according to Dan Greenburg in this outrageous, hilarious sexual farce. Lance Lerner (phallic pun) finds out pretty quickly. In an attempt to avenge himself of his wife’s alleged infidelity with his best friend, he is caught, literally with his pants down, in a surprise party staged for him by his wife’s best friend whom he plans to seduce by way of levelling the score. Poor Lance. What can he do? Deserted by his loving wife, who was planning to find an apartment (and herself) anyway, Lance turns forlornly to other women for consolation. Bestselling authors like Lance need nurturing, but it seems there are not too many earth-mothers around these days. Unless one counts Gladys Oliphant, the 4001 b caretaker of Policewoman Stevie Petrocelli’s apartment. When Gladys discovers Lance, naked and handcuffed to Stevie’s bed (fun and games with variations), she can’t forbear taking advantage of the situation, only to be caught by the wrathful Stevie returning from a call of duty. Worse is to come. Luckless Lance is also required to prostitute himself, not to mention his art, with one Claire Firestone, beautiful, bored, wealthy wife of Lance’s publisher, in return for the favourable promotion of his newest book. When Lance is at the nadir of physical and emotional exhaustion as a result of this unaccustomed sexual athleticism he is taken over by two Chinese nymphets, who also wish to minister to the now-gibbering hero. Do women only want one thing? Where is

good old-fashioned love and romance, Lance wonders. Women’s lib has a lot to answer for. Events move at an ever-increasing rate of absurdity. Lance’s plane home from his book-promotion tour is hijacked by a rabid political band of furniture-removers, known variously as the Motherloaders and M.A.T.E. (Men Are The Enemy). In a bid to gain recognition for the wrongs of women, they divert the plane to the Pacific island of Mannihanni, a Frenchspeaking republic ruled by Amazons whose Life President, Mama Doc, also (wait for it) lusts after Lance. Is there no end to the predations of the weaker sex? Luckily, Lance frees the hostages with a promise to write Mama Doc’s biography, returns home triumphantly to be reunited with wife Cathy. It seems she loved him all along. Fame, fortune, and fatherhood are the reward for trial by ordeal and Lance, Learner no longer, settles for a life of uxorious ease, from time to time giving younger men the benefit of his experiences. Guffaws are guaranteed on every page, but this is perhaps a book to think twice about before giving to an elderly maiden aunt. What Do Women Want? By Luise Eichenbaum and Susie Orbach. Fontana, 1984, 204 pp. $6.50 (paperback). By contrast with Greenburg’s book of the same title, “What Do Women Want?” by two practising psychotherapists is a study of the ways in which our emotional and physical transactions are geared to our dependency needs, engendered in early childhood. Both sexes have the same latent needs for intimacy and dependency with loved ones, but under our twentieth-century, largely-urbanised

social conditions these are not fulfilled. Byron’s dictum, "Love of man’s life is a thing apart; tis woman’s whole existence, reflects the stereotyped attitudes of women as economically dependent and therefore clinging, possessive, insecure, while man, as hunter, warrior and breadwinner, is thereby precluded from the nurturing role which is traditionally woman’s preserve. Men go through life cosseted and catered to by women. From mother to kindergarten and primary school teacher, he is surrounded by loving, caring women. When he marries, he expects more of the same. Girls, while dependent on their mothers, are however, brought up to believe that this emotional support will be cut off when they marry and have families. They are trained to give emotionally, at the expense of their own psychic needs, and this is where the problems begin. Men, untaught to intuit dependency vibes, fail to achieve the spiritual rapport with wives and lovers. Relationships are headed for disaster. The book is largely made up of case studies of unhappy, unfulfilled women whose inability to understand their own emotional stumbling blocks makes thoughtful reading. Its limitations are that it describes the type of woman who has elected to devote herself to the traditional feminine role. It says nothing of the dependency needs of working women. It concludes with an idealistic blueprint for a future society in which men and women may merge personalities interdependently, yet maintain a healthy sense of identity. Perhaps it is unduly cynical to doubt this given what we know about the tensions and complexities of daily human commerce in a busy world. But it’s a nice thought.