MEN NEED FLATTERY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19241, 1 December 1930, Page 10

MEN NEED FLATTERY.

“ Darling, how clever you are! ” Have you, women, ever noticed how men like to be applauded for everything they' - do? Women on the other hand, with a few exceptions, are content to do things quietly and almost secretly, and are embarrassed at being watched. Women, in fact, do things for the sake of doing them, . whereas men must have an audience to be at their best. Take sport, for instance. Why is it that women’s sport never attracts the crowds as do men’s games? Can you imagine 25,000 people going to watch a game of women’s hockey as they’- do men’s football? No. Why? Because women don’t expect to be watched and admired. When A Man Washes Up. Have you l ever noticed a man about the home? Ask him to wash up for you or do a bit of gardening, and he will willingly roll up his shirt sleeves if you will stand alongside and applaud. You needn’t say, “ Darling, how clever you are,” every time, but your watching makes him know that you are thinking it. If he thought you weren’t, he’d slink out and go where he was applauded and made a fuss of, and leave the garden to take care of itself.

Every woman in history who has been noted for her charm achieved ■fame because she watched and applauded. Maybe this difference in the sexes is due to the fact that women have always been gibed at for having no interest in anything except making themselves look beautiful, and when they do feel an urge to do something else they fee! diffident about it and try to be unobserved.

When a woman makes a dress does she want her man hanging about and admiring her? Not she, but she waits till she has the home to herself, and then wires in. The same when she is calsomining or papering a room. Just to splash the brush round to the accompaniment of her own thoughts is ail she wants, but when father lay’s the carpet on the stairs everyone has to be around handing him the nails or holding his thumb when he hits it, and saying “ Poor old dad,” or “ Fancy you being able to do that, dad; you are clever! ” Take the native races when they have their corroborees or the equivalent. Do the women share the dance with them? No fear; they sit all around and applaud their hardest. Even In Middle Age. And the beautiful ladies of the Middle Ages. What was their office in life? To watch the Knights of old in their glistening armour smite each other, and then devote the rest of their lives to a continuance of their applause. Did these beautiful ladies ever retaliate by asking their lords to stand round and admire while they held baby bathing contests or crochet competitions?

How many mothers go to the sports of their daughters’ school with any degree of happiness? It is only a bore, and yet when their sons take part in sport they rush with their ears back. It is only because the sons expect admiration and the daughters don’t care so much. Or don’t show it if they do.

But after all it doesn’t matter, for most women simply love to say, “ Darling, how clever you are! ” And it is nice to be able to say r it, isn t it?