What Women Want...

I'm back, quite surprisingly at the second floor of the library, in the corner and I have a nagging sense that my subconscious is exceedingly relieved by my presence here. Nay, my subconscious somehow has managed to prevail on the conscious to find acorns to get back to typing. An exhilarating experience of freedom, of who I am, and a key to the question that haunts me today, "What do women want?"

I hope the question and the title itself drew you here for an extension of the misogynist jokes and popular culture references to an entire section of the human population. As a matter of fact, I am currently listening (on loop) the rendition of Baraye as preparation for another evening in support for women in Iran. And all the while, thinking of the many, many ways women have been marginalised in my own country and continue to lack agency or even be aware of its existence. 

On my table is the library's copy of "Jung & Feminism" which attempts to capture the essence of how Jung 'defines' feminism (he does not!). The book explores in quite great detail the 'difficulties' faced by theologists and psychological scholars in understanding the psyche of women from the time psychology even emanated as a field of study. The potent combination of all the above lead me to the question, "What do women want?" and more importantly, "Who wants to know?"

The fact that the question in my title obviously clusters all women, almost half the population of the world as we know it, as a single entity - sans demographic, ethnographic, geographic filters and depriving any sense of individuality - like cattle (yet again!). However, there is little or no conversation around the second obvious question, "who wants to know?" It is in the search for an answer to that second question that the truth begins to come to light. Why did the question become as commonplace as it did? 

One of the obvious places my logic takes me is the fact that it provides a cheap humourous take for men to hide behind, to shirk accountability. For some, it might even lead to a deeper understanding of the Self (something Carl Jung clearly tried to do). To me, it also also sheds light on how the advertisers - looking to tap into the newly financially independent global female population - used the question to tap into a potent area of self-doubt and "told" women what they should want instead. Think about it, the only things that compares to the usage of the question is the lack of responses to it. No one knows what women want, hence here's my product which is the thing you should want! Feeding into an oppressed population's need for validation and self-doubt to sell a line of products ranging from beauty creams (that don't work) to careers (up to the glass ceiling only, please!)

Meanwhile, the movie is believed to have grossed 374 million dollars as opposed to the 70 million dollars required to make (it's all on Wikipedia). Three of the five producers are women, still profiting from the sale of rights of the film.