CHERCHEZ LA FEMME

Well, it just had to happen.  Whenever there are great moments in his stories, "look for the woman."  And sure as God made little apples, the great governing body of the Senate will consider girding its loins to welcome MONICA.

This ability of women to pop up at just the right moment has been quite handy for men in both low and high places.  So much is excused, so much is understood and so much is explained when there is a woman around.

Bony old EVE (well she must have been if she was constructed of a rib!) is a case in point.

To begin with, she actually wasn't afraid of snakes -- cuddled right up to them one might say. And apples.  We are told she liked apples because a snake told her to.

Of course it was only a matter of time until she corrupted Adam, the first male, in the garden of truth and knowledge.

Truth and knowledge -- good for man; anathema to woman because our culture demands that women learn everything, including sex and their station in life, from men.

Man, as the sole human representative on earth, until fairly lately, needed something to blame the exigency of life on.  He had to understand why he was in charge of all the other animals.

Surely anyone this important, anyone made in the image of God, would have no failings and most men knew they did.

So even as it was sufficient for men to begat man after man with no woman involved for eon upon eon, when the crunch came -- there she was -- a part of his story.

You've all heard of CLEOPATRA.  A woman who didn't know her place either and kept barging around getting men into trouble.

She didn't have the sympatico with snakes that Eve had and an asp laid her low.  Perhaps it was her penchant for figs instead of apples.

We can never forget GUINEVRE, who made Camelot so much more than round tables and smelly horses.  For King Arthur, she was the ultimate "trophy wife" to console him in his declining years.

Instead she ends up, according to his story, destroying the high ideals invested in Camelot.

She had been well trained to be the wife of Arthur, the King, but that darn snake appeared again and introduced her to a Frenchman name Lancelot.

History does not record whether or not apples were involved but we do know that chivalry, honor and leaving another man's wife alone was not on Lancelot's mind much of the time.

And this, of course, was due to the pheromones, emitted like little bombs, from that despoiler of chivalry, a woman named Guinevre.

Of course there are many other women throughout the Centuries of his story that counted, and could be counted on, to ease man's lot in life.

But, not the DOLLEY MADISONS, not the BETSY ROSSES, not the SARAH BARTONS, not the SUSAN B. ANTHONYS, or the JOAN OF ARCS or the BELLA ABZUGS.   [note]

Uppity women, all of them, with the temerity to contribute to her story as well as his!  With the utter gall to think womankind mattered!  With an absolute penchant for upsetting applecarts!

No, surely not them.

Now we come in our time to witness once again the REAL role of REAL women in man's story.  The Senatorial alter is prepared and Monica is to be brought forth as a sacrificial lamb to once and for all eliminate the charge that it is all about sex.

As we have written before.  GenderGappers has a certain admiration for Monica.  She claimed the privilege of equality by engaging in consensual sex, and accepted the responsibility for her actions.

Last week, it appeared that the Senate was getting fed up with the trial and were not inclined to terminate the Clinton presidency.

So no wonder, in desperation, the House Managers decided to throw the "Hail Monica pass."

And wouldn't you just know that their leader, Henry Youthful Indiscretion Hyde, characteristically, would wax piously about what a father must tell his son?

"A father used to encourage his son to grow up to be president, but he can no longer do this because the office is besmirched," was his plaintive cry.  Henry appears to forget the besmirching HE did, and the lives that HIS selfishness and unbridled passions ruined.

WE DO!  So we pass along the advice of a subscriber as to what a Mother, or a Father, should tell their daughter, or their son:

"You can be whatever you want to be -- even a president, but watch out for the rotten apples and snakes-in-the-grass along the way."

Twanda@ConnRiver.net

1999-005

Copyright 1999 Renee T. Louise and Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D. These articles may be republished for noncommercial use only, provided that they are copied intact, and that this copyright notice is attached. Address all queries to: twanda@ConnRiver.net.

G e n d e r G a p p e r s   ^{T M}