Permission to speak freely? I have never envied men who camped with women. It's not that I don't appreciate women, it's just that the female camper usually seems like a proverbial 'fish out of water.' When I camped with a small band of RV campers this past summer, it really hit me that I had never considered this topic before, despite its importance to the human condition.
Imagine the poor devil camping in the desert in winter, and having to listen to the lawnmower-like scream of a vacuum cleaner for hours a day. Think of all the electricity it wastes. And yet, the crazed woman never thinks things are clean enough. She fancies herself a nature-lover (aka, a scenery snacker). Yet she thinks dust blowing in the desert wind is unnatural. This is one of the many examples of a woman-camper being a liability to the poor fellow. But who wants to give up on half the human race that easily?
Last summer my best conclusions about why women disliked camping were:
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These days I have switched over to watching "Wagon Train" DVDs. Now how is that for a classic television western, aimed at the RV lifestyle?
In the first season, an episode started off with a woman in the wagon train singing a child to sleep. It may have been an old spiritual song, but she sang it like a lullaby, and with no accompaniment. (The actress was Shelley Winters, who sang well enough for roles in Broadway musicals.) This had a powerful effect on me.
Many people have vague memories from their childhood of a woman's voice, humming or singing around the house. It is the sort of primal satisfaction that I like to experience, or at least be reminded of, when camping.
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This experience gave me what I was looking for: a way to appreciate a woman-camper above and beyond mere existence and survival. She has a way of creating a 'reality distortion field' around her house, which makes life for everybody seem better than what it actually is, if 'is' just refers to material conditions.
Those conditions have been austere and grim for most people of our species for virtually all of its lifespan. Isn't it incredible that evolution has equipped women with the hardware and firmware to make life not just possible, but also worth living?
Imagine the poor devil camping in the desert in winter, and having to listen to the lawnmower-like scream of a vacuum cleaner for hours a day. Think of all the electricity it wastes. And yet, the crazed woman never thinks things are clean enough. She fancies herself a nature-lover (aka, a scenery snacker). Yet she thinks dust blowing in the desert wind is unnatural. This is one of the many examples of a woman-camper being a liability to the poor fellow. But who wants to give up on half the human race that easily?
Last summer my best conclusions about why women disliked camping were:
- They lack sports and activities that are done outdoors. Many of these primal satisfactions are enjoyed by the mighty male hunter/warriors of the tribe, but not by them.
- Their crucial importance in the cycle of life and physical survival has been downgraded as we have developed a cash economy. The home doesn't produce anything anymore. Now it's all about running to the store to satisfy one's needs, and the camper is usually far away from decent shopping.
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These days I have switched over to watching "Wagon Train" DVDs. Now how is that for a classic television western, aimed at the RV lifestyle?
In the first season, an episode started off with a woman in the wagon train singing a child to sleep. It may have been an old spiritual song, but she sang it like a lullaby, and with no accompaniment. (The actress was Shelley Winters, who sang well enough for roles in Broadway musicals.) This had a powerful effect on me.
Many people have vague memories from their childhood of a woman's voice, humming or singing around the house. It is the sort of primal satisfaction that I like to experience, or at least be reminded of, when camping.
______________________________________
This experience gave me what I was looking for: a way to appreciate a woman-camper above and beyond mere existence and survival. She has a way of creating a 'reality distortion field' around her house, which makes life for everybody seem better than what it actually is, if 'is' just refers to material conditions.
Those conditions have been austere and grim for most people of our species for virtually all of its lifespan. Isn't it incredible that evolution has equipped women with the hardware and firmware to make life not just possible, but also worth living?
Comments
Actually, upon re-reading the post, I see women described as "crazed" and "a liability" so perhaps that's you after all. But I'm not sure that offering the "make life worth living" olive branch to the fairer sex will be welcome after having used said branch to stir the cesspool!
If you allow your understanding to broaden even more, you must admit that these last 200 years of the advancing industrial revolution has taken away man's need and reason for muscle and brawn. He is now a poor substitute for what has built our nations and cities and has been reduced to going to the gym or some other fabricated physical activity and I include biking in that as well.
We, meaning both genders, are fish out of water. What thousands of years of evolution has devised us to do most successfully is now for the most part not even necessary. No wonder the genders are so distrustful of each other.
You read a lot of history so surely it hasn't escaped your notice that for most of history women were working right alongside their male partners working the land, often with their infants strapped to their backs, etc. The very ways that evolution has made the genders distinctly different from each other (and which has ensured survival) also leads to a natural misunderstanding of each other.
You have traditionally wished to judge women by the standard of being a man. It's nice to see you come around a little. It is simply that same myopic vision that we oh-so-often suffer from as humans. We do the same thing with other animals as well, diminishing them as we compare them to human standards instead of their own. But that's a different conversation.
George