Beech Tree News Network

A few years ago, there was a Mel Gibson movie that examined the issue of what women want.  In the movie, Mel woke up one morning with the ability to hear what the women around him were thinking.  He was flabbergasted, and the movie made for an amusing scenario.
 There have been other writers who have taken on this task.  My favorite, to date, was a sketch featured on the “Red Green show.”  In the sketch, Harold, Red’s nephew, fielded questions from listeners who wrote in to the “Ask the Experts” segment of the show. One disgruntled listener wrote to complain that he had given his wife a brand new set of wrenches for their 25th anniversary (they were chrome plated, close enough for a silver anniversary present, he thought), and his wife was upset with his choice of gifts.  The listener asked the experts, “What do women want?”  After hemming and hawing around and trying to change the subject several times, the panel of three men decided that what women want is world peace and a new VCR.
The reason the movie and the sketch worked and the reason many more movies and sketches will deal with the subject is because the general consensus among most men is that they will never know what women want, because, they reason, women themselves don’t know what women want.  I am here to put an end to this misconception.  We women know exactly what we want.
In 2007, when I worked as the book manager in a Hastings Entertainment store in Galveston, Texas, an interesting little book made its way onto one of the shelves in my area, a little book that addressed the subject of what women want.  The book was written by the Cambridge Women’s Pornography Cooperative.  The name of the book was Porn for Women.  The book is filled with pictures of men—wearing clothes—doing dishes, taking out the trash and vacuuming.  The pictures are accompanied by captions like, “As long as I have two legs to walk on, you’ll never take out the trash.”  My personal favorite was the picture of the guy suggesting that he should stop and ask for directions.  (The women’s cooperative also published Porn for New Moms in which the guys are changing diapers and insisting on taking over the 3 a.m. feedings.)  The books were marketing genius, but more importantly, they laid out—in photographs and captions—exactly what women want.
 Women want help, and not just any help, help with no strings attached—the kind of help most women give 24/7.  I can’t speak for all women, but as a woman, I can give you a pretty good idea of the dos and don’ts in the help area.  They go something like this: Don’t help me only because you expect to get something in return; don’t act like you’re doing me a favor if your helping involves doing something that’s part of your job description already—if you’re a dad, watching the kids comes to mind; and don’t help me if you’re going to resent helping me.
  In the movie, “The Breakup,” Jennifer Anniston tells Vince Vaughn, “I want you to want to do the dishes,” to which Vince Vaughn responds, “Why would I want to do the dishes?”  If you read between the lines, she is saying, “I want you to want to help me.”  Women want their significant others to want to help them carry the load that can sometimes be overwhelming.
Yes, we enjoy small surprises like a bouquet of wild flowers or an unexpected dinner out, but if you really want to make an impact, mop the kitchen floor, vacuum the area rug or load the dishwasher.  After all, it’s like the refrigerator magnet says, “No woman ever shot a man while he was doing the dishes.”  (Just for the record, my husband, Garey, mopped the kitchen floor this morning while I was getting ready for church.  I guess he was as tired of sticking to the floor as I was.)