A DISCUSSION OF FEMININE TYPES
In speaking of the weaker sex in this book, the authors usually confine
themselves to the generalization “Woman,” “women,” and “the female.”
For the larger discussions of sex, these comprehensive terms suffice.
Yet no examination of the pitiable problem of Man and Woman would be
complete without some effort to define a few of the more important
types of the female. One cannot say, “Oh, well, you know how women
are,” and let it go at that. Many truths apply, and many foibles are
common, to the whole sex, but the varieties of the female of the
species are as manifold as the varieties of the flower called the
cineraria.
[Illustration: “_Successfully to deal with a woman, a man must know
what type she is._”]
Successfully to deal with a woman, a man must know what type she is.
There have been several methods of classification, none of which I
hold thoroughly satisfactory, neither the glandular categories—the
gonoid, thyroid, etc.—nor the astrological—Sagittarius, Virgo, Pisces,
and so on. One must be pretty expert to tell a good gonoid when he sees
one. Personally, I know but very little about them, nor if I had a vast
knowledge would I know what to do with it. It is even more difficult,
and just as unimportant, to arrive at a zodiacal classification,
because that is altogether dependent upon determining the year the
woman was born, and because, even if you should ascertain her date of
birth, the pish-tosh of analysis and prediction which derives therefrom
is a lot of mediæval guesswork. Or so it seems to me, and to Zaner,
Blifil, Gorley, Peschkar, Rittenhouse, and Matthiessen.
Of much greater importance is a classification of females by actions.
It comes out finally, the nature of a woman, in what she does—her
little bag of tricks, as one might say.
A type of which one hears a great deal but which has never been very
ably or scientifically analyzed, for the guidance of men, is the Quiet
Type. How often one hears the warning, “Look out for the Quiet Type.”
Let us see if we should look out for it, and why.
The element of menace in the Quiet Type is commonly considered very
great. Yet if one asks a man who professes knowledge of the type, why
one should look out for it, one gets but a vague answer. “Just look
out, that’s all,” he usually says. When I began my researches I was,
in spite of myself, somewhat inhibited by an involuntary subscription
to this legendary fear. I found it difficult to fight off a baseless
alarm in the presence of a lady of subdued manner. Believing, however,
that the best defense is an offense, I determined to carry the war, as
it were, into the enemy’s country. The first Quiet Type, or Q.T., that
I isolated was a young woman whom I encountered at a Sunday tea party.
She sat a little apart from the rest of the group in a great glazed
chintz, I believe it was, chair. Her hands rested quietly on the chair
arms. She kept her chin rather down than up, and had a way of lifting
her gaze slowly, without disturbing the set of her chin. She moved but
twice, once to put by a cup of tea and once to push back a stray lock
from her forehead. I stole glances at her from time to time, trying to
make them appear ingenuous and friendly rather than bold or suggestive,
an achievement rendered somewhat troublesome by an unfortunate
involuntary winking of the left eyelid to which I am unhappily subject.
I noted that her eyes, which were brown, had a demure light in them.
She was dressed simply and was quite pretty. She spoke but once or
twice, and then only when spoken to. In a chance shifting of the guests
to an adjacent room to examine, I believe, some water colors, I was
left quite alone with her. Steeling myself for an ordeal to which I am
unused—or was at the time—I moved directly to her side and grasped her
hand. “Hallo, baby! Some fun—hah?” I said—a method of attack which I
had devised in advance. She was obviously shocked, and instantly rose
from her chair and followed the others into the next room. I never saw
her again, nor have I been invited to that little home since. Now for
some conclusions.
Patently, this particular Q.T., probably due to an individual
variation, was not immediately dangerous in the sense that she would
seize an opportunity, such as I offered her, to break up the home of,
or at least commit some indiscretion with, a man who was obviously—I
believe I may say—a dependable family man with the average offhand
attractions. Dr. White has criticized my methodology in this particular
case, a criticism which I may say now, in all good humor, since the
danger is past, once threatened to interpose insuperable obstacles, of
a temperamental nature, in the way of this collaboration. It was his
feeling that I might just as well have removed one of the type’s shoes
as approach her the way I did. I cannot hold with him there. Neither,
I am gratified to say, can Zaner, but in fairness to White it is only
just to add that Tithridge can.
However, the next Q.T. that I encountered I placed under observation
more gradually. I used to see her riding on a Fifth Avenue bus, always
at a certain hour. I took to riding on this bus also, and discreetly
managed to sit next her on several occasions. She eventually noticed
that I appeared to be cultivating her and eyed me quite candidly, with
a look I could not at once decipher. I could now, but at that time I
couldn’t. I resolved to put the matter to her quite frankly, to tell
her, in fine, that I was studying her type and that I wished to place
her under closer observation. Therefore, one evening, I doffed my hat
and began.
[Illustration: _The Quiet Type._]
“Madam,” I said, “I would greatly appreciate making a leisurely
examination of you, at your convenience.” She struck me with the palm
of her open hand, got up from her seat, and descended at the next
even-numbered street—Thirty-sixth, I believe it was.
I may as well admit here and now that personally I enjoyed at no time
any great success with Q.T’s. I think one may go as far as to say
that any scientific examination of the Quiet Type, as such, is out of
the question. I know of no psychologist who has ever got one alone
long enough to get anywhere. (Tithridge has averred that he began too
late in life; Zaner that he does not concur in the major premise.)
The Quiet Type is not amenable to the advances of scientific men when
the advances are of a scientific nature, and also when they are of
any other nature. Indeed, it is one of the unfortunate handicaps to
psychological experimentation that many types of women do not lend
themselves readily to purposeful study. As one woman said to me, “It
all seems so mapped out, kind of.”
I am a little reluctant to report one other adventure with the Quiet
Type, and that is why I seem to have summed up in the preceding
paragraph without mentioning it. However, I now feel that some
brief outline of the case I have alluded to should be set down
here—especially after all this allusion. This young lady was a guest
at a week-end party where I was also a guest. On Saturday evening it
began to appear, quite early, that there was going to be considerable
drinking. And, to be sure, there was. Among those who became, as the
fellow said, a little bit uncertain of themselves, were the young Q.T.
and myself. It was, in all truth, largely her fault that I reached a
state of abandon from which, at her further solicitation, it was but an
easy step to a feeling of sheer devil-may-care. This condition, it is
perhaps unnecessary to say, militates against that fine precision of
mind so essential to the best results in any scientific investigation.
I do not remember all that ensued one-half so clearly as I should
like to. I have often thought deeply on the matter, striving to
reconstruct the complete scene, as it were, but my efforts have been
hampered by the lamentable fact that I found dwelling upon the more
easily remembered scenes so delightful that I simply dwelt on them. I
remember, for example, that I was at the piano, or more exactly, on
it—standing on it. The Quiet Type, fearing that I might fall, grasped
me firmly about the knees, and I did fall. I was not only uninjured,
but I got to my feet laughing. At this she began to laugh. I had lost
my glasses in the fall, and began hunting for them. In bending over,
however, I was assailed by a slight touch of vertigo, which runs in my
family, and fell again.
[Illustration: _I asked her how I had reached the cliff—if I had walked
there. “Partly,” she said._]
The next that I remember is sitting on the edge of a cliff, or
_falaise_, as the French call it, looking out over a lake. The young
lady was beside me. “Well,” she said, “what shall we do next?” I asked
her how I had reached the cliff—if I had walked there. “Partly,” she
said. This set me to thinking. “I have lost my glasses,” I said, and
began hunting for them again. She again seized me by the knees, and I
fell. In falling, both of us became enormously involved. I instantly
arose and was about to step into the lake, when she grasped me around
the waist. We both sat down. “You have gone as far as you can,” she
said, and tittered. “I should like to go a little farther,” said
I. She arose. “You’re a funny man,” she said, and laughed again. I
grasped her, much to my surprise, by one ankle, and she began to topple
toward the lake. I fell heavily backward, pulling her with me, and
this doubtless saved her life. “You must be more careful,” I told her.
We sat up. “Don’t you think you better take me home?” she said, in a
singular voice—low and odd. “Rather,” I responded, and arose. I took
her back to the house, which was some half-mile distant, we joined the
others, and that is all I remember.
I shall always regret, of course, that I did not have full possession
of my faculties during the walk to the cliff’s edge, for there might
have been, in the ten or fifteen minutes it must have taken, an
excellent opportunity to “get at” the young woman. There is nothing
quite so provocative of pleasant, revelatory talk as a quiet walk with
some one at night. However, the episode ended as I have said, and a
golden opportunity was lost.
In my very failures I made, I believe, certain significant findings
in regard to the Quiet Type. It is not dangerous to men, but to a
particular man. Apparently it lies in wait for some one individual
and gets him. Being got by this special type, or even being laid in
wait for, would seem to me in some cases not without its pleasurable
compensations. Wherein, exactly, the menace lies, I have no means of
knowing. I have my moments when I think I see what it is, but I have
other moments when I think I don’t.
[Illustration: _The Buttonhole-twister Type._]
The Buttonhole-twister Type is much easier to come at. A girl of this
persuasion works quite openly. She has the curious habit of insinuating
a finger, usually the little finger of the right hand, unless she be
left-handed, into the lapel buttonhole of a gentleman, and twisting it.
Usually, she picks out a man who is taller than herself and usually she
gets him quite publicly, in parks, on street corners, and the like.
Often, while twisting, she will place the toe of her right shoe on the
ground, with the heel elevated, and will swing the heel slowly through
an arc of about thirty or thirty-five degrees, back and forth. This
manifestation is generally accompanied by a wistful, far-away look on
the woman’s face, and she but rarely gazes straight at the man. She
invariably goes in for negative statements during the course of her
small writhings, such as “It is not,” “I am not,” “I don’t believe you
do,” and the like. This type is demonstrative in her affections and
never lies in wait with any subtlety. She is likely to be restless and
discontented with the married state, largely because she will want to
go somewhere that her husband does not want to go, or will not believe
he has been to the places that he says he just came from. It is well to
avoid this type.
[Illustration: _I am told that one type has actually been known to get
the man of her choice down and sit, as it were, side-saddle of him._]
A charming but altogether dangerous type is the “Don’t, dear” Type. By
assuming a middle of the road, this way and that way, attitude toward a
gentleman’s advances, she will at once allure and repulse him. The man
will thus be twice allured. He calls on her, and they sit in the porch
swing, let us say. When he slips his arm around her, she will say in a
low tone, “Don’t, dear.” No matter what he does, she will say, “Don’t,
dear.” This type is a homemaker. Unless the man wants a home made for
him within a very short time, it is better for him to observe the
“don’t” rather than the “dear,” and depart. The type is common in the
Middle West, particularly in university towns, or was some few years
ago, at any rate. Any effort to classify modern university types would
be difficult and confusing. They change from year to year, and vary
with the region. I am told that one type has actually been known to get
the man of her choice down and sit, as it were, side-saddle of him. I
would not give even this brief mention, in passing, to college types of
the female, were they not important because they so frequently divert
a man from his career and tie him down before he has a chance to begin
working, or even to say anything.
The rest of the types of American women, such as the Outdoors, the
Clinging Vine, and so on and so on, are too generally known to need
any special comment here. If a man does not know one when he sees it,
or cannot tell one from another, of these more common types, there is
little that can be done for him. No man should contemplate marriage, or
even mingle with women, unless he has a certain measure of intuition
about these more obvious types. For example, if a man could not tell
instantly that a woman was the sort that would keep him playing tennis,
or riding horseback, all afternoon, and then expect him to ride back
and forth all night on the ferry, no amount of description of the
Outdoors Type would be of any avail.
There is, however, one phenomenal modern type, a product of these
strange post-war years, which will bear a brief analysis. This is the
type represented by the girl who gets right down to a discussion of sex
on the occasion of her first meeting with a man, but then goes on to
betray a great deal of alarm and aversion to the married state. This
is the “I-can’t-go-through-with-it” Type. Many American virgins fall
within this classification. Likewise it contains women who have had
some strange and bitter experience about which they do a great deal
of hinting but which they never clearly explain. If involved with, or
even merely presented to, a woman of this type, no man in his right
mind will do anything except reach for his hat. Science does not
know what is the matter with these women, or whether anything is the
matter. A lot of reasons have been advanced for girls acting in this
incredible, dismayed manner—eleven reasons in all, I believe—but no one
really knows very much about it. It may be their mothers’ teaching, it
may have been some early childhood experience, such as getting caught
under a gate, or suffering a severe jolting up by being let fall when a
boy jumped off the other end of a teeter-totter, or it may simply be a
whim. We do not know. One thing is sure, they are never the Quiet Type.
They talk your arm off.