"The Mysteries of Female Life"

"Over the mysteries of female life, there is drawn a veil--best left undisturbed." Thus spoke John Brooke in Louisa Mae Alcott's Little Women.

As one who has lived her entire life behind said veil, I have to say that this utterance has always given me some pause. Perhaps my life is more interesting than I think it is, but I have a hard time believing it. Mysteries? Really?

I am the oldest girl of five girls, with scores of female friends, acquaintances, neighbors, and colleagues. I have lived with at least seven female roommates. Not a day goes by that I don't spend at least half of it in company with other females, and let me say: we're not all that mysterious. When you come right down to it, women (at least most of those with whom I have had the pleasure of being acquainted, and even more so those with whom I have lived and worked for any amount of time) are mostly interested in men. Whether meeting them or dating them, getting engaged to them or marrying them, thus is the deep-seated desire of every woman, no matter how voraciously she denies it. Even when she denies it, in fact, deep down she hopes that some man will eventually recognize her independence and love her for it. So the "mysterious" life they lead seems to revolve in some sense around that final goal.

I don't say this to belittle my sex. I merely state a fact. You might think of this statement as an expose of womanhood. It's that simple.

In my 23 short years, I have often tried to spend an hour in the company of other females without bringing up (even once) the topic of men. And in all those 23 years, I have succeeded in this endeavor exactly once. I spent a deligthful hour and a half in a coffee shop with a young lady of an intelletual bent, and we discussed political philosophy like it was our job. It took me a little while, as I mulled over our conversation later, to put my finger on what it was that made this discussion stand out in my mind against other similar coffee dates with my girl friends. Only after serious reflection did it dawn on me that we hadn't brought up "boys" at all.

I learned later that this friend had only recently begun dating a young man with whom we were both acquainted--and that she was a little bit uncomfortable bringing it up. So even while we didn't discuss "boys," the topic was there, hiding under the surface the whole time.

I tell you, men pervade our existence from the inside out. Sometimes this infuriates me so much that I can hardly sit still. Just once, I often think, I would like to spend an evening (or even an hour) with girls. No boys allowed. But men manage to creep into even the most exclusively feminine affairs. In fact, the more females I manage to gather into one place, the worse it gets. They spend hours discussing the "who's who" of dating, engagements, marriage preparations, wedding showers, weddings, pregnancies, baby showers, and child rearing. Many a so-called "ladies' night" I have spent listening to so-and-so wax eloquent on the details of getting proposed to, or patting the shoulder of so-and-so who just broke up with the boyfriend of eight months. Many an hour I have wiled away hearing the dating woes of friends, sisters, new acquaintances, and even some complete strangers.

And the older I get, the worse it gets. In high school I was convinced that when I went away to college I would discover young women who had more important things to discuss. How wrong I was. No matter how often we formed study groups to discuss Metaphysics or Moral Theology, the topic always seemed to devolve into "who likes who." So I looked toward professional life as an escape, only to be disappointed again. Women in the office talk about their boyfriends or their husbands. Roommates discuss fiancees, boyfriends, or boy "interests." And when there are no actual boys to discuss, they discuss hypothetical ones. "My future husband..." "The perfect guy..."

These men have an "in" in every facet of our existence, actually.

And they call it a mystery? Poor fellows. It would seem that they really are just clueless.

And poor deluded gentleman callers sit in our mismatched chairs and eat our cookies and peer around at our housekeeping with nervous, awed expressions on their faces, thinking themselves admitted at last to the holy of holies. At last, they have been permitted to step behind the veil--yet somehow the mystery remains. "What," they all clearly wonder (we know this, because some have the audacity to ask), "do these girls do, anyway?" And they clearly feel that here is a mystery worth solving. (Now, of course: we only permit those gentlemen we like to sit in our mismatched chairs and eat our cookies; thus they may and should feel that they have been admitted to something sacred. But again, I must insist: there is no mystery here.)

Or is there?

Is there perhaps something mysterious in the inexplicable comfort one feels while sitting for an hour in the company of a good woman...or a few good women?

Is there something mysterious about a woman's uncanny ability to look someone in the face and know (just know) when something is wrong?

Is there something mysterious about the delight we take in making others happy?

And is there just maybe something mysterious about that very focus on men which makes up the whole mystery of who and why we are?

As I grow to know more and more truly good women, I can only surmise that there must be more here than meets the eye. And perhaps a truly beautiful mystery lies behind the words a woman speaks when she prefaces most statements with: "When I have children..."

So maybe John Brooke was right after all.

And maybe, despite my whining and fussing over the facts, I'm just as proud as the next girl to be part of that mystery.