Free the Tendril
A Critical Examination of "Feminine Wiles"
Anyone who has read a novel penned before 1960 has probably come across the phrase “feminine wiles.” Many novelists imply that if a lady becomes adept in said wiles, any male within a 500 mile radius will leap to do her bidding at one well-timed quirk of her shapely eyebrow, thus freeing up her schedule for the crucial work of taking tragic misty walks. As this seems a highly advantageous arrangement, I have spent years attempting to develop said wiles, to no avail.
A hefty sample of 1800’s literature suggests that “feminine wiles” reside in three main attributes: tantalizing curls that tend to “escape,” a lopsided smile, and a petulant or “saucy” attitude. In order to have effective feminine wiles, authors posit, a woman should possess one to two of the above.
I take serious umbrage at the first item on this list. The notion, perpetrated over the last 300 years, that curls casually fall into anything remotely "tantalizing,” is frankly damaging to the female psyche. Any curl which has authentically “escaped” a woman’s coiffure will very much resemble what the verb suggests—a fugitive from justice. It will be out of place, emaciated, and disheveled. If a “tendril” has escaped and looks tantalizing, you can bet your life it had an accomplice. That little bugger has been tweaked, twisted and tugged for 45 minutes at minimum. It took me years to realize this and forgive myself for not having unruly curls that fell into "fetching” coils the moment I lifted my head from the pillow.
The myth of attractive dishevelment has been furthered by BBC adaptations of classic novels. Even if an author has the decency to admit that now and then a woman looks a little rough, directors refuse to take them at their word, and no matter how miserable her circumstances, on-screen female protagonists exit anything from a shipwreck to a sandstorm looking like Givenchy models in bulletproof body makeup and six pounds of 3XL Big Sexy hair spray.
As to the second item, I’ve learned from bitter experience that if nature has not endowed one with a “delightfully” crooked smile, attempts to manufacture it will come off looking like one a) has a toothache, or b) is sneering, neither of which—it would seem—compel males to place their services at one’s disposal.
And the petulant attitude hasn’t lived up to the literary hype either. When reading novels, one often comes across phrases like “with a toss of her head” or “a stamp of her small foot.” The scenario usually goes something like this:
“What care I for tempests?” cried Emmeline, with a toss of her head that set all the little curls which had escaped her glossy coil of braids waving tantalizingly. “I shall go to Crookingham-by-the-Wold, and if you do not hitch up the horse for me, Michael Somersby, I shall ride there bareback.”
What could he do in the face of such charming feminine petulance? Michael hastened to the stables, shaking his rustic head and chuckling. “A lass in a thousand,” he murmured to himself. “I daresay I’d ‘itch a dragon to the cart and let ‘er ride into the pits of ‘ell if it were wot she asked fur.”
This is a tactic that could really come in handy when I need trim installed on a third-story window, or a new roof on the goat house, so I gave it a whirl, to the following effect:
“If you do not install that trim this very afternoon, I will pull the scaffolding down myself and throw each piece at your head,” said Charlotte with a toss of her head.
“I’m not climbing up there,” said her foreman. “It’s too cold today.”
Charlotte hurled a hammer with coquettish ire. “I shall climb it myself,” she threatened.
“Kay,” he replied. “I’m taking lunch.”
If I’d had Thomas Hardy in front of me, I’d have had some choice words for him.
I don’t mean to suggest that my experiments have had no success—the results haven’t been precisely as promised but there have been results. Last fall, when I was climbing scaffolding in order to paint the exterior of my house, my elderly neighbor (at whom I had repeatedly smiled crookedly in the hopes of getting him to loan me some building equipment) stood at the base of the scaffolding and made lots and lots of helpful comments like “you’re going to fall off of there” and “why don’t you have a young man doing that for you?”
Another elderly neighbor (influenced, I have no doubt, by my fetching array of escaped tendrils) treated me to a lengthy demonstration of all his inventions—from a small wooden hook that pulls out the racks in an oven, to a pointy stick that gets weeds out of the cracks in a sidewalk—completely free of charge.
Unfortunately, exciting as these little triumphs were, they did not noticeably contribute to the accomplishment of my objectives. I have been forced to conclude that either feminine wiles are a myth, or my list of crucial attributes is incomplete. Therefore, in the next few weeks, I will be taking a deep-dive into lesser-known wiles, including the thrilling new discovery of reciting poetry unbidden at unsuspecting gentlemen. I will, of course, be sharing my findings here.
Until then…
The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
How’s it working, fellas?
—C.C.
Yup it works...
These were the 1800 wiles. Try the more modern fluttering your eyelashes or winking while doing the crooked smile;}