ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 8, 1996 TAG: 9612100165
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: MARGIE FISHER
SOURCE: MARGIE FISHER
BEING THE grandmother of a 14-year-old girl, naturally I'm often asked by her for instructions on life's important values. Namely boys: attracting them, dating them and cultivating them for domestication happily ever after.
And if you believe that, you probably also believe that all grandmothers crochet doilies, bake cakes from scratch, and personally wring the necks of hens for Sunday dinners at their vine-covered cottages over the river and through the woods.
Actually, should my granddaughter ask, I would dispense this good advice about boys: Don't even think about them until you're 25; then forget about them until you're 30 and/or a vice president of a thriving corporation.
As a non-crocheting, modern granny, I wouldn't be surprised if she paid me no mind. But what bothers me is the ``grandmotherly'' recommendations of others she may be taking to heart. I refer, of course, to the 35 dos and don'ts for landing a husband. as laid out in the best seller, ``The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right,'' by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider.
According to Fein and Schneider, it is time for girls of all ages to revive the sound, sane rules that governed successful female-male relationships before the late unpleasantness - the women's movement and the sexual revolution - brought us to the cliff with ``Thelma and Louise.'' Grandma had the chicken-soup recipe for hooking Prince Charming and living happily ever after, and it's time to be up to Grandma's old tricks. To get their drift:
* Play hard to get. Don't call him and rarely return his calls. Don't accept a Saturday-night date after Wednesday. Don't meet him halfway or go Dutch on a date. Let him make all the plans. Break up with him if he doesn't buy you a romantic gift for your birthday or Valentine's Day.
* Be sweet and demure. Don't talk too much, and never have anything of substance to say. Hang on to his every word. Laugh at all his jokes. Show an interest in his interests. Always let him take the lead.
* To be enticing, act mysterious. Spend lavishly on manicures, pedicures, facials and falsies. If necessary get a nose job and a fanny tuck. Wear black sheer pantyhose and hike up your skirt.
* After you're married, never let him see you with your hair in curlers. Wear lipstick even when you're cleaning the toilet. Let him make all major decisions. (Like you clean the toilets.) Always be serene and unselfish, and you will be a happy princess.
Mercy! Did they bring the poodle skirts and old 78s of Johnny Ray's ``Cry'' down from the attic along with these retro ideas? And just whose grandmother - Barbie's perhaps? - concluded that girls/women would be jolly-well better off playacting at being Sandra Dee?
Imagine, if you can, Shannon Lucid, NASA's 53-year-old space superwoman, in that role. (``What I really missed during those six months in space was my husband's making all the decisions. That and, of course, wearing black sheer pantyhose from Victoria's Secret.'')
Fancy Hillary Clinton cooking up this chicken soup while she bakes cookies.
Granted, Fein and Schneider may have intended ``The Rules'' as a joke. If so, they should have included ``Heel!'' and ``Roll over!'' so impressionable young girls would know the authors are just fooling.
The popularity of this how-to book, some say, reflects a deep yearning among girls and women for order in their relationships with the opposite sex. Fine. But what about honesty and integrity in relationships?
I don't want my granddaughter to ``play'' hard to get. I want her to be hard to get - to the extent that she won't settle for anything less than genuine love and respect. She should follow ``The Rules'' rule: Don't use sex to get a guy to love you. But she should also not feign adoration and mindless stupidity.
Would relationships based on subservience and ruse restore order and end the sexual combat that's followed my generation's quest for equality? Possibly - but then so would sexual bondage, and darned if I'll wish that for my granddaughter.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 linesby CNB