My former boss said it. Countless comedians insist on it. A musician at the last concert I attended even sung it in a song he wrote. The chorus? “All women are crazy, all men are dumb. ‘Cause though we know they’re crazy, we still want some!”
The boss, comedians and musician I am referring to are, of course, all men. The older I get, I’ve noticed that a lot of men like using this line in casual discussion or in conversations about their girlfriend/wife or relationships in general. Naturally, as a feminist, this doesn’t sit comfortably with me.
I could go on about how those song lyrics are rooted in antiquated, Essentialist ways of viewing gender which dictate that all women are hysterical, incomprehensible, “Others” and men are just horny oafs governed by their penises and will stop at nothing to fuck us despite our “insanity”. That’s pretty sexist to women and men if you ask me.
Let’s think more deeply about that chauvinistic statement: Women are crazy. It could be rooted in some semi-truthful generalizations…or, it could be a direct product of our patriarchal mode of thinking. Pull up any source about serial killers, serial rapists, stalkers, molesters, pedophiles, child pornography makers/addicts, Skinheads, Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, and war-hungry dictators. What’s the pattern? Factually; statistically, all of these maniacs are overwhelmingly white and male.
That statement isn’t meant to demonize men. Nor am I attempting to merely turn the table and say that it is really men who are looney-tunes. Of course not all men are wacked-out criminals or Hitlers-in-the-making. And certainly there are plenty of female perpetrators of the same offenses. Still, it is undeniable that the majority of the world’s most horrific, sadistic, warped, dice-you-up-so-I-can-eat-your-organs-and-refrigerate-the-rest-for-later, batshit acts are committed by men.
It is quite interesting that somehow all of this is forgotten when people laugh or cheer in agreement that it is women who are off their rockers. How is it so easily forgotten? Like I said earlier, patriarchy as a system (not merely a set of individuals) works to protect men and keep them at the top, hence insulating them from ridicule. It could also be because we are so desensitized to seeing male faces in conjunction with crime. Criminality and maleness has unfortunately become normalized.
I propose instead that we stop trying to collapse the identities of an entire sex into a one insulting word. Women are not crazy. Men are not stupid. As humans, we all have a sprinkling of neuroticism and stupidity. But what do I know. I’m just a crazy woman, right?
