My Inner Peasant

‘You’re making a spectacle of yourself!’ Is it just me, or does this disdainful remark really only ever seem to be directed at girls and women? I get it all the time. My wonderful father was (I am certain) being ironic when, one Christmas, he presented me with a pristinely gift-wrapped copy of The Rules: Catch Him and Keep Him, a glossy-bound book emblazoned with the slogan ‘Time tested secrets for capturing the heart of Mr Right’ which shimmered on the cover in flowery gold font.

I was about 16, and by chapter two I had already lost all hope of ever coaxing any man close enough to me to make eye contact, let alone CATCH or KEEP the poor bloke. More importantly, I had lost my faith in sisterhood. My heart sank as I read one particular piece of advice (a little tip on how to be A Creature Unlike Any Other in order to tempt a man and ultimately Get The Ring - both of which I’m sorry to confirm really are phrases which title the opening and closing chapters of the book). Disappointment flooded over me as I read the words which have stuck with me ever since; ‘Do not be a knee slapping, hyena-laughing, hilariously funny girl’. Well, I wasn’t sure about hilarious, but knee-slapping and a hyena laugh (once observed by my Dad as resembling ‘the cackle of a Russian peasant’) were habits I could not fail to recognise. These authors, these WOMEN, were talking about me. And they were telling me not only that it was so important to find myself a husband that I must read an entire book on how to manage it, but worse, much worse; that I would need to ditch, or at least drastically re-think my entire personality to do so.

Growing up, humour was my currency. I had four best friends who were all taller, slimmer and substantially prettier than I was. Which was just fine, because I was ‘The Funny One’. The boys laughed appreciatively at my jokes, and female friends would often recount how their boyfriends thought I was ‘a great laugh’. But equally I would hear myself referred to as ‘tom-boy’, ‘show-off’ or worse (in my 16 year old opinion) ‘just one of the lads’. Not that I wanted one particularly, not that I believed, as this scornful book had so haughtily assumed, that ‘catching’ myself a nice husband would be particularly useful to me in any way at all, but I had to hand it to the rather smug co-authors Ellen Feine and Sherrie Schneider, they had got one thing right: I made people laugh, but no one ever wanted to be my boyfriend.

Now, I had been at the Buck’s Fizz for breakfast, was on gravy-and-stuffing duty and still hadn’t finished wrapping all my presents, so the scolding words of Feine and Schneider were forgotten in a flurry of tinsel and mistletoe until, after dinner, I was mid-peasant-cackle at the sight of my Uncle solemnly opening a packet of After Eights with a covert glance at the clock which read 6pm and the deadpan sigh ‘Never mind’. My giggles were stopped short as I overheard my Grandmother mumble, warmly, but with an undertone of confused disapproval ‘She does like to make a spectacle of herself.’ I pulled myself together, and rubbed my poor knees – ‘Note to self’ I thought, ‘Must reduce knee-slapping and tone down my inner hyena.’