Hairy, misbehaving women
Sunday Blog 232 - 3 May 2026
A trigger warning applies to this blog as I end it with a disclosure of sexual assault I survived more than two decades ago. Please take care when reading or listening.
It’s always illuminating to sup with the youngsters; Millennials, Gen Z’ers. At a recent dinner, the subject of the books The Queen’s Code and The King’s Code by Alison A. Armstrong surfaced.
In my generation we seemed to lurch from home into unsuitable pairings, often moving in with someone after a week (or was that just me?) Co-dependance seemed to me the only way to do relationship number one (or ten), until I woke up from the lust fever dream and didn’t recognise who I had become. What was I doing on a golf course driving range? Why wasn’t I at home reading a good book?
The young people are smarter, always looking to optimise. Perhaps tired of watching their parents make a royal hash of their relationships, these two young people at least had turned to the Queen’s Code and King’s Code books to learn about how to have an intimate relationship.
One of the premises of the book (because now I have binge-listened to the audiobook of The Queen’s Code ) is that women can become frog farmers, i.e. turn their princes into frogs. One of the ways they do this is by constantly criticising and nit-picking their partners. The source of this carping can be traced back to holding men to women’s standards. Mistaking men for hairy, misbehaving women instead of completely different types of creatures that they are.
Men focus on one thing. Women have diffuse awareness. Men never see the value in doing anything, such as taking out the rubbish. But a timely prompt (promt, not nag) from you can trigger them to put the garbage chore into their queue, and when it is the next indicated thing for them, it will be done. By telling a man what taking the rubbish out will provide for you, e.g. feeling supported, will give him motivation. Appreciating him doing the task completes the circle. Bye bye to nagging.
I’m not sure where I land on it all. None of what is discussed in the book covers violence against women. All the male protagonists are good men.
I think of #NotAllMenButAlwaysAMan. I recollect that back in 2002, in the weeks and months after surviving a home invasion and sexual assault, there were so many good men that were part of my healing. My partner, now my husband. The self-defence teacher. The acupuncturist. The lawyer friend. The entrepreneur friend who when we first met up after the assault asked me “what is the point of it all, if something like that can happen?”
And reading The Queen’s Code has been a nice holiday from the polarity of woman-good, man-bad. Plus, I’m keeping up with the young people.