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What do women want? - by Antonia Bentel - ANTO AESTHETICS

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It always starts as a joke. A throwaway line framed as a four-word sentence whose answer is as mysterious as it is unsolvable: “What do women want?” Indeed, the first problem with this question is that it’s almost always asked in bad faith. A rhetorical performance, a shrugging faux-curiosity designed to absolve the asker of ever having to listen. It is asked in bold-type headlines and LooksMaxxing YouTube videos, on Reddit threads and awful first dates. When posed to the less-fairer sex, it is the Bermuda Triangle of heterosexual male understanding. But most women will tell you: they are not unknowable—just ignored. Or talked over. Or aestheticised into glittering abstractions that shimmer conveniently away from the realm of wants and needs. Historically, the answer to this question has been the following things: A sitcom punchline recycling its way through all-male writer’s rooms across Burbank since the ‘80s: “No one really knows what women want!” (Cue laugh track.) Quoted by men wh

What do women want? An unlicensed essay-turned-anthropological-study-turned-essay-again involving Aperol, body dysmorphia, and Sally Rooney Antonia Bentel Apr 22, 2025 1,034 62 324 Share Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #2 , 1977. Courtesy of MoMA. It always starts as a joke. A throwaway line framed as a four-word sentence whose answer is as mysterious as it is unsolvable: “What do women want?” Indeed, the first problem with this question is that it’s almost always asked in bad faith. A rhetorical performance, a shrugging faux-curiosity designed to absolve the asker of ever having to listen

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