Of soaps, women and men

What is it with soaps that men cannot stand, but that women crave? Generations, The Young and the Restless, Isidingo, Desperate Housewives, Studio 263…. the list goes on. I embarked on a journey to carry out a cocas top notch research to unearth the old age mystery of these biosocial discrepancies amongst these two sexes.

My first port of call was the office. Using my highly technical journalistic skills I approached a typical man, Phineas, an accountant and a bachelor.

“Soaps should be taken off the air. Whenever women come to my house and get hold of the remote, the first thing they want to do is search for a soap opera. It should be taken off the air. If it is supper time, you do not get served until the soap has ended.”

Phineas did not mince his words at all.

Thereafter a lady bought into the issue. This became easy for me. There was no need to use my exceedingly specialized information extraction tools to wheedle out the much sought after enigma. Rotina, a psychology graduate had this to say;

“All men do not like soaps I don’t know why. Tell me the secret. Why don’t men want to watch soaps?”

Masimba – a writer, cum poet, cum reporter had the answer before she could even finish talking.

“The pictures are too bright they hurt your eyes. The stories are too slow, too predictable. If you watch one you have watched all of them”

The facts were now coming out. At least on the man’s side, the time old secrets that had been kept so well hidden through generations, preserved by our grandfathers, were finally being unsealed. Before I could blink, Leonard another gentlemen, a Sociology student at the Women’s University (oh yes it is not a typing error, at the Women’s University) belted out;

“When you are following a soap opera you can leave a character hiding behind a door, and when you come back after six months you will still find that same character hiding behind the door.”

That was just to put the nail to the coffin.

But the women’s side had not yet come out clean. The secrets were still yet to be unearthed. This left me no choice but to move up one more level, employing my scientific aerodynamic journalistic skills to open the women’s Pandora’s Box on soaps.

Alice, an agronomist and former School Head, shed a more mature light to the whole perspective.

“Soaps depict the true day to day lifestyle of people and the challenges they go through. Most men live pseudo lives pretending as if everything is alright all the time. Women on other hand come out more open.” She said.

“Take for example in this era of HIV and AIDS, the women disclose their statuses more often than men do. Men would rather die silently. Soaps therefore bring some of these issues in the open and men become intimidated. Women on the other hand are consoled.”

She left me smiling shyly as if someone had just removed my trouser in public. Somehow I felt there was some element of truth in what she said.

Michelle, Masimba’s wife couldn’t agree more. She said soaps resemble our daily lives. People can relate to them more than they can with movies. She also had a role model from her favorite soap, Generations.

“Garabo is a strong character, a career woman who knows what she wants, she inspires me a lot.”

I must say Alice’s perspective was the opposite of what my cousin brother, Sindiso, thought. He sees soaps as irrelevant and fake. He says they are ethereal with some story lines, particularly relationships, being too detached from reality. Most of these men, it dawned to me, do not even know the story lines to these soaps. How then can they be intimidated by what they do not know?

Lydia, a young bombshell and sociologist by profession had this to say.

“Talk of Samuel the barman from Generations, oh he is so cute. There is so much emotion in soaps that is why I watch them.”

It was time for me to make a conclusion on this issue and submit the findings of my study to the expectant world.

There were four key facts which emerged and they could be summed up in the words – monotonous, emotion, attachment and intimidation. Women are for emotion and attachment. Most men run when they hear those words. Women are more patient beings they can tolerate 100 episodes of a story line. Men would rather watch a game of soccer. When it reveals what they do in private men (and women) may become intimidated. Need I say more? The mystery is partially solved…