Author: Doug Mortimer
Breathes
there
a
reader
of
this
web
site
who
has
never
heard
the
famed
maxim,
“A
woman
needs
a
man
like
a
fish
needs
a
bicycle”?
Or
“A
woman
without
a
man
is
like
a
fish
without
a
bicycle,”
or
some
variation
thereof.
This
utterance
is
inextricably
associated
with
feminist
icon
Gloria
Steinem,
who
will
be
a
nodding
nonagenarian
if
she
makes
it
to
March
25th
of
next
year.
The
phrase
has
been
repeated
and
reprinted
countless
times
over
the
last
half-century.
I
suspect
she
never
voiced
this
opinion
to
the
men
she
was
waiting
on
back
in
1963
when
she
was
working
as
a
Playboy
bunny.
Like
any
number
of
slogans
that
attain
widespread
currency,
this
one
was
cribbed.
As
is
often
the
case
when
something
new
comes
into
the
world,
it
is
not
the
originator
who
gets
the
credit
so
much
as
the
person
who
disseminates
it.
The
web
site
writingexplained.org
offers
some
background
on
the
fish-bicycle
idiom.
Apparently,
Steinem
picked
it
up
from
an
Australian
author
named
Irina
Dunn.
Now,
you
might
wonder
(maybe
not
if
you’re
from
Australia),
who
was
Irina
Dunn?
Well,
there’s
no
point
in
dwelling
on
her
because
it
turns
out
she
admits
she
was
just
passing
the
phrase
along.
Apparently,
it
was
a
catch-phrase
in
feminist
circles
ini
the
late
1960’s,
which
doesn’t
help
us
in
explaining
where
it
came
from.
That
brings
us
to
Charles
S.
Harris.
Who,
you
might
wonder,
was
Charles
S.
Harris?
Oddly
enough,
with
a
little
Googling
and
enough
leisure
time,
we
can
learn
a
few
things
about
him.
Harris
was
a
junior
at
Swarthmore
College
in
1958.
A
psychology
major,
he
also
wrote
a
humor
column
called
“Quote”
for
the
school
newspaper,
The
Phoenix.
He
used
the
pen
name
Roccatorso,
which
is
a
reference
to
an
annual
campus
musical
revue
in
which
he
was
a
participant.
In
his
April
7,
1958
column,
he
wrote,
“A
man
without
faith
is
like
a
fish
without
a
bicycle.”
That
was
it.
No
context,
just
a
stand-alone
snippet
in
a
series
of
“jokes.”
Animal
House
aside,
campus
humor
rarely
induces
guffaws.
Here
are
a
couple
of
other
examples
from
Harris’s
column
that
day:
The
Beat
Generation
is
the
generation
that
didn’t
beat
Haverford
[a
nearby
men’s
college].Whatsmore
College,
an
institution
for
small
coeds.It
is
strange.
The
last
I
remember,
I
was
at
home
studying
Margaret
Mead.Oh,
are
you
a
grad
student,
too?Oh,
no,
I
am
married
to
Margaret
Mead.
Real
knee-slappers,
eh?
Actually,
the
funniest
thing
in
the
whole
newspaper
was
a
front-page
article
about
someone
who
had
just
returned
from
Cuba
and
described
Fidel
Castro,
who
was
still
months
away
from
taking
over
the
island,
as
a
“typical,
responsible,
middle-class
person.”
A
lot
of
words,
pro
and
con,
were
employed
to
describe
Castro
in
the
ensuing
years,
but
bourgeois
was
not
one
of
them!
Even
in
the
1950’s
Swarthmore
tilted
left
so
a
lecture
on
the
Cuban
revolution
would
surely
pack
‘em
in.
I
grew
up
a
few
miles
from
the
campus
and
the
common
image
of
Swarthmore
was
as
a
haven
of
beatniks
and
eggheads
in
an
affluent
suburban
cocoon.
It
had
an
impeccable
academic
reputation…but
was
it
the
sort
of
place
you
wanted
to
send
your
kids?
If
you
were
a
US
Out
of
UN
type,
definitely
not.
On
the
other
hand,
if
you
were
a
Ban
the
Bomb
type,
you’d
be
thrilled
if
your
kid
got
in.
Maybe
not
so
much
today
as
the
tuition
is
pushing
$60,000.
Of
course,
the
Bomb
is
still
with
us
and
I
can’t
remember
the
last
time
I
heard
of
a
Ban
the
Bomb
demonstration.
Guess
we’ve
all
learned
to
stop
worrying
and
love
the
bomb.
If
Swarthmore
is
an
unlikely
source
of
humor,
keep
in
mind
it
was
founded
by
Quakers,
who
are
not
given
to
rolling
in
the
aisles
in
their
meeting
houses.
At
any
rate,
as
it
turns
out,
Charles
S.
Harris
did
not
originate
the
phrase.
I’m
not
saying
he
stole
it.
Perhaps
he
heard
it
in
his
childhood
and
it
lay
dormant
in
his
memory
for
years.
If
so,
he
might
have
heard
it
from
a
bona
fide
funny
man.
At
some
point
during
his
career,
the
bibulous
W.C.
Fields
said,
“Scotch
needs
water
like
a
fish
needs
a
bicycle.”
I
can’t
pinpoint
when
Fields
said
this,
but
since
he
died
in
1946
that
would
put
a
cap
on
it.
Now
if
this
saying
can
be
traced
back
to
Fields
it
would
be
a
delicious
irony,
as
he
would
certainly
be
classified
as
a
misogynist
today.
The
evidence
is
out
there
in
quotations
that
have
lingered
long
after
he
took
his
place
among
the
ascended
masters
of
comedy:
A
man
without
a
woman
is
like
a
neck
without
a
pain.Show
me
a
great
actress,
and
you’ve
seen
the
devil.Never
try
to
impress
a
woman,
because
if
you
do
she’ll
expect
you
to
keep
up
the
standard
for
the
rest
of
your
life.The
nation
needs
to
return
to
the
colonial
way
of
life,
when
a
wife
was
judged
by
the
amount
of
wood
she
could
split.Yes,
I
do
like
children…girl
children…about
eighteen
to
twenty.I
was
married
once
–
in
San
Francisco.
I
haven’t
seen
her
for
many
years.
The
great
earthquake
and
fire
in
1906
destroyed
the
marriage
certificate.
There’s
no
legal
proof.
Which
proves
that
earthquakes
aren’t
all
bad.I’ve
never
hit
a
woman
in
my
life.
Not
even
my
own
mother.I’d
rather
have
two
girls
at
21
each
than
one
girl
at
42.Buried
my
wife
the
other
day.
Had
to,
she
died.
I
once
wrote
about
him
(“W.C.
Fields:
A
MGTOW
for
All
Seasons,”
May
7,
2016)
on
this
web
site,
so
if
you
want
to
know
more
about
him
or
read
some
more
memorable
quotations,
just
click
on
that
link.
I
wish
I
could
credit
Fields
with
coining
the
phrase,
I
can’t
quite
do
it.
I
might
be
able
to
credit
him
with
the
fish,
however.
A
number
of
Fields’s
jokes
have
to
do
with
avoiding
water,
the
bane
of
any
serious
drinking
man.
Since
fish
live
in
water,
they
too
are
suspect.
Famously,
he
once
said
he
never
drank
water
because
“fish
fuck
in
it.”
This
is
sometimes
cleaned
up
as
“fish
do
disgusting
things
in
it,”
which
may
be
even
better,
since
it
implies
more
than
mere
coitus.
But
if
we
can
give
credit
to
Fields
for
the
fish,
why
can’t
we
do
the
same
for
the
bicycle?
Because
we
have
another
quote
that
is
even
older.
Consider
an
article
by
one
W.L.
Alden
in
the
December
31,
1898
issue
of
the
Hartford
Courant
.
While
reminiscing
about
his
duties
as
American
consul
at
a
town
in
southern
Spain,
he
described
the
sleepy
pueblo
by
saying
“The
place
didn’t
need
an
American
consul
any
more
than
a
cow
needs
a
bicycle.”
It
may
or
may
not
be
true
that
W.L.
Alden
originated
that
phrase.
He
might
have
heard
it
from
someone
else.
But
it
is
true
that
the
bicycle
became
widely
popular
in
the
last
decade
of
the
19th
Century,
so
I
think
it
would
be
a
fool’s
errand
to
seek
a
quote
any
older
than
his.
So
there
you
have
it.
Mystery
solved…sort
of.
Given
the
fact
that
it’s
been
a
half-century
since
Gloria
Steinem
popularized
this
slogan,
isn’t
it
about
time
it
was
updated?
How
about…a
woman
needs
a
man
like
a
fish
needs
an
electric
scooter.
Of
course,
the
saying
is
easy
to
invert:
“A
man
needs
a
woman
like
a
fish
needs
a
bicycle.”
But
that’s
too
easy.
We
can
do
better.
How
about
“A
woman
needs
an
education
like
a
fish
needs
a
bicycle.”
I
would
not
say
that
aloud
in
public.
Maybe
a
slight
modification
to
“A
woman
needs
an
education
like
a
fish
needs
student
loan
debt.”
Steve
Martin
couldn’t
have
said
it
better.
Original Story on AVFM
These stories are from AVoiceForMen.com.
(Changing the cultural narrative)