As soon as she entered my room, she would spring on to my bed and sometimes would expatiate upon my type of intellect, would vow in a transport of sincerity that she would sooner die than leave me: this was on morning when I had shaved before sending for her. She was one of those women who can never distinguish the cause of what they feel. The pleasure they derive from a fresh complexion they explain to themselves by the moral qualities of the man who seems to offer them a possibility of future happiness, which is capable, however, of diminishing and becoming less compelling the longer he refrains from shaving.
Marcel Proust, The Captive, p. 11
Proust, in a very Proustian pace, continues to reflect upon mornings in his apartment now that Albertine has moved in with him. I've talked before about the fact that morning is often the most domestic and joyous time of a happy relationship, and their are glimmers of that even if Marcel's doomed relationship with Albertine. Although it's definitely a product of its age, and is also representative of a gender stereotype which is still prevalent today, I'm intrigued by Proust's observation about Albertine, that, "She was one of those women who can never distinguish the cause of what they feel." It's true in the sense that we seldom seem to understand what we're fighting about, although I suspect that it's as true of men as it is of women. This is definitely one of those statements that my students would tag as identifying gender roles, especially a hundred years ago. That said, beyond all the reasons, valid and nefarious, that explain why Clinton lost to Trump, how much of it would just come back to sexism and the belief that women are too emotional and thus not logical.
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