If I Were a Man… (1927) 🇺🇸
CLARA BOW. — If I were a man, I would not talk business during lunch. I’d try to let my business take care of itself that long, and not talk shop and bore every one to death. But nearly all men do it. Neither would I try to tell a woman how to drive an automobile. She might be a terrible driver, but unless she just had the knack, she’d never be any better, anyway, so men might just as well keep their advice on automobile driving to themselves.
LEATRICE JOY. — I would not be content until I had made of myself a real man’s man. We women look upon that type with secret admiration — almost awe.
CONSTANCE TALMADGE. — If I were a man, I wouldn’t smoke perfumed cigarettes. I wouldn’t smoke a strong pipe. I wouldn’t ask every other person whether he or she thought the bald spot on the back of my head was noticeable. I wouldn’t tune in on an Hawaiian orchestra on the radio and then next day tell my friends that I had got Honolulu. Nor would I laugh at my own stories before the other chap had a chance.
POLA NEGRI. — I wouldn’t recite Robert W. Service and Rudyard Kipling for hours at a stretch at the slightest opportunity. While the works of these poets are magnificent, nothing is quite so boring as a sentimental gentleman on a Service or Kipling rampage. To the many men afflicted with this annoying practice I recommend that they memorize at least one or two poems of other poets for the sake of variety.
ESTHER RALSTON. — I wouldn’t tell about the big fish that got away on that last camping trip. Nor would I tell about the monstrous deer that I killed seven years ago last winter. And just one more thing — I never, under any circumstances, would repeat a funny story before my wife more than six times.
NORMA SHEARER. — I wouldn’t wear loud ties, and I wouldn’t quarrel with my wife in public, nor talk about business after office hours. I wouldn’t say, “Meet the wife!” when I introduced a friend to my better half, and I wouldn’t telephone home ten minutes before I left the office and say that I was bringing a friend home for dinner.
GERTRUDE ASTOR. — I wouldn’t wear one of those waxed things that somehow or other grow on some men’s lips. And if I did wear one, I wouldn’t waste so much energy in feeling for it to be sure it was still there. No man with one of those things can kiss me — off the screen.
ELEANOR BOARDMAN. — I wouldn’t try to be facetious, nor boast about all the women I knew. I wouldn’t try to be the “life of the party,” and I wouldn’t ask a lady’s pardon when I said “Damn!” I’d give her the benefit of the doubt and believe that she was modern enough to say “Damn!” too. And I wouldn’t tell people that my wife was just an old-fashioned girl.
HELENE CHADWICK. — I wouldn’t wear golf trousers and loud socks on city streets. I believe such apparel is nice for the links, but not a bit appropriate for downtown.
PRISCILLA DEAN. — I wouldn’t tie myself down to a steady job early in life. I’d slip the anchors and go forth on my own in search of adventure. Travel broadens one. I think I wouldn’t try settling down to business until I was thirty-five or forty.
BETTY BRONSON. — I wouldn’t labor under the impression that every pretty girl who happened, unconsciously, to look my way, was infatuated with me. I wouldn’t wear knickers if nature had not given me respectable-looking legs. I wouldn’t use perfume under any conditions. I wouldn’t labor under the decidedly mistaken idea that no woman knows how to drive a motor car. I wouldn’t sit in a public conveyance while any woman or elderly man was standing. I wouldn’t take off my hat in an elevator and then push every woman aside to get to the door first when my floor was reached.
MARY BRIAN. — I wouldn’t go out between the acts of a play and disturb every one in the row. I wouldn’t blame it on the girl I was dancing with if I stepped on her toes. I wouldn’t wear a diamond horseshoe pin in my tie.
LILYAN TASHMAN. — I wouldn’t go around unshaved. I would visit the barber twice daily, if necessary, to have my face appear smooth. Especially would I give attention to the back of my neck and have my hair trimmed regularly.
LAURA LA PLANTE. — If I were a man, I would not wear my hair either fluffy, a la impresario, nor sleeked down with grease. Neither looks natural.
SEENA OWEN. — I would not be careless of my personal appearance, not even around home. I’d ape women ‘in their care of their clothes just a little more than most men do.
VERA REYNOLDS. — If I were a man, I wouldn’t make my living at anything other than something that required physical strength and endurance as well as brain work. I’d rather be Ty Cobb than president of a railroad.
DOROTHY DEVORE. — If I were a man, I wouldn’t marry. That is, gazing at men from a feminine viewpoint, that’s the way I feel about it. For I envy the freedom that a bachelor has, and if I were a man I should hesitate to surrender it.
Compiled by Dorothy Wooldridge
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, March 1927
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see also If I Were a Woman…