Also: "
A whistling woman and a crowing hen are both abominations to the lord" and "
A whistling girl and a crowing hen are sure to come to
some bad end."
My
grandmother would say this to me, so at first I thought it had to be a part of her stuffy
Southern Baptist ideas. But I did a little
google searching and discovered it was also an
Irish proverb: "
A whistling woman and a crowing hen will bring no luck to the house they are in." Or in
London in the
18th century: "
A whistling woman and a crowing hen,
Are neither good for God nor men'. " and "
A whistling woman and a crowing hen,
Will frighten the Devil out of his den." In
Nova Scotia this notion can be found in a few
folk songs. So what is wrong with whistling women? I can see how a
crowing hen would be upsetting. Most of the time
roosters crow, a crowing hen would be
rather odd-- but why is whistling considered, well...
masculine?
I started thinking about an old
theatre superstition:
never whistle in a theatre this one goes back to the
17th century in London when sailors often ran the ropes and
rigging in
theaters when they got sick of the sea. Sailors used whistles to alert each other of
falling objects. So whistling in a theatre could have caused chaos and delayed the opening by breaking the set.
Since sailors whistle, perhaps it was seen as a "carefree and loose" (like
sailors) -- these have never been
socially acceptable traits for a woman (especially a woman who is in your home, as opposed to one who's in your
motel...)
Whistling is also fairly "
lower class" –
poor men had nothing to play
song on so they used the
mouth-flute of the whistle to make their songs.
Maybe it is the
kiss-like
puckering of the
whistle. (are whistles
seductive?")
When Hens Begin To Crow is the title of a study by
Sylvia Tamale of
gender and politics in
Uganda. In fact it seems that many
feminists have taken up the cause of reversing the whistling metaphor. In
Uganda and in the
American South crowing hens must be killed right away or they will bring
bad luck. Is the
proverb sexist?
Maybe women are meant to hum? (
humming men always seemed
suspicious to me)
Even after
reading everything I could find on the subject I still don't know why
whistling is thought of as
masculine. But I hope I've at least opened a few doors so that we can solve this
mystery.