the Wakefield Doctrine

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine ( the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers )

While most of the Old Timers here at the Doctrine might prefer to keep things the way they have always been, satisfied  laughing at the antics of the scotts and yelling and shouting,  ‘what a bunch of rogers those people are‘ as we drive around Wakefield on Saturday Night, we can no longer settle for that simple, amusing form of entertainment.
Why is that? What is wrong with that?  After all, we  know what we mean when we point to a person and say, ‘hey! see that scott looking bored over there? who wants to bet I can make him get all hyper?’  Well, while that served our purposes in the early days, the readership of the Wakefield Doctrine is growing and with this growth there is an increasing  need to understand this thing of ours in ways that just did not occur to us in days prior, aka the ‘good old days’. Well, times change and the Wakefield Doctrine is nothing if it is not flexible.  So what’s up with the drive to expand the knowledge base? Why are we being driven, cajoled, posed-the-thoughtful-question, asked to explain how the Wakefield Doctrine applies to life and people and such?
Two words: Molly, Claire, Nell and (now) AP –that’s why.
They are the new generation of people who have happened upon the Doctrine blog and ‘get it’,  they see the use and values it has to offer. The thing is, they have learned about the Wakefield Doctrine from this here blog. They do not have the background understanding that some of the older DownSprings have, but they do not have the limitations that these selfsame old-timers are subject to, and so Molly and AP, Claire and Nell are asking questions about how the Doctrine works and how it might apply in situations that simply never occurred to some of us.  That’s just great.  (lol, and all italics aside, it is great! The Wakefield Doctrine is moving in directions that none of us thought it would and it is still fun, so welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine!)

To the topic of today’s Post; clarklike females (Part 1)

(New Readers are reminded that the Doctrine is gender neutral, which just means that ‘type’ precedes the gender. The Doctrine is also culture neutral so that the examples of culturally approved (or dis-approved) behavior is for the purposes of illustration only.) In this case:

So what are we to assume from this photo of the fetching Ms. Paltrow (if that indeed, is her real name!)

The external, observable characteristics of the clarklike female have been long-established; the style and fashion decisions  are best described as eclectic. There is a creative quality to ‘the look’ that most clarklike females aspire to that is quite unmistakable.

(“Yo clark!  DS#1 here.  As a clarklike female let me  pick it up from here”)….. speaks to their inner nature(?)  Fashion and the female clark = simple expression. Yeah sure, that’s it.  If you don’t already know this about theclarklike female,  footwear will figure prominently into their “look”.  Spot the boots worn “inappropriately” and you most likely have a clark on your hands.  Look at the pic above.  Only a clarklike female would wear what appears to be “combat” boots with an otherwise sexy, tease-me outfit. LOL  Combat boots sexy?  Yes, for some men.  But that says more about the man than the clarklike female and better left for another post.

It has been said within the pages of “this here blog here” that clarks are the “blue monkeys”.  Yes and no.  When it comes to the fashion thing, there is a degree of measurement, a level of blue that differentiates the clarklike female from other clarklike females.  And it can be boiled down to the level, type and/or method of accessorization.  Hats, scarves, jewelry (yes particularly jewelry)….  It goes without saying that it can be challenging to newcomers of the Doctrine to spot clarklike females based solely on their clothing/fashion sense.  Remember that to a clark, fashion walks hand in hand with posturing and body language.  Let’s do a compare/contrast thing –  if we were to take Gwyneth, remove the boots, put stilettos on her feet and position her either on her back or side then we would be looking at a scottian female (if we didn’t already know she was a clark, that is)  So what does this picture imply?  Challenge.  Mystery.  Inaccessibility.  Protection.  Confidence (real or imagined).  Individuality.

Having knowledge of the Wakefield Doctrine for many a year, what I have not had is the challenge of speaking about it with those who are newly discovering it’s simple, yet at times nuanced facets.  It is proving more difficult than I thought to explain my people:)   There is an almost instant type of connection…a knowing that is instinctive when clarks speak to each other.  It is easy to jump ahead and assume that another clark already knows what I mean when perhaps it takes a little more clarification.  blah, blah, blah, blah blah.

Interesting perspective, DS#1 … for (newer) Readers, the ‘blue monkeys’, is a term that we use around the Doctrine to reference the propensity of clarks (both male and female) to manage to stand apart from the crowd. Interestingly, if you ask a clark why they want to: dress, act, sound in a manner that sets them clearly apart from the norm, most (clarks) will honestly not know what you are talking about. They will deny that they are deliberately attempting to set themselves apart from the crowd, if anything, they will maintain that they just want to blend and be accepted.  ( Where did the term, ‘blue monkey’ come from?  according to some stories there was a sociology (or it might have been a psychology ) experiment conducted in the 1960’s in which one young monkey was taken from their troupe, dyed blue and return to his fellow troupe-mates. Apparently monkeys are not color-blind and the monkey was totally ostracized and outcast and all the kinds of things that the group likes to do to the outsider. I don’t think they killed him, but I could be wrong on that.)  ( It might have been green dye, but the term has come to be used to connote a person who inadvertently or un-consciouly manages to present himself/herself as a undeniable outsider.)

(Molly here… )  While I would agree with DS#1 that there is an instinctive knowing, when two clarks meet, but it does not make the awkwardness of being an outsider go away.

clarks are reserved.  They tend not to volunteer too much information — at least not to begin with; therefore, getting to know a clark takes some persistence.  clarks also don’t like to pry…  So, you can imagine how it is when two clarks meet.

clarklike females also influence a reserve in others.  In a social setting, when a male is flirting with virtually all the females present, though he will flirt with the clarklike female, it will be different somehow.   He will treat her with more respect than he shows anyone else.   More than once, I have had people comment (concerning a random flirt), “He must really like you — he’s treating you differently.”

As to fashion and the clarklike female, I was really surprised to find out combat boots were standard dress code.  Clark challenged me to talk to DS#1 about clothing — I thought it sounded dumb, but I took him up on it.  After all, what could she know about my wardrobe?  But I was the one in for a surprise.  I’ve owned my combat boots since I was 15… in fact, I’m wearing them right now…

One of my favorite clarklike females is Julie Andrews, with the many, varying roles she has played.  She is always poised sincere, even when having fun.  She doesn’t take any nonsense, even when jumping into chalk pictures or attending tea parties on the ceiling, and there is always an element of creativity.  Now, if you look through pictures of her, you may not see the hats, scarves and jewelry mentioned (unless you are looking at pictures of Mary Poppins), but her posture and eyes still give her away.  No matter how straight and tall she stands, there is a slight slouch, and even when she looks straight into the camera, you can see that she is somewhere else.

I liked your point, Molly,  about how clarks tend to not volunteer information. I don’t get how (some of this) can be, but most clarks seem to share the sense that things told to us in confidence (or even simply in a one-on-one conversation) are meant to be held in confidence. We, as a people, tend to not be in the know in most social environments, as part of the price of membership is that the individual is expected to contribute information to the group. A very rogerian thing, but most likely the reason clarks are often out of the loop…
I also liked the concept of ‘when two clarks meet’… it was noted early in the development of the Doctrine that you can tell you are talking to another clark because there is a tendency to ‘bump into each other’ conversationally speaking (lol)  Both (clarks) will start to say something at the same time and then stop and…then both will … you know  (and sentence fragments!  We loves our sentence fragments, which is no problem if the other person is a clark, of course!)
oh, and ‘the slouch’  damn!  it’s still amazes me to see the characteristics show up where they are predicted to… New Readers? one of the primary identifiers of the clark personality type is a certain slouch in posture, a slightly overly causal stance (standing and seated)… it has everything to do with the fact that we are on the defensive…kinda

Shout out to Nell and Claire and AP… stop in guys. I am sure we will hear from Ms AKH and possible the Progenitor roger (yeah, right). Good discussion, yo.