Devil or Devi? New Orleans.

Misunderstand the distaff gender in New Orleans at your peril.  There are plenty of strong women on the streets even if they show no outward signs of masculinity.  You'll see your bearded women and your tattooed women, the same as you'll see your bearded and tattooed men.  What sets New Orleans' women apart from those found elsewhere in the world?  Spunk, and I don't mean jism.  I mean comeuppance.  I mean pride.  I mean self-assurance.

New Orleans is home to supported housewives picking children up after after school activities and of single mothers raising children alone on a skimpy income that barely affords daycare.  Family is everything in New Orleans, no matter how narrowly or widely defined.  In a city where everyone calls everyone else "baby" there is a sibling bond that defies definition trading in common, toss-away parlance.

New Orleans' women are dashing and daring.  They may not dash about on daredevil motorcycle rides in short skirts,  but they pursue the thrill of the chase.  They take risks.  Living in this most glorious of cities is a chance in a bag that may or may not swell your purse.  New Orleans' women know this, they measure the prospects and plant their belongings and get to work.  It's serious work.

It is better to be a woman than a man, all evidence and testimony to the contrary.  It's been said that women are the niggers of the world but in a chocolate city, sweets come in all colors and flavors.  Creed, class, and orientation count for naught in the nougat.  Well, class counts for something more than caste.  In New Orleans, if you can carry your convictions with ample bearing you will win the day no matter your sex or your starting point.  Money never stinks.  Attitude sometimes does.  Success is the sweetest smell of all.  If you can make it in New Orleans, you should be able to make it anywhere, even in Manhattan.

In New Orleans, women are king.

New Orleans is a world-class city, irreplaceable.  It is a cut above any haberdasher or tailor could conceive; too many measurements by half.  The globe will still spin without brass bands.  Macroeconomic rules will be in play if no one joins a local, second line parade. New Orleans would collapse without its female citizens.  New Orleans would be poorer without the labor and delivery its female citizens bring to bear on the city's fabric and pulse every hour of every day.

You don't have to know a beautiful woman to appreciate one.  You just have to see her.

I'm not a woman but I'm glad there are plenty of them in New Orleans.  Without them the city would crumble to silt.  Say what you will, there are no she-devils in the Crescent City.  There are angels in our midst.  Gentlemen ignore this fact at their peril.  In a city so succulent and seductive, so lush and flush with temptations, it is New Orleans' women that keep the city on the straight an narrow.  Testosterone leads it astray.  New Orleans' women are more than estrogen in the tonic.  They are the tonic, the spark and the sinew; the muscle, the conscience, the moral standard, the judge and the jury.  They are the ethereal fizz and the psyche.  Don't cross a New Orleans woman.  You'll live to tell the tale but no one will call you Ishmael.

Gentlemen, considered yourselves warned.  Walk softly where angels have trod before you along every sidewalk, in every aisle, and around every public space.  If you feel safe in New Orleans, it is because of the will of its women.

'nuff said.
WK