Watching the movie “Chicago,” I came to all sorts of conclusions: Richard Gere shouldn’t tap dance. Taye Diggs is hot. People who can dance and sing at the same time are the luckiest people I know. If I can’t go back in time and be a hippie, Prohibition would be a fine second choice of era.

After the movie, I shared (most of) my conclusions with my boyfriend. His analysis was much more incisive:

“Men get to sleep around, and women get to kill them.”

I agree; in a certain sense this is the movie’s thesis. On the surface it sounds perfectly fair, an excellent division of labor. Men, stereotypically nothing but sizzling masses of lust with arms and legs, get to practice their favorite skill. And women get to kill men.

Everyone’s happy, unless they’re dead, and the dead ones have many happy times to look back on. The world is as it should be, divided into men and women, hornballs and praying mantises.

However, I have some reservations about this very efficient philosophy. For one, I’m a woman, and I would rather sleep with the entire adult population of the United States than kill anyone. But maybe that’s due to the same genetic aberration that leaves me unable to walk in high heels.

For another, it certainly would be nice to move past the double standard. “Chicago’s” version of the double standard improves a little on the basic version, in which men are supposed to rack up conquests and women are supposed to save themselves for the right man, once he’s done seducing unvirtuous and therefore disposable women.

The Chicago standard gives women some power. They still value fidelity — at least on the part of their men. But instead of waiting for fidelity to happen on its own, they enforce it. If men would rather exercise their male prerogative than make their women happy, the penalties are swift and bloody. Squish.

So it’s nice that women get to take a less passive role in this world order. It’s kind of a shame about all the men who are being stabbed and shot and poisoned and pushed out windows and whatnot, but they’re simply casualties in the war between the sexes, right?

Here’s what I’m wondering: Why does it have to be a war? Why should men and women be at odds? Don’t both sides value personal relationships, enjoy sex, want to pass on their genes, commit stupid acts of indiscretion and violence?

The double standard — any double standard — is useless. Dividing up our species into teams only makes sense if the species wants to annihilate itself. Reproduction among mammals is generally a cooperative effort. We’re not octopi who shove packets of sperm into each other’s breathing siphons. Human males don’t need to be beheaded to impregnate human females.

Of course, “Chicago” is a movie, not a sociobiological treatise. What’s more, its source material was written nearly 80 years ago. Times have changed, and we’ve often rewound the clock/ Since the Puritans got a shock/ When they landed at Plymouth Rock, and so forth.

But in order to captivate audiences the way “Chicago” has, a movie needs to resonate on a level below that of dazzling cinematography and fancy footwork and catchy melodies and the naughty thrill of seeing the antiheroes come out on top. Craftsmanship can only inspire admiration, not love.

It seems to me that people love to hear about the war between the sexes. And why not? Dichotomies are fun. Split one group into two teams and suddenly you’ve got a contest. You can root for the favorite and boo the underdog, or vice versa. You can back your own team. I’m not sure who’s qualified to referee (hermaphrodites?) but you can boo them too.

Problem is, an opponent is always other. Competition and sabotage aren’t the way to build relationships or creak toward equality. Thinking of intergender relations as a war drives men and women apart, ideologically if not physically, and separation breeds inequality.

“Chicago” is incidental, really. It’s just a movie. But the double standard is dumb. That’s my thesis, and I’ll stand by it bravely.

Maybe the Chicago standard could be universalized to serve as a step toward gender equality. Everyone would get to sleep around, but with the understanding that anyone could kill them for doing so. That would be fair.

Jackie May ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in English.