Sometimes I think about and deconstruct situations from my
past. Several years ago, I was on a dinner date with a man whom I was in a
relationship with. We started to talk
more about our relationship. He brought
up the topic of “submission” and told me that I should let him “be the man” and
that I should submit to him. That blew
me away and I thought that what he said was pretty dumb.
First, of all what in the Hell do you mean “let me the man”? You are already a male and a man, you moron!
Second, why must I submit to you? Should
women submit to their men because he has a penis and more testosterone flowing
through his veins? I don’t get it.
I am not going to get deep down into the discussion. But here’s what I deciphered from his message: Women
can't think for and govern themselves.
Therefore, they need to be controlled. Some
of the things he said were very patriarchal and emanated from his religious beliefs. I
probably would have been more receptive to his ideas if they weren’t so
chauvinist.
If he had come at me from a different angle, like, “Let me protect
you”. OR “Let me take care of this
for you” OR “Let’s do this thing
together” I would have been all ears. But, no! He had to come at me as if he were
trying to mack. Fuck out of here with
that prehistoric cave man shit!
Times have dramatically changed. I am not necessarily in complete agreement
with the Feminist Movement. At the same
time I don’t subscribe to some of the traditional roles of women in
relationships. In my opinion, men and
women are not equal. They are very
different in the way that their brains are wired and in physiology. Men are usually physically stronger than
women. And, women tend to be more
emotional and intuitive than men. That
doesn’t make women stupid but that’s what it is. Men don’t have menstrual cycles and they can’t
get pregnant. All this is common
sense. But, it doesn’t make one sex (or
gender) better than the other.
There are certain things that I prefer to do as a woman,
like cooking over fixing and tearing things up.
I guess this comes from social conditioning. For instance, no matter how
many times my father or male friends have shown me how to change a flat
tire, I don’t get it. The truth is that I
am capable of understanding but I don’t want to do those things that I consider
“too manly”. I mean, I can't see myself getting up underneath a car and change oil. If we’re to be completely
honest here, there are some things that men are more adept at than women. So, in those cases I submit what I perceive as "manly activities" to men. That’s not to say that there aren’t women capable of doing
masculine things, though.
And on the flip side, there can be many benefits to a woman
submitting to a man. That’s particularly
interesting when dealing with a man who has more knowledge, wisdom and understanding
than his woman (topped with integrity). He
can offer some ideas that would benefit them both as a couple. And he could probably teach her some things to
make her a better person. So, humility
and open-mindedness in relationships definitely go a long way.
Bottom line is that in relationships, there is always going
to be some sort of compromise. One party
will probably have to do some things that they aren’t comfortable with in order
to make their partner happy, and vice-versa.
I’m not saying go all out and be a fool for anyone, but there should be
some give and take involved. One party
can’t be on the receiving end all the time.
I see a romantic relationship like a team. This idea of one person being in complete submission to the
other is not teamwork. That’s one party
trying to relegate the other party to the status of a child. It may be their way of getting control over
the other person in order to do some manipulating. Even more ridiculous, the man that I am
talking about seemed to seek a relationship with a passive woman who won’t
question or challenge anything that he says or does. He
had a “Woman, I am in charge and don’t ever question or criticise anything that
I say or do” type mentalities.
I’m not talking about being a nag or doing things to undermine
or emasculate a man. I’m talking about
being a woman with intelligence and strong opinions. Is there something wrong with that? Furthermore, I have heard story after story
about one partner being in full submission to the other. The submissive allowed the wool to be pulled
over their eyes and got screwed in the process. All I’m saying is why can’t both
parties in a relationship learn to submit to one another?
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