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Have you noticed how women have all these musts/must nots for men but get appalled if a man should have strong preferences? I don’t like wigs and weaves for instance but when I vocalise this I’m almost looked at as a Fascist. Yet the facts are:
I like skinny women I like thick women I like dark women I like red women
I just don’t have any preconceived type of woman that I select above all others. Of course, I want a woman with the kind of mind and shared ideals that I can work with. But in my experience far too many women have unrealistic preconditions about the type or kind of men they’ll even consider dating. And still large numbers of these women claim either to be in bad relationships or are single and looking.
I was reading an article on Yahoo Lifestyle some time ago, and it was odd how the comments showed that many of the women felt they were in ‘fakelationships‘. But why, I found myself asking, are these articles always on the attack towards men? None of the so-called indicators of ‘fakelationships’ was actually negative in itself: “You haven’t met his parents; He doesn’t want to move in with you; He still goes out with his mates a lot,” etc. So what? But these articles tell women that there is not only an ideal person to be with, but an ideal place to be in a relationship – and if you are not there, you are incomplete and the man you are seeing is not worthy of you.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr…
It was around the same time as I’d got into a conversation with a group of black women on a train where they were listing their various demands of men and relationships. “I don’t wanna carry nobody,” and “if he’s unemployed he shouldn’t be getting into no relationship, anyway, he should be sorting himself out,” or “he can’t be wearing no earring, and no, no – no tattoos,” and “he’s got to know how to be a man and how to treat me like a lady” plus “if he ain’t got a degree, a car and a house by… then…” blah, blah, blah. Like the white woman who sat opposite me, I kept thinking, how sad. And I hear similar demands so often from women of colour, especially with the public musings on Facebook and elsewhere these days.
List 1 – Man must have… List 2 – Man must not have…
It is sad. I watch women’s chat shows and read women’s magazines: the socialisation of women has made them more susceptible to the influence of these two factors. So many women don’t know how to break free from the shackled of perception and consumerism.
The woman who is struggling with self-esteem fills the void by buying stuff and more stuff – so products that are targeted at women buyers are constantly attacking and eroding their confidence.
The foundation needs to be built at home and in the community.
So women decide that a man must be/must not be: it’s a defence mechanism, the man is another commodity like a handbag or a pair of shoes so she thinks that she can define the characteristics that are desired in the man like any other object. If she cannot find the man that fits the bill, she can be justified in slagging off all men – no one reached the bar – so all are undeserving. What she does not know is that the bar does not exist and if it did, she has limited power in defining it.
The bar is a construction of the media that influences her.
Is like how older black people are the ones that old their bags tightest when I past them – because they believe what they see/read in the news. The media tells them that young black men (especially those with locks) are a danger to individuals and society and they believe it.
In the same way, women are told that they are too this and not enough that by people wanting to sell them products to correct those perceived imperfections – and they believe the advertising. The advertisers target their perception of men as well – the ideal man is described and women are told this is what you can do to get and keep that man. The fall out is that they wholeheartedly believe that this fictitious definition of manhood is manhood. She believes that she has created herself as the counterpart to this man. Since this man does not exist, she seeks continually for him and refuses to ‘lower her standards’ to accept any other man because that would negate the work she has done to ‘improve’ herself.
The question is – how can we heal our communities – both men and women? What’s the media antidote?
How do we heal our communities – men and women?
I believe the first step to healing must be actually having the nerve to talk about these things, openly and honestly, and without fear of retreating to entrenched positions. In that way, perhaps some of us may grow to love ourselves, and in so doing, maybe our women will realise that the “ideal man” is a mental construct that does not exist, and that they must open up their hearts to allow him to emerge in the best approximation that destiny has to offer.
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