This was an article sent to me over a year ago, but a classmate of mine copied me on some banter that took place when it was sent to her last week. Here’s the article:
Are Women Scaring Off Their Men
The Washington Post
By: Joy Jones
Have you met this woman? She has a good job, works hard, and earns a
good salary. She went to college, she got her master’s degree; she is
intelligent. She is personable, articulate, well read, interested in
everybody and everything Yet, she’s single.
Or maybe you know this one. Active in the church.
Faithful, committed, sings in the choir, serves on the usher board, and
attends every committee meeting.
Loves the Lord and knows the Word. You’d think that with her command of
the Scriptures and the respect of her church members, she’d have a
marriage as solid as a rock. But again, no husband.
Or perhaps you recognize the community activist. She’s a black lady, or,
as she prefers, an African American woman, on the move. She sports A
short natural; sometimes cornrow braids, or even dreadlocks.She ‘s an
organizer, a motivator, a dynamo. Her work for he r people speaks for
itself–organizing women for a self-help, raising funds for A community
cause, educating others around a new issue in South Africa.
Black folks look up to her, and white folks know she’s a force to be
reckoned with. Yet once again, the men leave her alone.
What do these women have in common? They have so much; what is it they
lack? Why is it they may be able to hook a man but can’t hold him? The
women puzzle over this quandary themselves. They gather at professional
clubs, at sorority meetings or over coffee at the office and wonder
what’s wrong with black men? They hold special prayer vigils and fast
and pray and beg Jesus to send the men back to church. They find the
brothers attending political strategizing sessions or participating in
protests but when it comes time to go home, the brothers go home to
someone else.
I know these women because I am all of these women.
And after asking over and over again “What’s wrong with these men?”, it
finally dawned on me to ask the question, “What’s wrong with us women?”
What I have found, and what many of these women have yet to discover, is
that the skills that make one successful in the church, community or
workplace are not the skills that make one successful in a relationship.
Linear thinking, self-reliance, structured goals and direct action
assist one in getting assignments done, in organizing church or club
activities or in positioning oneself for a raise, but relationship-
building requires different skills. It requires making decisions that
not only gratify you, but satisfy others. It means doing things that
will keep the peace rather than achieve the goal, and sometimes it means
creating the peace in the first place Maintaining a harmonious
relationship will not always allow you to take the straight line between
two points. You may have to stoop to conquer or yield to win.
In too m any cases, when dealing with men, you will have to sacrifice
being right in order to enjoy being loved. Being acknowledged as the
head of the household is an especially important thing for many black
men, since their manhood is so often actively challenged everywhere
else. Many modern women are so independent, so self-sufficient, so
committed to the cause, to the church, to career or their narrow
concepts that their entire personalities project an “I don’t need a man”
message. So they end up without one.
An interested man may be attracted but he soon discovers that this
sister makes very little space for him in her life.
Going to graduate school is a good goal and an option that previous
generations of blacks have not had. But sometimes the achieving woman
will place her boyfriend so low on her list of priorities that his
interest wanes. Between work, school and homework, she’s seldom “there”
for him, for the preliminaries that mi gh t develop a commitment to a
woman. She’s too busy to prepare him a home-cooked meal or to be a
listening ear for his concerns because she is so occupied with her own.
Soon he uses her only for uncommitted sex since to him she appears
unavailable for anything else. Blind to the part she’s playing in the
problem, she ends up thinking, “Men only want one thing.” And she
decides she’s better off with the degree than the friendship.
When she’s 45, she may wish she’d set different priorities while she was
younger. It’s not just the busy career girl who can’t see the forest for
the trees.
A couple I know were having marital troubles. During one argument, the
husband confronted the wife and asked what she thought they should do
about the marriage, what direction they should take. She reached for her
Bible and turned to Ephesians. “I know what Paul says and I know what
Jesus says about marriage,”
he told her, “What do you say about our marriage?”
Dumbfounded, she could not say anything. Like so many of us, she could
recite the Scriptures but could not apply them to everyday living.
Before the year was out, the husband had filed for divorce. Women who
focus on civil rights or community activism have vigorous, fighting
spirits and are prepared to do whatever, whenever, to benefit black
people. That’s good. That’s necessary. But it needs to be kept in
perspective. It’s too easy to save the world and lose your man.
A fighting spirit is important on the battlefield, but a gentler spirit
is wanted on the home front. Too many women are winning the battle and
losing the home.
Sometimes in our determined efforts to be strong believers and hard
workers, we contemporary women downplay, denigrate or simply forget our
more traditional feminine attributes. Men value women best for the ways
we are different from them, not the ways we are the same. Men appreciate
us for ou r g race and beauty. Men enjoy our softness and see it as a way
to be in touch with their tender side, a side they dare not show to
other men. A hard-working woman is good to have on your committee. But
when a man goes home, he’d prefer a loving partner to a hard worker.
It’s not an easy transition for the modern black woman to make. It
sounds submissive, reactionary, outmoded, and oppressive. We have fought
so hard for so many things, and rightfully so. We have known so many men
who were shaky, jive and untrustworthy. Yet we must admit that we are
shaky, jive and willful in our own ways. Not having a husband allows us
to do whatever we want, when and how we want to do it. Having one means
we have to share the power and certain points will have to be
surrendered. We are terrified of marriage and commitment, yet dread the
prospect of being single and alone.
Throwing ourselves into work seems to fill the void without posing a
threat. But like any other drug, the escape eventually becomes the cage.
To make the break, we need to do less and “be” more. I am learning to
“be still and know,” to be trusting. I am learning to stop competing
with black men and to collaborate with them, to temper my assertive and
aggressive energy with softness and serenity. I’m not preaching a
philosophy of “women be seen and not heard.” But I have come to realize
that I, and many of my smart and independent sisters are out of touch
with our feminine center and Therefore out of touch with our men.
About a year ago, I was at an oldies-but-goodies club.
As a Washingtonian, love to do the bop and to hand dance styles that
were popular when I was a teen. In those dances, the man has his set of
steps and the woman has hers, but the couple is still two partners and
must move together. On this evening, I was sitting out a record when a
thought came to me. If a man were to say, “I’m going to be i n ch arge and
you’re going to follow. I want you to adjust your ways to fit in with
mine” I’d dismiss him as a Neanderthal. With my hand on my hip, I’d tell
him that I have just as much sense as he does and that he can’t tell me
what to do. Yet, on the dance floor, I love following a man’s lead. I
don’t feel inferior because my part is different from his, and I don’t
feel I have to prove that I’m just as able to lead as he is. I simply
allow him to take my hand, and I go with the flow.
I am still single. I am over 30 and scared. I am still a member of my
church, have no plans to quit my good government job and will continue
to do what I can for my people. I think that I have a healthy
relationship with a good man. But today, I know that I have to bring
some of that spirit of the dance into my relationship.Dancing solo, I’ve
mastered that. Now I’m learning how to accept his lead, and to go with
the flow!
Then, one of the ladies copied on the email wrote the following response to the article:
Why do women always have to change? Perhaps the issue is with some men and their inability to have a partner who is equal to them?
My mother worked just as hard as my dad did, although, as a male he made more money, they both had equal educations, they both were equally in charge in the household. Guess what? When he came home from a hard days work, he had her support and when she came home from a hard days work she had his until the day he died. My sister is a federal agent for ICE as is her husband, my brother in law Chris-Even though my sister has a Masters and I am not sure if my BIL does, they make the same amount of money since they are at the same level in the government. They both work hard and have three children (twins infants and a toddler). Again, both of them support each other and love each other.
These are two examples of working relationships that I have wherein there is equality in the workload and equality in the relationship and there is love. I don’t care if this article was written by a WOMAN, it doesn’t mean it is correct or that I will agree with her.
Here’s MY rebuttal to her comments:
It seems as if (female) doesn’t get the point of this article. The article is not saying that there aren’t women like the ones you mention below. The article is saying that the women you know are in the minority in today’s world. It’s not about the income that comes in to the household, or how many degrees are posted on the wall for the man or the woman, it’s about the establishment of an equal and healthy partnership between man and wife in the black community. A real man has no problem with a woman that’s equal to him, but the conundrum arises when black women begin to disconnect with the black man in terms of his needs (see Tyler Perry’s character in “Why Did I get Married?” as an example), which is what drives some brothas to the Becky’s and Rosalia’s and Kim Ju Wong’s of the world.
(to steer away for a second)
Now, I understand the struggles that black women have in the corporate world, but what you don’t realize that in 2007, you have it MUCH easier than we do in terms of opportunities, the problem is that voluntary family decisions by women (and not sexism) is the main reason there are more black men in middle management and higher than there are black women. Below there, black women have higher numbers than black men. So the next time you see a woman on the cover of Black Enterprise who’s in ssenior management, chances are she either doesn’t have children or had them in her mid to late 30′s. Since some women are so afraid of the biological clock, they will plateau their career in sacrifice to have a family. Nothing wrong with that, just stating fact…….. but back to the lecture at hand.
The article does not talk about assimilation, it’s about adaptation. Think about it, you act one way around your people than you do at work or at church, correct? Why can’t you take that same adaptation attitude and use it in the home as well. If you really love your husband, black women would do that. Now if you see the marriage as more of a professional partnership, then you could take your professional attitude and use it in the home, but assuming that you actually marry a man because you love HIM (not his degree or his assets, but HIM), then there’s a level of consensual submission (agreed upon by SOLELY the two of you with no input from your ugly single friends, which is why they’re single themselves) that has to take place. The roles must be defined. Two people shouldn’t handle the household budget, two people shouldn’t be in charge of home improvement, etc etc.
Now have you thought about the adaptations that a man has to make in a relationship? You don’t think a man loses a level of power and independence, especially if he’s single himself? The need for change is not exclusive to just women. When a man’s ready to get married and make you his wife, he went through some changes in himself to get to that point, and (if he’s a good man) accept the responsibility of marriage and knows he has to make sacrifices. So this shows me that when you read the article, you were thinking about yourself, probably telling yourself “that woman’s full of ish, that ain’t me. What the hell she talking ’bout? Why do I have to change? Why can’t a nigga just love me for me and man up?” As black men, we have to soften our tone, and display deference to people all day long (unless we’re entrepreneurs). We sometimes lose power, have to display humility, be humble when we’re right, be contrite when we’re wrong. Do we want to deal with the same crap when we walk through the door to our home? HELL NAW. I’ve been putting with Ronald Crysozenski’s crap all damn day, I’m not trying to put up with your nagging behind at 7pm when I walk through the door.
Now that you have a cornerstone for how I feel about it, any thoughts?
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