It’s About Making Babies!

I visited ‘Smart at Love’ http://smartatlove.typepad.com/annieweblog/2006/04/whats_driving_y.html, and comments on a recent survey on ‘What’s driving you crazy about men (so far) entry caught my eye.  One issue in the list of "here are other stereotypes about men that some of you DON’T agree with" was: I don’t believe that all men are intimidated by a strong woman.

I can understand why this often-repeated comment might strike others as incorrect.  ‘men are intemidated by strong women’ assumes a great deal that I question.  Having seen the statement used, I question that the origin of this phrase really understood what ‘intimidated’ and ’strong’ mean.

What is meant by ’strong woman’? Several individuals that I have encountered, at work and socially, that profess themselves to be ’strong’ women, I found to be rude. By any etiquette, not just because of their obvious disregard for me.

To me ’strong’ should be used for strength of character, for endurance. And for depth of emotional involvement. Equating tactics reminiscent of ‘tough love’ (used to manage and discipline those that are socially violent and maladjusted emotionally) to ’strong woman’ is, I think, destructive to women’s image and derogatory to the strong women among us. The ability to say ‘no’ may or may not indicate strength. The ability to tie abuse, whether with profanity or not, to social interactions can only be crude, at least from my perspective.

‘Intimidate’ usually means: 1) to make timid; inspire with fear; 2) overawe, cow, especially with a forceful personality or superior display of fluency, fame, wealth, etc.; force into or deter from some action by inducing fear.  To frighten, subdue, daunt, terrify.  Wow.  Who in their right mind, man or woman, wants to affect their date in such a manner?  Or, having the capacity to affect another, wants to woo, attract, and deepen a relationship with another, by causing their date to fear them?  The overawe (similar to ‘baffle with bullshit’ or ‘dazzle with brilliance’) part might sneak into a date — we usually want to put our best foot forward, after all.  But how is a ’strong’ woman — from the perspective of this homily anyway, a person to be respected — supposed to be ignorant of the damage such shenanigans do to a relationship?

Years ago a woman wrote Ann Landers about dating an engineer that was ’so smart I couldn’t understand what he was saying’.  Ann responded, ‘If he was so smart, why couldn’t he figure out how to let you know what he was saying?’.  Really.  As I see it, when this statement, ‘men are intimidated by strong women’ is used, either a) the word is not ‘intimidated’, it is ‘disgusted’ or ‘offended by rudeness’ or ‘didn’t enjoy being manipulated’; or b) the word ’strong’ is really ‘rude’, ‘conceited’, ‘ignorant of responsible behavior in social situations’, or even ‘ignorant of getting along with others on an adult basis’.

On a date, the keywords are ‘enjoy’ and ‘evaluate’.  If you aren’t having fun most of the time with your date — be responsible, and get your tail home, and find another date.  Man or woman, a date is usually either followed by another social engagement, or not.  Until an actual marriage or mating ritual, each date is a trial, an opportunity to show the partner that they can enjoy having you in their life.  You take the opportunity to evaluate your partner for their ability to make your own life richer.  Emotionally you build respect, trust, delight, and commitment to their happiness with each social event.  Physically your body adapts, bonds with, your partner with each shared breath, each skin contact from holding hands to touching faces. The physical bond deepens with the time spent together.  So it is important to evaluate clearly, to closely watch for behavior, character, and emotional clues that your date isn’t … fun.  The physical bonding means that you want to allow time for your body to readjust to ‘center’ before trying again, and the number of ‘eligible’ good dates is limited, so we want to be reluctant to turn a date away for one unhappy experience.  So what does this say about the ’strong’ woman that intimidates the man she is dating?  When the effect is to drive a potential date away?  Sounds more like anti-social behavior or bad date-picking skills than something to be admired.  Usually.

I am a bit curious about whether any of these ’strong women’ tend to pick ‘trophy’ guys, meant to enhance their social or work position, or whether they look for ’strong’ parenting skills and aptitude?  Just a thought.

Powered by Qumana