Battle of the Sexes – Elimination Round Part 2

The Women

As a continuation from a previous post, I’m exploring the ladies contribution to the question: Of all the men/women you’ve encountered since you’ve been single, what’s the thing about them that you like the least -whether it’s one trait displayed by all/most of them or a single bad trait in one person that stood out. Gentlemen, I invite you at this point to start taking notes… See, there’s a terrible misconception out there that there are few if any good men left. The main problem is that the men who aren’t so good, a.k.a. assholes, are running wild out there and they’re tainting the female perspective with a lot of despicable behaviour. The experiences that women are having sometimes border on terrifying.

See, the ladies had issues with busyness, arrogance and fear of commitment which are understandable and can be somewhat linked to the issue of clinginess that the men made mention of. You’re spending time at work, trying to make that money, trying to get that promotion, trying to set that foundation that society tells you you need to set all by your lonesome. So you’re always on the go with very little time left to devote to building a serious relationship. The ladies are of the opinion that you’re so busy being busy that you can’t be present when we need you, or just want you.

The next thing was impatience. We know sex is easy to get now. We see the girls, ass out, offering to let you hit it because you’re cute, have money or whatever it is that’s floating boats and dropping drawers these days. OK. Fine. Nothing wrong with a sexually liberated woman. Nothing wrong with a woman who justs wants to fuck, with no strings attached. A lot of us, even the good girls, can be that woman under a certain set of circumstances. But if that’s all you’re about, all the time, understand that the opinion of you probably won’t evolve favourably; especially if you’re talking to a woman who’s looking for more than a few minutes of pleasure… And it’s better to just state your game plan from the get go.

But here’s where the jerks have the opinion cornered. Here’s where the perception of you gets muddied. The almost universal complaint is the duplicity and deceit that’s being practiced like it’s a Master’s course and you’re trying to graduate top of the class.  There’s a prevailing opinion that lying has become the norm, that we have to take everything you say with a grain of salt. And it’s not unwarranted. Almost every woman I know has a story about at least one male who has been outright deceitful, lying from the get go about his interest, intentions, relationship state or status, even his identity. The experiences we have seem to be telling us that men cannot and should not be trusted, that unless we fact check every word, we’re going to end up with a receipt for a bridge on one of Saturn’s moons and nothing more… This lying often presents itself as a defense mechanism after cheating which went hand in hand with this complaint and is inexorably linked to the fact that there’s no need to be patient anymore, no expectation of courtship or even long term dating…

Stop, I can hear you already. ‘But women lie too…’, ‘women cheat too’. Yeah. I know. And you know what. That’s the problem. We’ve been complaining about each other and using our past experiences to justify our present bad behaviour. And it’s happening on both sides. Every single point I’ve outlined above has been a complaint for the ages. Infidelity and duplicity are not new. Women have been abused and mistreated  for ages, bought and sold like chattel, treated like less and that treatment hasn’t changed much. The prevailing rape culture is adequate demonstration that as women, we still have a lot to fear from men.

But here’s where the battle lines got drawn… We have our own now. The instances, especially in the western world of women ‘needing’ men are few and far between and some of that sentiment is spreading east. All those complaints outlined above (and more) are why women fought tooth and nail for the right to vote, the right to own property, the right to access education, jobs, credit and a host of things that only men could obtain for a very long time. And now, we have them… Now we’re independent. Our sustenance and our survival is no longer tied to whether or not we find and keep a ‘good'(enough) husband. Women are no longer forced to suffer abuse and neglect and infidelity in order to have a roof over their heads and food to eat. We have the means and the outlets now to speak up. The men who approach us now have to bring more to the table than a good job (We have that), financial stability (have that too), assets (guess what, got that locked). We have what we need, so now men are being asked (and in some cases demanded) to be what we want. We’re looking for partners not providers, love and honesty, support and stability, consistency, rather than a means of survival.

What’s also happening is this… Women’s ability to provide for self, coupled with the deep disappointment we feel about the manner in which so many men have been treating us has birthed an ugly, divisive mess of anger, misogyny, misandry and an attitude of retribution. Blog sites like Black Girls are Easy chronicle the struggles of dating and fidelity and have (in my opinion) devolved into a battleground encouraging women to ‘date like a spartan’ with some pointers that launch themselves over the line of aggressive and are foraying into honest to goodness sparring (of the verbal and emotional sort). Social commenters like Derrick Jaxn produce countless posts literally begging men to adjust  their behaviour and their attitude towards women. Memes abound. It’s an emotional battlefield out there and it’s gotten messy.

So it’s 2016, and as women, we’re (reasonably) financially independent, educated, open-minded and fun loving and we’re sitting in our homes, watching social media, listening to the horror stories of cheating, deceit, and abuse and going ‘nah, I’m not going out there into that mess’. There are persons, men and women, who are honest, trustworthy genuine and emotionally stable, who are genuinely interested in a relationship, but whose experiences have tainted and jaded them to the point of solitude. If we keep this up, we’ll continue to see the Elder Orphan population grow, more countries will struggle with the reality of aging populations and neither of those outcomes is particularly pleasant.

So for those of us not interested in the continuation of this battle, might I encourage you to deal a little bit more gently with each other… Be respectful of each others boundaries, be mindful of each others expectations, be honest and fair in your dealings and please, allow your past experiences to make you cautious rather than combative, or we’re all going to lose the war…