How To Treat A Woman

Ready for a controversial topic? Whether you agree or not, it’s worth thinking about.

Women are changing. The old rules about how to treat a woman don’t seem to make as much sense any more. However, if women change men have to change too, right? In this post I’m going to make a few suggestions as to what changes men and women can make to keep up with the changes in women.

Traditionally physical protection by men resulted in (unconscious) psychological losses for women. It went something like this, “If I need to protect you, you’ll lose status in comparison to me.” In other words one person became “dominant” over the other.

Unfortunately, that physical dominance most often generalized to emotional, psychological, and financial dominance as well. The problem for men is, too many depend upon this difference of physical strength (with some variability depending on the particular man) to define themselves as men. Luckily, this change in women will force men to “redefine” their masculinity on firmer ground.

In order for women to become “equal” to men in every meaning of that word, the issue of “protection” has to be redefined. Is it possible for men to protect women if they are physically stronger but without the other forms of dominance that have traditionally accompanied this kind of action? What would happen if protection became a “genderless” activity, expected of anyone who is physically stronger.

A lot of men might say, why do I need to protect a woman anyway, especially if I’m not going to get anything out of it? I would say, if you are physically stronger and the need to protect occurs, yes indeed, you will get something out of it. You’ll get to think of yourself as a “gentleman.” Now what is a gentleman?

A gentleman is someone who respects and handles the vulnerability of others with sensitivity. A gentleman has nothing to prove. He knows his own strength. A gentleman is someone who does not take advantage of people who are weaker than him. He does not take advantage of a person who is temporarily out of control for whatever reason. A gentleman does not take advantage of ignorant or highly suggestible people, either.

If you think about it, physical strength is certainly not the only form of strength there is. In fact, the strength of character and intelligence is often greater and far stronger, and you don’t even have to be a physically bigger person to use or abuse this power.

So how about a gentlewoman? Now that women are getting stronger and stronger in every way there is to get stronger and stronger, they too need to remain “gentle” and not abuse the power they have. They are now as susceptible as men have been to the abuse of the power that they are now generating for themselves.

The bigger and stronger among us, regardless of gender, have the responsibility and obligation to protect people, of either gender, who are vulnerable and of lesser strength of character or body. Women get a chance to redefine themselves as women without reference to the “weaker sex” and men get to do the same without depending upon “physical dominance.” Look at the advantages. Everyone gets to re-define who they are as “people” on a deeper level of themselves.

As we all discover and rediscover the “strengths” we have as persons, what happens when we fall in love. Is anybody going to be voluntarily vulnerable? Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, mother nature has something in mind. According to her, vulnerability is required for true love to be experienced. Two strong people in love? Alternating vulnerabilities? Figure that one out.

Comments? Welcome. Dr. T. Jordan