As women of 2013 and beyond, we are expected to be the wonder woman. We are expected to have discovered the magical balance between maintaining the home as gender roles, society and history have taught us and being new age women of the workplace, making our own money. While neither niche is any less relevant or important than the other I wonder to myself how much pressure men feel to do the same.
What I mean to say is, have the roles changed for men as well? Are the expectations we have of the kings in our lives raised to a new standard, or has the independent woman made the lives of men that much easier? Are we demanding less of men as we demand more of ourselves?
Years ago, the best a girl could hope for was to find a good man, with a good job. Your ambitions revolved around this future you envisioned, wherein your future husband was the centre of your life. His contribution was invaluable. Poor thing, what would you ever do if he left you? Divorce rates were low and the nuclear family reigned supreme. Normal was normal and any variant of it was frowned upon.
Something happened, however. Things changed and women became contenders in the world of making money. Equality attained entirely or not, no one can deny that fact. We are completely able and even expected to live out lives without men. There goes that husband-central mentality. Now this man, who we greatly NEEDED before is no longer a necessity. Now your good man, with a good job is like... an accessory. While having him is nice, should he vanish tomorrow your world would keep spinning. Your rent would still get paid, you wouldn't go hungry, nothing would stop. So now you don't need a man to do those things for you, so what? Well, what do you need him for? Sex? Please. Dick is a dime a dozen (and so is pussy).
So you got your shit together, right? You make your own money and don't ask anybody for anything. A dude with all his shit together will probably really like you. A broke dude will too. Let's not ignore the fact that we are women, we have feelings whether we want to acknowledge them or not. We want somebody to love and to love us. What greater thing is there than that? Here comes the dilemma: in this current situation where self preservation and stunting is above all, where appearances matter and we damn sure care what people think, what's more important? The love? Or the money?
Really. Serious question.
Should you love blindly and whole heatedly? Loving a man with ambition, drive, potential to be something great, even if he hasn't reached greatness yet? Or learning to love a man who appears to have it all figured out already? I suppose that sounds a bit biased, so let me flip it. Should we set our standards at a certain point, regarding anything less than what we want and feel we deserve (and plenty times we damn well deserve it) as settling for less? Should we demand excellence from the very beginning? Life is both too long and too short to blindly invest in anything, isn't it?
Has not needing a man now given them the option to take their time becoming the providers they once were in the name of ambition and potential? Are we complaining about the pitfalls of being with a guy who's on the come up, only to enable him?
I adore a guy with ambition. I love that passion that drives him to attain goal after goal and how happy an accomplished man is. It's dope to be proud of your king. Why shouldn't you share in his victories and cheer him on? In fact many great men are where they are now because they had a dope chick with them.
I guess what I'm really wondering is: where is the line? How much are we supposed to expect our man to do for us, since we can do it all for ourselves now? Should we expect him to take care of us if we've worked so hard to prove he doesn't have to? Maybe that's the point. Is that the new role men are meant to play? Should we be searching for a guy who has proven he can do better than ourselves? Are we doing something wrong if our king isn't there...yet?
Who's a better woman? The one supporting and standing by her ambitious man? Or the one who held out for a guy who could put the icing on her cake?
The Articulate Bitch
You raised a lot of good points . as a man whos been on both sides of the table ( broke and financially secured) i can honestly say that men suffer from very similar complexities. Just as a woman might develop the " if I can't do for self who am I ?" complex some men have or can develop the " if i can't provide for her what am I ?" complex. I myself suffer from that as we speak. I strongly believe that a person should do whatever it is that makes them feel self fulfilled and promotes a healthy state of mind but if she or he is ever in a position where they find themselves trying to decide between " Mr or mrs icing" and " Mr or mrs ambitious " i believe they are already setting themselves up to loose. I say this because men who do not struggle with their woman of choice only view their women as a commodity or prize not an equal or partner. Now more so to answer your question. I dont think anyone has the right to judge the decisions of another person when it comes to relationships .while yes " mr icing" may seemingly have it all figured out chances are yes the icing is thick but the cake is stale and box made. and while it may seem counter productive to stick and work with " mr ambitious " the results are very similar to grandmas christmas ham or oxtail where its not about how expensive the ingredients are but the time and dedication it took to perfect the recipe. Now i may seem bias but im all for team ambitious simply because in five , ten , fifty years they ll have a hell of a story and appreciate each other on a level that could never be bought and they ll actually be able to have their cake and eat it too, knowing the secret ingredient to that special recipe was nothing but a little extra love.. Go team ambitious . - signing off The ambitious nigga.
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