I am a woman with a strong personality. I am not a bitch. I do carry an inner bitch which I allow out when needed, but I see no value in being that bitch. There is a happy medium.

My husband knew I had a strong personality when he met me. It helped that he was used to a mother with a strong personality. Not a very nice personality, actually, but at least he had no background of expecting a submissive woman.

I don't do submissive. I wasn't raised that way. My mother was a woman with a strong personality, as was my grandmother, and my great-grandmother. I believe a lot of this stuff is cultural, you see, at least within the culture of one's own family. It was taught in the gentility of Victorian society, that a woman was submissive to her husband.

Well, my Victorians weren't gentility, they were fishwives, so we skipped that little cultural trap.

Some women, to a greater or lesser degree value the submissive woman thing. Not always for the right reasons, either. You know, it's none of my business, but I certainly wouldn't encourage it. The only advice I've ever given my daughters is "go easy on him, he's only a man".

Men making decisions for the family? No. Even if they are the sole income provider that doesn't work. It may be "his" money, but he isn't the one running the show, and he has no real feel for what's needed and what's not. If the woman is a spendthrift then it's time to discuss a budget, not treat her like a kid.

You became a couple because you fell in love. The decision was to be a partnership. Whether you married or not, the day you began to live in the same house and share the bills, because you loved one another, there was a tacit partnership agreement. There was no agreement of master and slave.

(Occasionally there is, and that's none of my business either, but I fail to see the benefit. Well, to the slave anyway. The benefit to the master is bloody obvious.)

Anyway, partners. Not one boss and one yes person. Agreements. Compromises. Taking turns. Sharing.

I have a very old-fashioned marriage where for the most part, he brought home the money, and I ran the house. This was our agreement. Occasionally I've had people think that this meant I was submissive.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

(Martin, if you read this, if I hear choking, I'll help you up off the floor).

Somewhere in my husband's wildest dreams, I do something his way. Once.  Briefly. Pity about those wild dreams. eh.

BUT, and this is very important...this does not mean I boss him about. It wouldn't work anyway, he has an equally strong personality. I need that in a man. I could not tolerate a submissive man any more than I could be a submissive woman.

So some wonder how this works.

ROFL

Well, to begin with we talk to each other. We ask. There are times that a compromise has to be struck, but generally we have "areas" where one or the other's needs "win". I would never dream of going out into the garage, re-organizing it, or throwing out his stuff. He would not try to touch..........well, pretty much everything else actually, but again, in fairness, I'm here all day and he isn't.

He is not expected to do ANY housework. Same reason. In fact he often cooks, and will do laundry, dishes etc without actually being asked. But as the bacon provider, he gets to put his feet up of an evening.

Every couple has to sort stuff out for themselves, who does what, who earns what, who pays for what, yada yada. Every family is different, you can't follow anyone else's model.

But that's practical stuff.

No matter what else, no man has the right to conquer a woman's spirit, and that's where this blog came in. Karen wrote about shrinking violets, women who defer to their men to make decisions. Like those Victorians who did not let their wives read newspapers. They were expected, in conversation, to parrot their husband's opinion.

Some men are dictators. They dictate who she sees, what she does, where she goes. But above all they affect what she thinks.

That's not a partnership. That's abuse.

Somebody forgot what they became partners for.

There's no wiggle room here. If you marry, or simply move in together, you are partners, and to treat a partner as anything less than an equal, an equal mind, an equal body, an equal spirit, is wrong, it is abusive, and it is NOT love. Ever. There is no love in domination. There is no love in "it's for her own good" (OR VICE VERSA). There is no love in punishing one's partner. Punishing! That's what we do for crimes.

It's not even funny. "I got him back". Did you? Why? Don't you love him? Do you remember why you got together in the first place?

Of course you're not going to agree on everything. DUH. Of course there are days when you  could strangle your partner. Nobody said that a partnership was an easy ride.

A strong woman goes into a relationship with her eyes wide open. She does not think that it will be "romance" all the way. She does not think there will never be discord. She does not, if she's sane, think she can fix HIS bad behaviour with HER submissive behaviour. That is a spiral downwards, it is bad news, it will lead to tears.

If a man was a saint, then maybe, just maybe, a submissive woman would be OK. But men aren't saints. They are human. They easily fall into behaviour patterns that would take advantage of submissive women, and just for good measure, grow to hate her for exactly that submissive nature. And dump her and move on.

And we can blame the men, if we like, but they are only taking advantage of a situation.

I blame the mothers. What we teach our daughters.

In Africa, it is the women who encourage and perpetuate female genital mutilation, for the same reasons.

Yeuk.

 

Plain folk common sense