Ophelia

[amenaspointyhat]

The gender divide: Where you end and I begin

I was reading this article by Rabbi Schmuley and it reminded me of a distant and faint idea that I once had about men and women

Comments

[amenaspointyhat]

I don't want it to seem like I am supporting the 1950s view of gender roles and relationships. That I am not. I think that we each should be independent and self sufficient, even emotionally, to some degree. I wonder, though, if not knowing where to bend, where to compromise, where to let someone in to help carry the load is damaging in the end. In my life, work and personal, I make it easy for other people to slack off, and worse, to not help when I need it. I am questioning if Rabbi Shmuley is right and we have become desensitized to some gender specific qualities. Women and men think differently; this doesn't make one less capable than the other but are we dishonoring those differences by having an attitude that says "we don't need you!"
We do.
I just recently grasped the idea that men need women. They need us and want us as badly as I ever thought a girl wanted a guy. But even in needing that woman, they need someone different from themselves. I think I straddle the line too well. Just one of the guys and all. I only distract them with my very large breasts. Bless it, because if I was a smaller girl and had less boobage I would probably never have a chance.

And this sailor worthy potty mouth doesn't help.

I am just thinking that the kinds of guys *I* attract like me for a multitude of reasons but in the end, I am not different enough for them. I used to think that it was drama that they craved but now I think that they are more interested in distinguishing that they love a woman and that the woman that they choose will need them just as much as they need her.

This makes sense in my head but I'm not sure if the words are coming out right. Arg.

[artemis_witch]

Ok. I think the good Rabbi is confusing need and want.

We do not NEED men. We WANT them. I think it's better to be wanted than needed. One is love. The other is resignation.

I want to be wanted and loved. I want someone to say "you are the ONE out of all the women I've met that I WANT here in my life". I do not want someone resigned to the necessity of my particular presence because I happen to be able to fulfill some role that they had in their mind (I'm not meaning just gender roles with washing the dishes and vacuuming or whatever either. I also mean the wifey role or the woman role or whatever some guy wants to chalk me up for..I don't want to be that!)

When someone NEEDS someone else for whatever reason, that's when they go running out to find someone they WANT on the side be it the whorehouse or some poor girl who works for them and thinks she can't find a guy other than this married one. Look at any politician and how he "needs" his wife and you see it there. Or many professional business men with the wifey at home that he "needs" to take care of his home and children...this is the guy that runs to the dominatrix on his lunch breaks.

I don't want to be needed. Abso-fucking-lutely not.

Being wanted is so much more loving. So much sexier. So much more...fulfilling.

I want to be wanted.

I think maybe we don't let the men in our lives know enough how much we want them there. How much they please us and make us happy when they are there with us and for us...I think the Rabbi is confusing emotional longing (want) with emotional resignation (need).

Make sense?

The guys that are attracted to you are attracted to you because you are an attractive female and they are heterosexual men...not getting along in personality etc in a relationship doesn't change that you are female and they are male. The right guy comes along and he will appreciate the things you have to bring to the relationship and want you to be with them...want you there. Want your love. Be willing to work with you towards developing that love...

And you now, the problem with "need" is that even I get called "too needy" in relationships and I make it a point to leave them be as much as I can.