“Women are emotional not logical.” “A lady should be seen not heard!” At some point or another we’ve all heard the stereotypes throughout time hinting at females being less intelligent. Offensive to some , but as of late the idea of a woman needing to dumb herself down in order to be considered attractive is becoming a commonly accepted concept. Although some songs like Jazimine Sullivan’s “Stupid girls” or Beyonce’s more popular “pretty hurts” seek to inform, young girls that putting all their value into looks is a sure way to end up heartbroken, and lost with identity issues. They encourage young women to love themselves and find strength from within.
However, many still believe their ability to be physically appeasing is much more
important when it comes to finding a partner. In a time where the beauty industry has reached an all time high (due to hair extensions, cosmetic surgery, makeup etc.. ). One must ask “Do you have to be a stupid girl to find love?
Sadly several theories support this ideal. The most common reason being offered is that intelligent women are harder to be in a relationship with. Many feel the smarter and more successful the woman, the less she values a man. According to the findings of Dr. Kate Ratliff of the university of Florida, “Deep down men may not bask in the glory of their successful girlfriends/wives. While this is not true of the women, men’s subconscious self -esteem may be bruised when their spouse/girlfriend excels pass them.” Ratliff goes on to say men automatically interpret their partner’s success as their own failure.
Since men are natural competitors this in turn causes him to feel she is his opponent. Ratliff based these findings on five sets of experiments she performed on 900 people. The results proved unanimously that men who dated women with higher intellect /more success fell in a
Somewhat depression like state. Their self esteem was directly affected! As opposed to men who were the more intelligent/successful partner proved to be more confident and self assured.
So what does this all mean? That we are raising our sons to believe his position as a man depends solely on his ability to be smarter then and more successful than a woman. Which means we are teaching our girls their minds are useless and their worth lies in their ability to remain physically attractive to a male. We raise our children to be incompatible. We raise our girls to be severely independent ,but raise our boys to be overly dependent on their mothers.
(Remember she sets the bases and the tone for his future relationships and interactions with women. She molds his ideal on women, what her role is and how it applies to him.) We are strict on the girls but lenient on the boys. We teach our girls their role is to clean, submit, remain pure and accommodate the male at all cost. We often judge our young girls harshly but overlook the irresponsible, destructive behavior of our boys: brushing it off as boys just being boys.
This lack of consistency causes both the young man and young woman to grow up
Confused about themselves and the actions of their partners. Men feel women have to be
subservient and objective, her purpose is to accommodate him. Therefore she feels all she has to offer is her physical body and her ability to stroke his pride and ego.
The result is a generation of young
women who hide their true potential and young men who base their self -worth/esteem on their ability to out do women.
Needless to say we have the power to change this dynamic. It begins in our very households. Author Tony Gaskins said when a man realizes his woman is a team-mate and not his opponent, that’s when his life begins to change. We need to encourage our children to understand the importance of both genders.
Help them realize that they need each other and should not fear the growth of their counter partners but realize that the more enlightened they become , the greater we as mankind become. Teach your sons and daughters to strive for a mate who is educated, enterprising and ambitious (be it male or female! ) because a pretty face fades but a beautiful mind, heart and soul last a lifetime!
