This is a comment by John Anderson on the post “Are Some Men Intimidated by Strong Women?“
John Anderson said:
Women are afraid of strong men. Men are afraid of strong men. Why wouldn’t you think men would be afraid of strong women or women for that matter. It’s not even fear of a person’s strength. It’s fear of the strength disparity.
When I was younger in shape and in practice, I was talking to a gorgeous young woman. She mentioned knowing taekwondo, which is the same art I took. She asked me what belt I was and noted that she was a higher belt and could “kick my butt”. I smiled and told her she probably could knowing that I had a 30 to 40 pound weight advantage, could bench over twice her weight and could curl her body weight. I could land 3 punches in about a second and 3 kicks in about 2 seconds. Was I intimidated at all by her higher belt? Not even slightly.
In other areas there are other forms of power. I work in IT. My bosses are female. Am I intimidated by their power to fire me. Slightly, but I’m much better technically than they are, have 25 years in the industry with 17 years at my current employer, I have what’s called expert power and I’m somewhat of a fixture where I work so I’m sure if something happened people would be questioning her decision. The power disparity is there, but it’s not huge and it shouldn’t be that difficult to find another job. In other words if I don’t do something egregious, I should be OK.
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Photo credit: Flickr / xinem
First, I think everyone’s comments here before mine are really interesting – that’s why I read this piece. So… I’m technically a “strong woman”. So odd to say it… please laugh with me. But I do say “technically” because I’ve been told it all my life. I don’t go around claiming day-to-day it because I agree completely with you guys that once you say it, not only is it utterly tacky, it’s suspect. And I know a few women who go around saying it and, yes, I agree they have complexes. But then, so do I, I guess. Mine is… Read more »
Its not that men are afraid of strong women.
Its just that women who are strong look down upon men who aren’t, feel the need to assert their strength and are too hung up on men ‘measuring up’ to them in every aspect.
Meanwhile strong men are too happy dating, courting and having relationships with women who are nowhere as strong as them.
Strength is not an absolute good. It is not always inherently good, and more strength is not always better. It is possible for a person to be too strong or too fixated on strength. It is possible for strength to get in the way of other positive attributes, such that strength makes a situation worse. If you tighten a screw so strongly that you strip it and it can’t be unscrewed, then your strength is a drawback. If you grip a glass so tightly that it shatters, then you’ve defeated the whole purpose of using a glass in the first… Read more »
I think trust is important too. I have two male friends who are very capable of violence, one is a semi-professional ultimate fighter, and the other is a nightclub doorman. I have only seen them use this capacity for violence in situations that are either self-defence or explicitly consensual. I trust them both not to hit me, even if we have a serious argument. If they were to use their capacity for violence to intimidate me then they don’t get to be my friends any-more. In principle I see no reason to treat a woman with a capacity for violence… Read more »
“Strong woman” is very similar to “nice guy” in some ways:
Self-reporting of either one can be horribly inaccurate, and is generally unreliable. You have to have a disinterested third party evaluate the person if you really want a fair assessment. For me, a woman who calls herself a “strong woman” over and over throws up a big red flag, as does a man who calls himself a “nice guy” over and over.
The one thing that I do find unnerving about self-proclaimed ‘strong women’ is that they tend to have a complex or fixation on the issue. They can be arrogant, opinionated, and selfish individuals who just like to throw their weight around. However, if someone were to put them firmly in their place, as one would do with a man of such a type, they could find themselves accused of misogyny, because such women have persecution complexes – in her own mind, she is obviously being resisted because she is a woman, not just because she is a selfish and annoying… Read more »
It’s like that old saw about being a lady – if you have to keep insisting you are, you ain’t.
I think a more obvious source of fear is that people measure each other by butt kicking potential.