Independent women are everywhere. Heather Parks gives us 5 things you should know about them.
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What exactly makes an “independent” woman? This can mean anything, depending on whom you ask, but let’s start somewhere, shall we?
The independently-minded woman lives by her own rules, likes to make decisions for herself and tends to be very particular about what she wants.
She can be feminist in in attitude, while in keeping with its conventional definition, champions true equality of the sexes.
Emma Watson put it beautifully in her United Nations speech, when she said, “It is time we all perceive gender on a spectrum, not as two opposing sets of ideals.”
In fact, bringing others into our lives presents an important opportunity to exercise our independence in a productive way.
While the independent mindset can fall under a wide range of definitions, there are a few things with which we tend to universally identify.
1. We don’t mind spending time by ourselves.
In fact, we require alone time occasionally in order to reset. It gives us time to reflect, as we tend to be very introspective about who we are and what we want. We like to assess where things are and perhaps where we’d like to see them go.
We find peace in understanding not only our own needs, but those of our partners, as well. We may, at times, focus a little bit too much on the future but only for fear of creating distractions from our often-ambitious personal goals.
We need to feel comfortable with our relationships because we recognize them as significant investments of both time and emotion.
2. We take commitment very seriously.
We see relationships as initiatives that require work and beg 110 percent from both people. We take commitment to an overall relationship very seriously, but we take commitment to the individual even more seriously.
We carefully consider the emotional cost of jumping into a relationship so we can make productive decisions. We value relationships as opportunities to grow with someone who pushes us to be better individuals, so we choose them wisely.
This obviously does not mean we think all relationships are life-sucking obligations; we just want to ensure they’re given the attention we think they deserve.
3. We value our social lives outside of the relationships.
Nothing stresses us out more than the thought of not having our own friends. We need unique social lives aside from those created within the relationship.
It presents an important opportunity to grow independently of our partners and gain insight from our non-romantic counterparts who know us just as well, if not better.
These social lives are inclusive of the personal hobbies we may enjoy to help maintain our mental and physical well-beings and to give us that essential alone time to reflect, as well.
4. We are career- and goal-oriented.
One of the most defining characteristics of an independent woman is her drive to make her own money and to make a living entirely from her own hard work. The feeling of accomplishment to us is a high we need to earn by ourselves.
This does not go to say we don’t appreciate being treated to nice things once in a while, but we welcome the challenge of repaying the favor.
5. We appreciate a true gentleman.
To those true gentlemen out there, we sincerely applaud you. You are the ones who prove to us that chivalry is, in fact, not dead. Our hearts flutter when men hold the door for us, keep us warm when it’s cold, kiss us gently just because or tell us how beautiful we are.
We tend to maintain more of a traditional view of how a man should treat a woman and we pick it out of a crowd as if a sixth sense.
We may be reluctant to accept gifts, tangible or not, but we are truly grateful when we do because we recognize the work that goes into affording such things. These are the men for whom we hold out.
By Heather Parks
This post originally appeared in Elite Daily. Reposted with permission.
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Having graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo with a degree in Communication Studies, Heather continues to live the California dream, while she enjoys dancing and hot yoga to offset her obsession with frozen yogurt.
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I think women should be given as wide berth as men in achieving and living their independence. However, intimate relationships are give and take and require some vulnerability on both sides. Self absorbed independent people in my opinion need to understand that if they don’t want relationships to continuously fail, they have to show the appropriate amount of intimacy to feed the relationship. My attitude is, this relationship is a collaboration project. If you can’t be bothered to participate and hold up your side, keep on moving. Your sense of entitlement because of outward successes only impresses me for about… Read more »
My take on the career part of this article is that the writer is responding to the paradox many women still deal with: being portrayed as anything from lazy to a gold-digger if she is not working full-time and/or is being supported financially by her partner (even partially), or being a less-than-feminine (to put it nicely), driven, ambitious emasculator if she does care about having a career and can/wants to financially support herself. She didn’t say _anything_ about wanting to be identified only by her career, in the way that men have been unfairly pressured to be in the past.… Read more »
I can’t agree with this article in its entirety. I don’t NEED a man, but neither am I obsessed with having a career and I don’t panic at the thought of not having other friends than my man. I’m an introvert who’d rather spend their time exploring the ether, as it were, than worry about a career or lots of friends.
I feel the same, Lila. The first two items were spot on for me. But after that, it just didn’t fit. I could reframe them though to be a better reflection for me – but I wouldn’t presume that they’d fit others:
#3 – I appreciate relationships and connections with other people/things for what they can bring to me as an individual and as a partner
#4 – I am self-aware about the priorities and decisions I make in my life
#5 – I value men who display courtesy and kindness to people irrespective of their gender
She says “we”.
She means “I”.
We are all born with an “inner guidance voice” that continually lets us know what is best for each of us. When a woman or a man becomes truly independent is when she/he can clearly hear her inner voice and freely choose to follow/trust her inner voice AND clear out all the other voices inside her/his head.
True independence is as simple and as powerful as that. It takes “a life journey of growth” to arrive at independence and there are multiple pathways we can choose to travel upon. All pathways have the same starting line……Self Appreciation.
Yup, it sure did
Welll…we may not “need” a partner for financial security or to feel whole and self-confident but some of us independent women DO want-need-desire a partner who loves, cherishes, supports and challenges us as much as we do them. I’m unmarried because I have yet to meet a man who can and will be equal…on all fronts. I’m not loiking for a father figure, nor am I loiking to be any man’s mama figure. So…until then…I’ll still be enjoying my life and attaining my goals. Solo is much better than being in a negative relationship. But again…I speak only for myself,… Read more »
*looking (silly typos)
I’m with silke on this …. fine, be who you are but don’t make blanket statements about “independent women.” My wife is as independent as they come but truly doesn’t fit this mold or should I say “box” that’s being presented. She’s married, has kids and granbdkids, doesn’t work, gave up a business career to raise a family and is one of the most confidant women you will ever meet. There appears to be a misconception of “independent” People in marriages are very much independent people, have their own talents, skills, opinions, values, goals etc. At the very least, this… Read more »
But this article was about an independent woman who doesn’t need a man to fulfill her. That’s all. What is wrong with any of her points? I’ve noticed a trend based on age. That is a generalization of course but I’ve found it to be pretty consistent. Those who were early to experience feminist ideas tend to fight back more, as if holding on to the standards of our youth. Those who experienced later not as much so, and those who’ve lived their entire existence in it are like tje frog in warming water. They’ve adapted to it and it’s… Read more »
BTW, what is up with the software on this site???? Sometimes it says I’m a spammer and then it sometimes says to slow down as I’m posting too fast! Trust me that can’t be the case the way I type with one finger on my tablet. If I’m too fast for the site then the site is REALLY slow. Can someone somewhere fix this? How in the world do the writers get through this??? Or are they labelled spammers too???
Tom, sounds like your wife is in her 60s, possibly older. The author is talking about women who are not married yet, most likely the target demographic is in their mid-20s to mid-30s. Every woman who has lived a life to be a grandmother ought to be confident. She would have the battle scars to prove it.
Ha. Went over to see the source of this flatulence and below is a princely comment from one of the patriarchs that runs the world “Why is this deemed worthy of an entire article? You don’t see men going out of their way to write articles titled ” 5 reasons that men do not give a singular f$ck about 5 things we should know about women that don’t need us”. I never understood why women deem it necessary to constantly give themselves the pat on the back as if their life is so much more difficult than anybody else. The… Read more »
“We tend to maintain a traditional view of how a man should treat a woman.” Do you also tend to maintain a traditional view of how a woman should treat a man???
That behavior hasn’t changed since time began. Any woman with a bible or Quran in her hand, automatically follows the same script that has been handed down to women for centuries. Since that amounts to billions of women worldwide, your comment makes no sense.
Hi Heather
I am shocked that you give your self the right to speak for all independent women.
Speak for your self!
You did not any research before you wrote this did you?
I am not impressed.
You have no knowledge about this issue,.
#4 is a real kicker. Good gosh, I can’t count the number of articles much less the responses that berate men who take the same position. Countless articles that tell men that they have been harmed by patriarchy because it’s claimed to have boxed men in. That men should not value themselves as the position they hold or the money they make. Yet here we have women almost wearing it as a badge,m flaunting that which men are being told is wrong to do. Wow, double standards. Ya’ll gonna tell women what you’ve been telling guys? You are not your… Read more »
A woman feeling empowered about her career is different from the societal pressures traditionally placed on men to be “breadwinners”, and the damage that’s resulted from that pressure. You’re grasping so tightly onto the straws you’ve pulled from this article that your comment sounds ridiculously conspiratorial.
Thank you, Stephen. You get it.
I will never understand why a woman wanting to or actually being, financially independent is considered by some people to be such a bad thing.
Who would want to carry dead weight?
Having lived through the feminist movement of the 70’s and having seen women experience it, I can tell you many women feel pressured. To say that they don’t feel that way is to insult women, it’s to say that women’s feelings don’t count. I assure you, I know this based on my experiences with “career” women, they are experiencing the same as what men experienced. I said many many years ago, “careful what you ask for, you may get it.” Now women have it and we’ve been seeing the adverse physical and mental effects. The difference is that women are… Read more »
“We tend to maintain more of a traditional view of how a man should treat a woman and we pick it out of a crowd as if a sixth sense.”
Well… that’s convenient.
8ball, VERY convenient. But what exactly is a “traditional view?”
That means he believes that men give up their seat on the bus for pregnant women and old people, that they help their date or wife with her coat, that they walk a woman to her door to drop her off and come to the door to pick her up, they don’t tell raucous nasty jokes or use profanity around women, they bring flowers, they give compliments, they pull out chairs, they walk on the outside of the curb, they ask for dates instead of saying “lets hang out” like she’s a buddy. Those are just a few of the… Read more »
Always thus.