Modern Men Should Know This About Modern Women

Picture this: it’s late, it’s dark and you are walking alone…

A stranger taps your shoulder from behind. You clench your fists to secure your keys strategically locked in between your knuckles as you turn around to see them…handing you the wallet you dropped a few streets back.

Out of the corner of your eye, you spot an unfamiliar car slowing down to keep pace alongside you. The passenger seat window rolls down and you can feel someone talking to you. Assuming they are making derogatory remarks, your pace is now nearly as fast as your heartbeat. Your eyes scan the streets for anywhere with more light, perhaps more people. Fearful and near hopeless, you tilt your head slightly to get a view of the driver…only for you to see a familiar face. Your old colleague is trying to give you a ride.

Many modern women are moving through each day with the same heightened awareness and intensity as we would have walking down a dark alley alone — questioning intentions and tracking sudden movements.

It’s not ideal, it’s not our fault. It’s a collective healing journey for individual women, men, and society as a whole.

As modern women, most of us are constantly analyzing, assessing, evaluating, and processing to keep ourselves safe (in every sense of the word) and it is exhausting.

Most of us remember when our boundaries were crossed, it took us years, centuries, and even lifetimes to pick up the pieces of our self-esteem or unlearn jaded world perceptions.

Some of us would rather pay the price of prevention than that of healing.

As a result, we may be hypervigilant; questioning intentions, processing environments, and overanalyzing signals. This is what we feel society obliges us to do.

So forgive us if we are a little “uptight”, or “defensive” or take things “too seriously”.

What if the stranger in the dark alley snatched your phone and ran up the street with it and later returned it to you shocked and confused about why you were so upset? “Relax, it was only a joke, I knew I’d give it back.”

What if your friend in the dark alley thought it would be a good idea to keep the windows rolled up and obstruct your path at every turn? They may know their intentions are not malicious but you don’t. And you’re on high alert.

I can’t speak on behalf of all women (obviously) so drop your $0.02 in the comments if you have something to add. In a given scenario, chances are that women like me are processing:

Understanding vs. self-respect

“She is too understanding. She is suffering from too much understanding,” my friend said about Love is Blind participant, Chelsea Griffin in response to her acknowledging and accepting that she was not her partner’s first choice and he has not received closure from the woman who was.

“All men want from a woman is patience and understanding,” my ex constantly repeated to me years ago.

What if being patient and understanding is at my expense?

Both in society and in our minds, outdated tales of the “pleasant” woman are at war with the multifaceted, complex woman who is a whole person, and not a non-player character programmed to support, entertain, and please a man.

This leaves today’s woman establishing boundaries and redefining her own womanhood somewhere between kind and strong, understanding and principled, selfless and selfish.

Often we are left wondering:

“Am I giving grace or making excuses?”

“Am I being taken for granted?”

“Do I respect myself if I stay?”

“If I walk away, would I be protecting myself, or yet another person abandoning them?

Sometimes having “zero tolerance” and “if…then…” rulebooks seem like the only option to alleviate us of these mental gymnastics.

Independent vs. supported

Similarly, many of us are constantly trying to find our true selves between our own internalized misogyny and convenient feminism.

A few days ago, Ciara dropped a new song, Da Girls and many women were not here for the I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T woman narrative.

It may seem strange considering just a few short decades ago we were yelling Destiny’s Child lyrics at the top of our lungs:

The watch I’m wearing, I bought it
The house I live in, I bought it
The car I’m driving, I bought it
I depend on me (I depend on me)

All the women who independent
Throw your hands up at me!

The pendulum of women’s independence swung from complete dependence on men, to complete independence in the 2000s. It’s now hovering somewhere in the middle (thanks to the soft life era). But not everyone understands the coexistence of both independence and support, so we still approach commentary on the subject with caution.

Selfless vs. selfish

Whether religious or not, the Proverbs 31 woman was the type of woman many of us were conditioned to see as #goals (long before that was a thing).

She works hard, loves deeply, and puts others before herself. And at the end of the day, all ye who walk the earth will call her #blessed. /s/

But she’s tired.

That’s the part that the men who wrote the Bible forgot to include. Like the women in Ciara’s comment section, the Proverbs 31 woman is tired.

All relationships are a balance of selflessness and selfishness — spouses, children, friends, family — at some point, others need us to set our needs aside to cater to theirs.

Our relationships with ourselves also require our attention and judging when to choose Self over others is case-by-case.

Victim-blaming vs. accountability

Sometimes when we can’t face the inner critic, we project it, judging other people as unlovingly as we judge ourselves.

Years ago when I visited a small town in Spain, a man followed me around in his van insisting I jump in — he could afford me. Certain people I told (and tell) the story to immediately ask what I was wearing.

I no longer validate that question with a response. My human-ness should be the primary concern.

Being on guard for victim-blaming disguised as accountability, some of us women may already be in defensive mode by the time you ask your first question.

Sure, your intentions may be good; you want to “understand the source,” “get the full picture,” or “find a solution,” but most times we need empathy first. Not just women, but your boys probably need it too.

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In conclusion, this is not to make excuses for poor behavior. Hopefully, it just sheds light on why a woman you love might react as she does.

Society is evolving but not everyone is getting the memo at the same time. Women in your life may have to question you, check you, and correct you to bring you up to speed with who the modern woman really is. It’s all #growth.

Here’s what I’ve been thinking about in 2023…

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Thank you for reading! Though Women’s History Month has come to an end, let’s keep the conversations going 365!

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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