For Women Only?

Last fall, I randomly read a book called For Women Only by Shaunti Feldhahn. The book is written for women in hopes of enlightening them about the inner workings and needs of men in general. I think it made some interesting and important points, though I’d like to get more male input on my own as proof for or against the points that were made. To be honest, though, there were some really big topics in the book that I was uncomfortable accepting to the point that I spent about an hour in the shower crying about it, because it just seemed so unfair. At times, the book seemed to be endorsing the stereotypes and pressures put on women in society that I was internally always trying to fight against. In this blog post, I will commence to rant about some of my frustrations with the book and hope to maybe gain some other people’s opinions in response.

Many of the claims were stated as if they must come as a shock to women, when to me, they seemed like commonly endorsed opinions within the groups of people I have known throughout my life—which mainly means the Christian community. It was all particularly frustrating to me because I related to so much of what the book was saying was supposed to apply to men, and it was implied that these traits were mainly exclusive to men. It could just be that I am the odd exception amongst the female community. Somehow, though, I don’t think I am. Anyway, I found it pretty hilarious that I was reading a book to help me understand men, and ended up treating it somewhat as a self-help book. I would read about a “male” need and want to scream out “Oh my goodness, that’s me!!” It has driven me to report to the world that many of the needs described therein are not strictly male. One of these is the need for respect.

There’s this all too common thought, especially within the Christian community, that “Men want respect, and women want love.” Now, I don’t know about all you other women and men out there, but this idea has always really frustrated me. Why? First of all, because you can’t have one without the other. You can’t show someone love without respecting them, and you aren’t respecting someone if you haven’t chosen to show love to them.

Feeling respect, at least for myself as a woman, is definitely a core need of mine. It was mentioned in For Women Only that saying “I love you” satisfies a primary inner desire of women whereas for men, the equivalent of that is “I’m proud of you.” Well, from my own experience as a woman, usually if someone tells me that they love me, I always want to ask them “why?”. “I love you” is often not enough. There are many times when hearing “I’m proud of you” fills some need within me much more than any simple “I love you” statement. The book went on to claim that it was important to show your man that you respect him by letting him make the decisions. As a person who hates making decisions, my particular personality would love a little (or a lot) of help in making them, but I am not any less intelligent and my input should be valued and respected, as in taken seriously, and seriously considered because I am respected. Because the other person sees me as someone who has intelligent thoughts and ideas to contribute. Because they believe that I am capable of making a good decision.

Continuing on, (if I'm remembering correctly and I'm not confusing it with something else that I read, in which case I apologize to the author) the book had the gull to suggest that you should allow your man to be right--as if letting him pretend that he’s right when he’s not is going to make him any righter or will challenge him to grow! To me, if the guy can’t back down and admit he’s wrong when he is, then he has some insecurity issues that he needs to work through and the same goes for women. I’m sorry, there’s a time to agree to disagree, but I’m not going to sacrifice truth for the sake of a man’s (or woman's) ego. I like a guy who has the cojones to admit when he’s wrong. If respect is what he’s looking for from me, then being receptive to what turns out to be the truth, no matter who claims it, is one step towards making me want to respect him without him trying to force it with some “I have ultimate authority and the right to being right” statement. Plus, correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t it be so much more freeing to the guy to know that he doesn’t have to be right all the time? That his wife respects him much more for his humility and integrity than his self-gratifying, ego-building, false “I’m always right” complex? I’m not saying that is a problem with all guys. I’m just addressing a supposed need as stated in the book.

The book also talked about the "secret" male insecurity that the rest of the male population will find out that they are an “impostor”. That they really don’t have it all put together or that they don’t have what it takes despite the public image that they’re attempting to uphold. My first response to this is, should we really care that much about public image in the first place? My answer to that response is, “probably not”. To me, this looks like another pride problem that is not just exclusive to men. We should care about others’ opinions in that we should want others to know that we are trustworthy so that we can help them and be there for them when they need it. But if the main focus is self-glorification, then we need to change our outlook. This fear of being an impostor mindset is something that I personally need to work on as it causes much anxiety for me in social situations and hinders me from actually benefiting others at times when I have something to offer them. But mainly my idea for bringing this up is, yet again, that this fear isn’t exclusive to men. As a woman, it is a fear that imposes itself upon me in job interviews, in getting dressed every day, and in my daily interactions with others. It’s a fear that others will see me as a broken, imperfect human, when in reality, I am. I need grace. It’s just as much of an attempt to prove to myself that I have it together as it is to prove to others the same thing. A little humility and knowledge that God will offer us grace, though others may not, should be our focus in helping to calm these fears. Still, it’s good to be aware of this fear, and it’s good that the book brought it to light.

But now for the part that really made me cry for myself and for the rest of womankind… the topic of women beautifying themselves for men. The book talked about the idea that men LOVE when women make themselves beautiful for them. I can imagine. I’d like it if a guy tailored his appearance to my liking as well. Basically it said that it was particularly important to a man that their woman make the effort to look beautiful for them. Okay, I agree. They should. And it goes both ways. The part that frustrates me is that at what point do you say that too much is too much? At what point is striving to better your physical appearance going too far? At what point does that become self-obsession, unhealthy, and vain? Especially when you combine it with the book’s idea that men want to “show off” their wives in public. That they take their wives’ beauty as a personal reflection on themselves and that it’s important that they are beautiful according to others’ opinions. Again, what’s with this self-glorification thing? That’s probably my main annoyance with the whole book besides the man versus woman problem.

The book mentioned things like men being willing to pay more or do extra things in order for their wife to do their beautifying stuff. That’s good. But when you start to mention things like men being totally enthused about driving their girls to tanning salons, and liking them to wear makeup, I start to question how far this should be going. The book didn’t suggest this, but it seemed to imply that it wouldn’t be a bad idea. I mean, it’s fine if girls wanna do that. I often like wearing makeup, but basically, if I was married, my husband would (hopefully) have married me for me. My skin is naturally a certain color and my husband would know that. I should be beautiful without makeup, and I would hope that he thought I was as beautiful as I was when he married me. God made my face and my husband chose to marry me, so that better be good enough for him without anything added. There should be no extra expectations that I would try to form myself to some certain societal mold of beauty. It would hurt me intensely if I sensed that my husband (this is obviously all hypothetical seeing as I’m not married) thought that I would be more beautiful if I tried harder to look like someone else's ideal. I understand him wanting me to keep healthy and clean to maintain my natural beauty, though aging is inevitable. That seems fair to me. I personally enjoy playing with style that may or may not be a bit outrageous at times. My husband will just have to know this about me and love me for it. I mean, if he has some sort of professional work party or something that he has to go to and I’m invited, I might tone it down a bit. Maybe. Okay probably. And if there's something I wear that he really, really hates, I might give it up. But my husband better not treat me as if I’m an object who’s there to make him look good. I’m not saying that this is what the book was proposing, but it was in need of some clarification on this point.

That’s really all I can think of for now. I only borrowed the book so now I’m going off of memory. To conclude, there were some good points in this book, but there were also some really frustrating ones that were worth questioning. And so I just did! The question of gender roles and how they should play out in marriage is a topic that has really been on my mind as of late. Thoughts anyone?