Welcome to Feminine Friday!
It's confession time - up until this week, Feminine Friday has been relatively easy for me in the couple of months I've been doing it. For the last few months, I taught music two afternoons a week at a Christian school and one of those afternoons just happened to be Friday! This made it much easier to decide to dress up since I needed to look nice for work anyway! But I officially wrapped up my year last night at our Spring program. I got up this morning and decided I've had fun doing the "girly" thing and was doing Feminine Friday again! So here's today's picture (I chopped off the head because I've been running errands on a slightly windy day with occasional sprinkles so the hair has not survived well AT ALL!) Truth be told, I've worn skirts or dresses more often than not in the past few weeks. As I've said in earlier posts, I just behave differently! I guess clothes really do make the woman!
Earlier today, I was thinking back to a conversation I had with a friend during a theater production we were doing together. This man does not attend church and frankly feels no desire to do so. I tell you that only to emphasize the fact that his statement was not coming from a religious/faith-based background. During a discussion about relationships and the troubles they face, he looked and me and said the following -
"Forgive me if this sounds sexist, but the feminist movement has not done you ladies any favors when it comes to relationships." He went on to assure me that he was all for things like equal pay for equal work, etc., and that he believed women were equal to men in intelligence, ability, and the like. When I asked him to explain what he meant, he had this to say: "Feminism encourages you to play down the very thing that we men find so appealing. You lose all of your power when you put aside your femininity. It doesn't make you weak when you are softer or more "girly" - it makes us want to move mountains for you! Why can't women understand that our need to protect you is not an indication of how weak and useless we think you are, but an indication of how valuable you are to us?"
Ironically, after a few decades of trying to beat men down and prove to everyone how worthless and flawed men are, there seems to be a movement back to more "old-fashioned" roles. The book entitled "The Surrendered Wife", which talks about a return to more "traditional" roles in the marital relationship, was NOT written from a faith-based or religious perspective but rather from the point of view that men and women have needs that are unique to their genders and we get along better when we celebrate those differences and work together lovingly rather than trying to deny the differences exist. I've met a number of women both in person and via the internet who are looking at what is happening to the state of marriage in our nation and saying "enough".
I'm going to share with you an acrostic that I found in a book entitled "Love and Respect". This acrostic helps me remember the needs that are most vital to my husband and focuses my attention on meeting those needs. (Warning: I do recommend the book I just mentioned but only if you are SERIOUS about being confronted!)
Here's the acrostic:
C - Conquest (in other words, he wants to "slay dragons" for you!)
H - Hierarchy (to be "first among peers")
A - Authority
I - Insight
R - Relationship (but not in the way we think, ladies!)
S - Sexuality
I won't attempt to go into these in-depth. I wouldn't do the book justice. But if I can focus on protecting these areas in my relationship with my husband and let him know that I see and appreciate his efforts, he feels respected and I have helped build him up.
As much as I may not like it, the purpose of marriage is not to make me happy. I am called to focus on meeting my husband's needs. It's taken far longer to get here than I would have liked. But I'm going to make sure he is taken care of and trust God to see that my needs are met.
Earlier today, I was thinking back to a conversation I had with a friend during a theater production we were doing together. This man does not attend church and frankly feels no desire to do so. I tell you that only to emphasize the fact that his statement was not coming from a religious/faith-based background. During a discussion about relationships and the troubles they face, he looked and me and said the following -
"Forgive me if this sounds sexist, but the feminist movement has not done you ladies any favors when it comes to relationships." He went on to assure me that he was all for things like equal pay for equal work, etc., and that he believed women were equal to men in intelligence, ability, and the like. When I asked him to explain what he meant, he had this to say: "Feminism encourages you to play down the very thing that we men find so appealing. You lose all of your power when you put aside your femininity. It doesn't make you weak when you are softer or more "girly" - it makes us want to move mountains for you! Why can't women understand that our need to protect you is not an indication of how weak and useless we think you are, but an indication of how valuable you are to us?"
Ironically, after a few decades of trying to beat men down and prove to everyone how worthless and flawed men are, there seems to be a movement back to more "old-fashioned" roles. The book entitled "The Surrendered Wife", which talks about a return to more "traditional" roles in the marital relationship, was NOT written from a faith-based or religious perspective but rather from the point of view that men and women have needs that are unique to their genders and we get along better when we celebrate those differences and work together lovingly rather than trying to deny the differences exist. I've met a number of women both in person and via the internet who are looking at what is happening to the state of marriage in our nation and saying "enough".
I'm going to share with you an acrostic that I found in a book entitled "Love and Respect". This acrostic helps me remember the needs that are most vital to my husband and focuses my attention on meeting those needs. (Warning: I do recommend the book I just mentioned but only if you are SERIOUS about being confronted!)
Here's the acrostic:
C - Conquest (in other words, he wants to "slay dragons" for you!)
H - Hierarchy (to be "first among peers")
A - Authority
I - Insight
R - Relationship (but not in the way we think, ladies!)
S - Sexuality
I won't attempt to go into these in-depth. I wouldn't do the book justice. But if I can focus on protecting these areas in my relationship with my husband and let him know that I see and appreciate his efforts, he feels respected and I have helped build him up.
As much as I may not like it, the purpose of marriage is not to make me happy. I am called to focus on meeting my husband's needs. It's taken far longer to get here than I would have liked. But I'm going to make sure he is taken care of and trust God to see that my needs are met.
1 comment:
wow. great post. It was nice to hear a man's perspective!!
Post a Comment