Ladies,
I went to a women's conference recently, and we got on the topic of Mansplaining. Mansplaining is to comment on or explain something to a woman in a condescending, overconfident, and often inaccurate or oversimplified manner.
As women, we've all experienced this. It ranges from humorous to horrifying. But that's not what we're here to think about today.
If you're like me and you believe in 100% responsibility for yourself and your life, then let's not waste any more time on men we can't control acting foolishly.
Let's instead look at how WE may be acting foolishly and not even knowing it...
Men get a lot of bad press for they ways in which they are bad to women: too aggressive, emotionally cold, unfaithful, disengaged, self-absorbed, even abusive, the list goes on.
And in the climate of #GirlPower, we're hearing even more stories (some devastatingly truthful, and others overly-dramatized) about men behaving badly, to support the rise of women.
But what about the ways women are bad to men? We don't talk about this on a public scale, much less believe we do it.
Author, speaker and expert, Alison Armstrong, has been studying men for decades. She says often times women become what she calls "Frog Farmers." Some women in relationships turn frogs into princes, and others turn princes into frogs.
Which one are you?
It's easy to think that women don't do near the harm to men that men do to us. But there's nothing further from the truth. Though our ugly behaviors may not be as overt, they are just as damaging to our male counterparts.
Check out this list and see how you may be emasculating your man and not even knowing it.
HOW WOMEN EMASCULATE MEN:
Withhold appreciation
Withhold admiration
Withhold participation
Withhold sex
Don’t let them impress you
Compare unfavorably – be far more impressed by someone else
Don’t trust them
Assume insincerity
Don’t need them for anything important to you
Be disinterested in their passions
Complain
Mothering a man/checking on him over and over /treating him like a five-year-old
Expect them to act the same as girls/women
Don’t let them help you
Demean their earning abilities
Blow off their suggestions and ideas
Ignore them
Criticize them
Interrupt them
Rolled eyes
Tsk or scoffing sounds
Be impatient
Take over something you gave them to do
Demean their virility
Shut down their storytelling
By better understanding the impact of what we think as "minor behaviors," we can begin to see the full picture of why a relationship may struggle. When we shrink our man, we shrink ourselves.
If you want an extraordinary partnership (or friendship) with the men and boys in your life, it's time to start getting honest with ourselves about our part in the relationship.
Here's to allies, not enemies.
Love,
Brie
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Wanna know more about how our misunderstanding of men/boys can lead to challenges in relationships?
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