Apparently, if you are a strong woman, you aren’t gonna get married.
Many of you have probably already seen this – considering it has 1,867 comments and 23,746 FB shares and counting – but nonetheless, I’m gonna throw my two cents in on Tracy McMillan’s (did anybody else think it was Terry McMillan writing at first?) article, Why You’re Not Married. Cause I’m a woman. Who’s not married.
First things first – I actually agree with some of her arguments. I agree that “you are enough right this minute. Period. Not understanding this is a major obstacle to getting married, since women who don’t know their own worth make terrible wives.” Absolutely.
I concur that if you are having sex with a man who is blatantly clear that he doesn’t want a relationship with you, or is married, or will only meet up with you after 11pm and you are “waiting for him to figure out that he can’t live without you – he will never ‘figure’ this out. He already knows he can live without you just fine. And so do you. Or you wouldn’t be lying to him in the first place.”
I believe that “if whatever you’re doing right now was going to get you married, you’d already have a ring on it.”
But I don’t believe that being married is the ultimate way to define a woman’s worth. Or that to be married, you have won some sort of maturity award, having deeply evolved as a human being, partner, woman of the world (there are plenty of married teen mom reality shows to prove that, right?). Apparently, this is what McMillan believes.
I could also go on a bit about taking advice from a woman who has been married three times and divorced three times who claims to be “born knowing how to get married” but apparently has no idea how to make one last and therefore defeats her case from the get-go – in my eyes at least – but I shall abstain. Well, sort of. But my main concern is that she is basically asking women to hide their feelings, downgrade their standards, and never take their own selves into consideration since “the problem is not men, it’s you.” (are we shocked this woman writes for Mad Men?)
Apparently it’s a horrible thing these days to expect men to act like men instead of boys. We should bow to their every video-game playing whim with their inability to string together a coherent expressive thought and penchant for banging us they way they watch men fuck on youporn. Yes, oh yes, just smash into me just like that and I’ll scream in the opposite of orgasmic ecstasy, baby.
Wait. Thing is, I don’t actually know any guys like that. And wait, I don’t actually know any of the ridiculously and unjustly stereotypical women McMillan is describing in her article, either.
The fact of the matter is, woman or man, we are all complicated beings who have chosen to walk a certain path in this lifetime, to learn our own lessons. Any one of us can and do possess traits at one time or another that McMillan refers to. And yes, learning how to love one another – and stay in love with one another – for the messy beings that we all are is probably the single greatest hardship (and achievement) any of us will ever experience. But to lower your standards – as a woman or a man – in order to be married just seems like the most ridiculous concept in the world to me.
Maybe I still wouldn’t be married right now even if I had wanted to be. But I haven’t wanted to be. A huge part of that was about learning to love myself truly, madly. It’s a journey I will continue on for the rest of my life. Yet in learning to love myself more deeply over the last several years, guess what started to happen? Better men began to show up in my life. MEN. Not boys (hence not knowing anyone like what I stereotypically described above).
I wholeheartedly believe we pull towards us what we believe about ourselves, mostly because I watched it happen in my life. When I was working through being loved and accepted by my family, I attracted my 55-year-old boss and my 52-year-old professor. When I was attempting to be all sexified on the outside because I didn’t believe I was good enough on the inside, I attracted a personal trainer who was a liar only out for sex. When I wanted to learn about love but not with the person I was “ultimately” going to be with, I attracted a married man. Now I have a man who embodies all the qualities I’ve been looking for and more. The equation is pretty damn simple when you stop and look at it.
And guess what? I don’t need to be married to him to see my worth both in and out of the relationship.
I don’t agree with McMillan’s approach to getting women to love themselves by telling them they’re being bitchy, selfish, a liar, shallow, and a slut. But I do agree with getting women (and men) to love themselves first, and then they will attract a mate of equal value.
Maybe her article will shock some women into looking at their own negative views of themselves (and shock some women out of the “princess fantasy so universal, it built Disneyland”). But when I think above love, I think about building up, not tearing down.
What do you think about McMillan’s piece?
[Feature image: bandita]
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About the author
Christine Garvin is a health writer who holds an MA in Holistic Health Education and is a certified Nutrition Educator. She writes for and edits the holistic health site, Living Holistically, and co-edits Confronting Love. She spends entirely too many hours on the computer each day, but squeezes in dancing hip-hop and bhangra and doing yoga as much as possible. An avid traveler, she lives just outside of Asheville, NC where new-age-meets-Billy-Graham. Follow her on Twitter @livingwholesoul or on her FB page.
