The dilemma of female independence

I saw the following comment from a single woman in her 50s:

I'm independent and capable but would actually like someone to look after me, make me feel like I'm a priority.

She is caught between two things. The first is the social programming that women experience, which tells them to be, above all, independent of men. I was reminded of the force of this programming recently when talking to a female colleague. She told me that her mother's core message to her was to be independent, and that she herself had doubled down on this in raising her own daughters. She not only told them to be independent but that they didn't need a man in their lives.

However, there is also another kind of programming that we have, one embedded into our created natures. It is part of this nature for us to need, for the good of our own souls, a loving relationship with someone of the opposite sex. 

And so there is a conflict in the psyche of modern women. This conflict is not superficial because it touches on issues of formation. There is a pivotal moment in a woman's life in which she must choose between trusting a man, allowing her to release into her own feminine, receptive nature, or else relying on herself but then having to self-assert and control her environment. 

It is never an easy thing for a woman to trust, as it requires something of a leap of faith. But in modern life it is assumed anyway that the woman will aspire to become the self-assertive "boss babe" who is focused on career and autonomy and independence.

Both of the possible "pivots" that a woman can make come with potential problems. When women decide to be independent, the worst outcome is that she does not self-assert in the cool, calm manner expected of men, but that her style is a blustering one that comes across as pushy or bossy, and in which self-assertion becomes a desperate need to micro-manage and micro-control. A man who accepts a relationship with a woman like this will need vast amounts of patience to deal with it - most men will be put off. 

I don't think that this character type in women is entirely new. It is perhaps revealing that men in centuries past thought that it was most attractive for women to be demure, in the sense of being calm and settled, with composure and restraint, rather than being loud and attention-seeking. Maybe these men had seen the boss babe type in their own time and preferred something very different.

However, there are also potential negatives to women who pivot toward their feminine, receptive nature. In trusting to a man, and in being receptive, these women might develop an overly external locus of control. In other words, they will see the man as being wholly responsible for their own well-being and for their life outcomes.

This becomes especially damaging if a woman has unrealistic expectations; if she is constitutionally unhappy in life; if she is not oriented toward gratitude; or if she is not sufficiently capable in areas of life that require her own competence. 

Rejecting the mantra of independence is not supposed to mean that a woman becomes helpless or incapable, or that she does not have a moral mission that requires her to cultivate virtues and strengths of character. It is more that she feels able to lean into her husband, particularly for protection and provision, but also to provide some of the emotional stability, prudence and structure that she might not always be able to provide for herself, at least not consistently. He, for his part, will be drawn to her emotional warmth, her caring nature and the maternal qualities that she brings to the lives of his children.

It is a mistake for a woman to take independence as a goal in life. In doing so, she is less able to release into her feminine nature. She is less able to put her walls down, and to have the trust in a man that love requires. 

But a return to a vision of interdependence rather than independence won't be easy. It will mean challenging the liberal insistence on autonomy as the overriding good in life; it will mean rejecting a culture of casual relationships, which erodes trust between men and women even before a marriage has taken place; and it will mean rethinking the idea of the individual being supported within an impersonal, technocratic, universal welfare state, rather than through personal, familial relationships.

Can we bring form to marriage?

 I saw the following comment on social media this week:

To me this is importantly true, but in a particular way. It is a kind of higher truth, an aspect of Logos, or the divine order, the one that is available to our higher intelligence and that expresses a kind of ideal harmonising or fitting together of things.

It is not true in the sense that it is always present in the way people act in real life. To be present, there needs to be a polarity between the sexes. Men need to have a sense of what is required from them for women to relax into a feminine role. It helps if men project something like a masculine aura, and this is more likely to happen if men have a knowledge of their own role in creating the structures - including the religious and cultural structures - within which a woman might "feel" the masculine and respond to it. Men need to project their own masculine strengths and competencies for women to be receptive to and to allow their femininity to come into play.

Feminism, of course, rejects all this, seeking instead the aim of autonomous freedom in which we develop solo, through the efforts of our own independent will alone. Feminism has been around since the mid-nineteenth century. Even so, it's interesting to observe when the outward forms changed, i.e., when men stopped presenting masculine form and women feminine form. There was some change in the 1920s with the flappers - women who wore their hair short and who wore straight lined dresses which de-emphasised the contours of their bodies.

But I think men changed even more in the 1960s and 70s. Here, for instance, is a picture of street life in Perth in 1946:

The men are dressed to project a certain kind of masculine presence. In the 1970s there were still businessmen who wore suits, but nonetheless clothing for men had generally become more informal, i.e., lacking masculine form:

Notice as well that the woman in this photo is dressed much like the men. Again, you can still find examples of women dressing distinctly, but androgyny was becoming more common - there was a decline in outward polarity.

And women? I suspect that girls reach an age, sometime in their teens, when they have to choose whether to retain a feminine persona, or whether to pivot instead to a more masculine approach to life. Do they allow themselves to be enveloped by, and protected within, the masculine, while they themselves bring emotional warmth and care to those around them? Or do they become psychologically harder and self-protective and seek to control their environment?

Most women in modern life reject the feminine. Sometimes it's for personal reasons. Perhaps they had a poor relationship with their own father and so do not trust men. Sometimes it's for political reasons. They have been raised to be feminist and therefore an independent modern girl who does not need a man. Sometimes, it's spiritual. It is a non-serviam - I will not serve - response to God. 

It can lead to an impasse in relationships. It is common now to hear women say that they can do everything themselves and so if a man is to have any chance with them he somehow has to figure out a way to "add value" otherwise "what is the point?". 

Men, for their part, have started to ask women "What do you bring to the table?". The question itself betrays the underlying problem. If both men and women are the masculine part of the equation, then neither brings something that the other party does not already possess. What men would really like a woman to answer to their question is the answer to the polarity problem. They would like a woman to bring her "softness, emotion and warmth" to the table and to appreciate the masculine strengths that he provides.

It is unfortunate that today it is sometimes the least competent or even mentally unwell women who present to men as needing masculine support. It means that the masculine instincts in men can lead to a poor choice in a spouse. It would help if higher quality women could find a way to signal to men an openness to polarity, through some expression of the feminine. 

This is an issue that will always need tending to, no matter the era. It is one of those human condition problems. It needs to be addressed both at the individual, personal level and more generally at the level of the wider culture. It is part of the need to create workable structures, a frame that can uphold human communities.