This morning I saw an article talking about Pat
Robertson (the televangelical host of the 700 Club) and his controversial
remarks on marriage. Seeing how this man always has something to say, and I
believe spews the ignorance of a close-minded older generation I decided to see
what he said for entertainment reasons. And this is what he had to say:
"The feminist agenda is not
about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political
movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children,
practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."
And in response to a woman who had this to say about
her cheating husband, "I've been trying to forgive my husband for cheating
on me, we have gone to counseling, but I just can't seem to forgive, nor can I
trust. How do you let go of the anger? How do you trust again?" Robertson
had this to say:
- "Here's the secret, stop talking the cheating. He cheated on you, well, he's a man."
- “The wife needs to focus on the reasons she married her spouse”
- "Does he provide a home for you to live in, does he provide food for you to eat? Does he provide clothes for you to wear? Is he nice to the children... Is he handsome?"
- "Recognize also, like it or not, males have a tendency to wander a little bit. What you want to do is make a home so wonderful that he doesn't want to wander" or give in to the ‘salacious’ magazine pictures and Internet filled with porn.”
In January, Robertson told viewers. that "awful-looking" women can cause marriages to lose their spark
"It just isn't something to just lie there,
'Well, I'm married to him so he's got to take me slatternly looking,'" he
said. "You've got to fix yourself up, look pretty."
Similarly, in 2010 the host advised a woman complaining about her husband's flirtatious ways not to "hassle him about it" and just make herself as attractive as possible.
To these statements the first thing I thought to
myself was why is it men are so threatened by women being so independent,
always stating that it’s an anti-family movement. Is it anti-family because men
are not exactly needed to have a nice home, to be the provider of food, to buy
a woman nice clothes? Or is it anti-family because men no longer have leverage
to make a woman stay when he can’t be a man worth being the head of a
household. In Pat Robertson’s era of marriage, women did not have a lot of
rights and good-paying jobs available where they needed a man who could add
more to the household where they could not. My second thought is why is he so
superficial? Stating that a woman has to make herself as attractive as possible
to keep her man from straying to other women when beauty fades is a ridiculous
statement. Also saying that a woman should focus on the reasons why she married
her husband to stay with him after he cheats could also be an argument to keep
him from cheating. Why did he not consider how much his wife and marriage means
to him and focus on that to stop him from straying. I am so tired of this
double-standard bullshit men like this spew, because if a woman was to say her
husband wasn’t looking up to par and doing his husbandly duties so she felt the
need to stray it would not be dismissed so easily but instead used to vilify her
saying that it is the woman’s job to stay and be supportive even if he is not
living up to his vows, though it is ok for him to step-outside of the marriage
whether she lives up to her vows or not.
It is time for this way of thinking to die out but
sadly even in my generation it can be very prevalent. For instance, he other
day I happened to pull up twitter on an app on my phone and saw that my
timeline hadn’t updated for about an hour or two. So instead of updating my
timeline to the newest posts, I decided to scroll up it when I came across a
rant that looked like this:- “They downplayed marriage and told our women to be
independent…..when you came from MY
RIB you s’posed to support.” - “They also decided to give sex this utmost importance so now she thinks the worst thing she can go through is infidelity“
- In grandma and grandpa’s days you were able to get an extra lady for every extra zero on yo salary, and Gma STAYED and PLAYED her role”
- “You gotta let a man be a man. And play yo role by being a WOman. Women aren’t men. Y’all not supposed to take the lead.”
- “If we talking marriage from Gma and Gpa days... that's real shit where two people kept a bond even if he had a whole 'nother family 3 blocks away, lol #Real”
After these twitter posts he goes on to exclaim how he should have lived back in the era of the 50’s and 60’s because the media has brainwashed society, but more importantly women into de-valuing marriage and not wanting to be in it forever, just looking for any excuse, especially cheating to end it. More and more males are taking on this reasoning and I have to say that I call BULLSHIT.
The reason I say this is because the age of grandma and grandpa was a highly emotional and physical abusive age. Let’s look at my grandparents for instance. After impregnating my grandmother twice, he felt the obligation to marry her though he in all actuality did not love her. He did not physically abuse her (from what I know of) but he did emotionally and mentally abuse her. Making her feel inadequate, only giving her a little bit of money towards food and clothes for their 10 children even when he would receive bonuses, had at least 4 illegitimate children of which devastated her, cheated as often as possible, and would come home from work and seclude himself to his room where his children would send up his dinner then collect his plate afterwards, among other things. My grandmother was so distraught by his actions that she bathed herself in church and God, but also caused her to mentally and even physically abuse her own children as a reaction. Can we literally say that this is the “great age of marriage” or the great age of legal slave ownership of a spouse. Back then it was basically illegal to get a divorce. I think it many cases it was unless your husband physically abused you, but seeing how many states declared it legal for men to abuse and rape their wives at the time, that’s not really saying much.
I’ve heard many men say this but I like the way the author of the blog Black Girls Are Easy describes it, and that is the game changer.
Every man comes across this game changer, but most of them fuck it up because they’re scared of what she represents—the end of an era. He’s afraid he’s going to become one of those squares who stays up under a chick, can’t kick it with the homies, or party with the ratchets. The world that he thinks makes him happy is about to end because this exceptional woman has the power to make him grow the fuck up. Boo fucking hoo. Immature niggas love to sabotage themselves and make any excuse to hold on to the old ways. Dude treats this perfect woman like most democrats treated Obama; the world isn’t ready, wait for the right time blah blah blah. Naw man, fuck waiting, you cannot prolong change, and you have to accept that shit when it happens or you will lose that opportunity. – BlackGirlsAreEasy.Com
The game changer is simply a woman that a man allows himself to love, and in loving her grows into his potential and for her he would let go his cheating ways for and all that other good stuff. A man once told me that if a man can cheat on the woman he loves with no problem, then he doesn’t honestly love her, he loves what she can do for him which is rid him of lonely nights, take care of a nice home, can cook, he can have children with, and place devotion upon him. Many males these days are looking to settle for the woman who they love what she can do for him, instead of actually loving a woman. Many males have stated that the fear of growing up have kept them away from plenty of good women, thinking that it wasn’t the right time, or that he has all the time in the world to find someone. But there is a saying I love and it states, “If you are not growing, you are dying.” Men are doing themselves a disservice by settling into these relationships and not going after the women they really want to be with. Don’t blame a woman for having standards. Blame yourself for not being willing to meet them.
For instance, I have a few guy friends who settle but one stands out in particular. This guy was a very close friend of mine, so close in fact that we developed a “more than friends” relationship which lasted a good little while. But when things started to get serious and I realized he had not grown up enough for me I decided it was time to let the “more than” part go. At first he was reluctant but then out the blue he started dating this other girl. I thought that with that being the case our friendship would go back to normal, but boy was I wrong. The reason was because he had SETTLED. The guy was not physically attracted to his new girl, and so kept trying to keep me around hoping that I would lower my standards. See he was lonely and had wanted a girlfriend, he just knew that I wasn’t down for the cause so he got someone to fill the role instead of the person he actually wanted because he didn’t want to grow up into the man that was right for her. And I know what some of you are thinking, “MEN DON’T SETTLE, THEY CHOOSE.” Correction, they CHOOSE to SETTLE! If you don’t believe me then let’s look at the facts:
Anthropologist Helen
Fisher, PhD, of Rutgers. (Fisher has written five books and conducted extensive
research on the evolution and future of human sex, love, marriage, gender
differences in the brain and how your personality type shapes who you are and
who you love. Her latest is Why Him? Why Her? How to Find and Keep Lasting
Love.) Fisher’s latest study is of singles in America. The study found that 31
percent of adult men said they’d commit to a person they were not in love with
– as long as she had all the other attributes they were looking for in a mate —
and 21 percent said they’d commit under those same circumstances to somebody
they weren’t sexually attracted to. The equivalent numbers for women were far
lower.
The truth is in the pudding guys. So men stop
claiming that feminism, and women’s independence have destroyed marriages,
because there are many high-powered, independent women who are married and
perfectly happy. Just come to the realization and admit that in this age of
strong women with standards you are actively, if you are not trying to be a
strong man of integrity that she wants to follow, then she will leave to find a
man who will, so play your role by being a grown man, or else all you will find
is grown girls. Because grown women will not put up with a man’s bullshit when
she knows her worth. Raheem Devaughn said it best, “a grown woman knows how to
tell you no, a grown woman knows when to let you go.” So if you don’t want to
be let go like the Laker’s don’t want to lose their franchise player Kobe
Bryant who’s a free agent, then you need to grow up and show a woman why you’re
worth her time in staying.