Do Relationships Help to Diminish Girl Power?

Probably no more than "puppy power."

Scrappy may or may not have ever gotten over that that stuttering problem...

Anywho, I was thinking about girls (like always) and relationships (like always,) and I was thinking about how they tend to come along, how they develop, and what all is involved with it.

Without getting into one of my main hypotheses of relationships and marriages, I think relationships help to solidify woman's place in our culture as being inferior (or at least subordinate) to man, and in these norms and other norms outside of romantic relationships, they help reinforce the idea that women need protection and have trouble getting along by themselves.

That they need a strong man to take care of them.

Now, before I go any further, let me say I am not the strongest of men nor am I the most intimidating. And by "not the strongest of men," I mean, "I'm strong, but people don't get that vibe from me," and by "nor am I the most intimidating," I mean, "I can fit into a noncommercial drying machine with relative ease."

I may or may not have an agenda to convince people that they don't need to feel like they need a strong man in a relationship.

But bear (rawr) with me.

For example, women are perfectly capable of asking guys out, but people tend to believe that's the man's job. Same for proposing marriage. I figure women are just as capable as men to express feelings of wanting to begin a different relationship with another person. I mean, lesbian norms, I don't really know about. But lesbian couples do exist and somehow, they had to come to a point where they entered a relationship.

And that would even be more awkward and embarrassing than in a heterosexual relationship.

Unless you met in a lesbian bar or knew from prior experience that the one you're interested in is also a lesbian (or at least bisexual,) then you'd risk coming out to a person along with the romantic interest you had in them which could really mess up the resulting friendship if the other wasn't lesbian.

I mean, heterosexual relationships especially commonplace ones have no stigma on them whatsoever.

Humans with sexual drive are looking for someone to have sex with at the very least. I think it would be safe to say that at least half of humans want some sort of marriage at some point in life.
If I were to say 90%, I still think I'd be underestimating badly. I know this is the case in America, if not abroad as well.

So asking a guy out probably won't hurt pass the point of being rejected and the awkwardness that could ensue.

Aside from the stigma that you might get for being too forward as a girl.

But that really shouldn't matter. We all become adults one day, and unless women have some sexual, innate inability to make their own decisions and carry them out, I don't see why she should be seen as too forward only because girls aren't supposed to ask guys out.

I mean, that would be the only way I would start dating now, if someone asks me out, because I want a capable girl who can be like, "You see that guy over there?...Oh, he's behind all the taller people. Yeah, the black one. Yes, I know he's short, but I like him, and I'm going to ask him out, because I am totally capable of it."

Otherwise, I prefer to sit back and flirt without any real intentions.

Same with a guy being stronger than a girl. Yeah, female humans tend to be physically weaker than males in most muscles. But I don't see why it should matter in a relationship.

Protection in the .7% percent chance you get jumped by a total stranger who wants to rape you or something tragic like that could be a reason, yes. That stranger must be pretty darn strong to fight off anyone while having his way with you.

More often than not, the stranger wouldn't try anything if you were with any human. Male, female, strong, or weak.

I can't argue the biological basis of strength, shoulder-to-waist ratios, height or anything like that. But even though these exist, I find it personally hard to believe that women consciously give themselves over to it.

Maybe it's just me or a small percentage of people, but I definitely have done things just to be different.

It isn't always smart, no. But I hate being stereotyped because of something about me. I just thought other people might feel that way too. Enough to at least stop verbally entertaining ideas in conversation.

Humans have gotten over a lot of basic urges. I constantly fight the urge to hit someone in the face. I fight the urge to release urine in socially unacceptable places.

I fight the urge to cry at the end of special movies when the heroine dies...

But I guess that resisting urges for romance or sex may be a different story. I don't think anyone would say that it's a bad thing that people see guys as the one to ask girls out normally. And honestly, I don' think people would think it's bad that a girl would ask a guy out.

But people say the same thing about interracial relationships.

-Oh, God. He's playing the race card-

Hey!

It could have been Hitler.

...

In this study I came across while working on a paper, the qualitative data of a community study group of all white people all said that there was nothing particularly wrong with interracial relationships.

They also all said that they wouldn't date interracially themselves. And they all said they wouldn't want their family members to date interracially.

Which is technically fine.

That particular set of statements says that people don't mind if a random Jane and a random Marquavious (yes, Mar-QUAY-vee-uhs) got together.

They do if it included someone they cared about or themselves.

Reasons were usually that different people tend to not do well together.

(Black women think the white women are easy, the black men are weak, and the white men don't like black women. But that's something altogether different.)

(And actually, people with different social categories don't do any better or worse than a homogeneous couple.)

Other people said that white people shouldn't mix with other people. Other races should stick to their own.

Which is at least a little racist.

Of course, we don't think that way. We...edumacated bloggers of the blogosphere.

The blagosblag.

Well, run this program right quick-like.

If you're white, you must marry a Mexican person. For life. No divorce.
If you're black, you must marry an Indian person. No, not Native to America.
If you're Asian, you must marry a Cuban. Mambo #5, arigatoo gozaimasu.
If you're Latino, you must marry an Inuit. Yes. I knew it. You knew it. Inuit.

(Sorry that was bad.)

And people of Middle Eastern descent must marry a black person. Yes, African-American.

Now, if you're like me, then you remember that really cute girl you met who was Indian and she said she liked your name, but you were too shy to say "Thanks" to her, and instead drooled on your shoes.

If you're like a lot of people I've met, then you can't see the marriage working out. And if you can, you don't want it.

I won't get into the why people can't see themselves in a mixed marriage here, because I've strayed off topic and around topic a little too much already.

But it does have something to do with race. At the very least culture, but even if you said the person had the same background as you but only had the respective race's skin color and physical features, a lot of people still couldn't imagine that.

The same thing goes with a lot of norms for guys and girls.

I tend to think that they serve to reinforce the male dominance of the world.

Not because males are dominant. But because few females (or males) see it as a way to diminish women's importance and power.

Yeah, power.

And because there aren't charismatic people around to carry the cause (another one of my hypotheses) and people who believe there is a cause to be carried, it goes unchecked.

I feel that the Civil Rights Movement of the United States wouldn't have ever occurred without charismatic people behind it, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and others. They believed they had a complaint.

Women for the most part don't. And if they do, they either aren't as charismatic (but then again, few people are as charismatic as MLK was,) or they don't attribute it to small things such as daily statements and conversations.

I think in time, if they Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's didn't occur, another one of some sort would have later on. And even if no movement occurred, I think change would have come about as more and more people saw that minorities are people too and can do stuff just like white people.

It would have just been much more gradual.

The woman is younger (outside of affairs,) the woman is shorter (outside of pity dates,) the woman is smaller (this one, I can't prove so much outside of what I usually see,) the woman makes less money...

And these things are by choice. Again, there could be some biological component to it as well, but there exist couples that don't go by this. And the fact that people state these norms without knowing why they exist kinda means they are socialized.

Not saying the norms are bad by themselves, and honestly, if I wasn't a small dude, I might not care.

But I do think they serve to reinforce male superiority that really doesn't exist to the extent that it doesn't even merit conversation or debate.

But then yet again, people don't think relationships in general merit conversation.

Just their own.

I like to observe the trends.

Hm, looking back, I'm not really sure I made very good point here.

But the things that do go on in the development in relationships tend to place the male in a higher position of control than the female in terms of instigation and power, when it really doesn't matter.

That's all I was trying to say.

I just go a long way to try to explain it.

If you see any holes (and I know they are there,) let us go at them.

Peace. Love.

Gender.