SOFT AND SWEET OK BUT NOT WEAK

Women’s vulnerability is not a positive feature in any way, even though it is traditionally spun as a virtue or a defining feature of femininity.  Feminine vulnerability is weakness and is the cause of males thinking they are the boss of us and the natural leaders of civilization.

Women’s vulnerability is our greatest weakness and the weak are typically culled from the herd not elevated in status. Men detest weakness – in themselves and in others – and they view weakness as something despicable and something to overcome.

Men are aware that women get off seemingly “Scott free” when it comes to overcoming weakness.  Society even encourages women to embrace their vulnerable sides. Men are taught that women are weaker, delicate, vulnerable and need protecting, but women are never taught that they also have the power to overcome their vulnerabilities, just as men do. And men do harbor resentment that women can just sit around all weak and helpless when it behooves them.  I would wager that most men think that women have it pretty easy.

This has the nasty side effect of creating resentment of women within the male population. At least for some men. And it is this resentment of women – of women’s ‘vulnerabilities’ – that is the basis of abuse, in my opinion.  Men resent their own erotic powerlessness around attractive women -which men themselves perceive as weakness within themselves - and they resent that women are allowed to be openly vulnerable about their own weaknesses while men are not.  As such, sometimes the resentment and anger that men feel is transferred into feelings of blame aimed directly at women. These are just the facts of life as it stands today, I feel, and it doesn't do women any good to be ignorant of these facts.

But it is an illusion that women are ‘supposed’ to be vulnerable or that we just are so naturally.  Women have been terrorized by men for far too long because we are supposedly more vulnerable.  And while now there are laws, thankfully, that do protect a good many women in society, there are still ways that women are controlled by using our supposed vulnerability against us, as an excuse for male dominance and power.

Now days it is the media that holds this status quo over women, continually bombarding and training boys and girls alike, and reminding men and women alike, that women are soft, emotionally weak, pretty but not strong physically, simple and naïve, etc. – and that there are men who terrorize and stalk us.  That theme is literally the basis of almost every movie on the Lifetime Movie Network, which shows films that, ironically, are almost exclusively geared to female audiences.  The propaganda of vulnerability portrayed in these movies act as a mirror of ‘reality’ for women, reminding us in every way possible of women’s true weaknesses and vulnerabilities, lest we forget!  Even though we do learn in these films that ‘true moral strength’ does lurk inside women,  we are still continuously reminded of the other ways in which we are vulnerable to the evils of men.

It is the people in media now who hold the thumb on us – determined to humiliate women and maintain control over us every chance they get –  because of women’s’ ‘inherent’ vulnerability. Women don’t have to buy into this, but it is easier to do so than to fight it.  There are a lot of repercussions that come to women who refuse to be weak, including the threat of being perceived undesirable or worse, ignored as invisible, divorce or never finding marriage, not getting parts in movies, and other forms of ostracization and judgment.  That is a big deterrent for a lot of women.

It takes a lot of determination and will to overcome our internal weakness and to resist the label of vulnerability that society binds us to, but the confidence, knowledge and true power that comes with mastery over vulnerability it is a rewarding journey, though not for the faint of heart!