It never ceases to amaze me that I have reached my first half century on this planet and I find I have more to learn and understand about women every day.
This blog has been a huge learning exeprience. Just writing about my thoughts and experiences publicly has made me think more clearly about those thoughts and experiences.
Watching each of my four daughters emerge from childhood into confident young women has been an encredibly enriching experience. I'm certain something in my mind or spirit determined us having four daughters. There was something for me about making the world an OK place for women. Something about honouring women. But also something about wanting enter into the world of women which I do every day when I come home. I am the only man in the family and most of the time I like it.
The other thing I am understanding about women is your ambivalence about being looked at which I really didn't understand at all for a long time.
All of us like looking good. We like it when we buy a new outfit that we look good in. We also like it when someone compliments us on a physical feature - 'you have lovely eyes' for example. I think all of us, secretely or otherwise, dream about being able to walk along the beach in our swimwear and be admired. To have a body that we feel looks really good.
We, as men, feel like this and some of us go to great lengths to work out and get tanned. But for those of us who don't, it's not such a big deal. We can always get a fast car or a bigger computer or something that we feel makes us feel good.
For women, I suspect, it is a bit different. A women is always judged by her appearance - to differing degrees in different circumstances and in different contexts. There is so much pressure on women to look good.
So it has been for a long time why I didn't get it when I noticed a woman with a revealing top or a short skirt who then seemed uncomfortable with the attention she was getting. Part of me, somewhere, said "If you don't want the attention, why do you wear clothes like that." I wasn't denying a woman's right to choose what she wore but I was confused about what she wanted in return.
Many years ago, when I was a teenager I was at a girfriend's house for the afternoon. Not long after I got there we were alone in a room sitting on the floor together. She had on a low cut t-shirt. I had never been this close to a girl with so much of her breasts revealed. I thought she looked beautiful and thought her breasts looked beautiful. I just wanted to look at them. But I didn't get much of a chance. She got embarassed very quickly and held a magazine in front of her chest. When I asked her why she wore a top like that if she didn' want me to see, she said "I wanted to know if I could appeal." She wanted to know if she could be sexy. But as a young teenager, she wasn't prepared for how easy it was to be sexy and how strong the reaction from men could be.
That same interaction must be played out in very many young women's lives. You want to attract. You want to be attractive but the focus we men put on one single part of your body, or the physical part of your being is overwhelming. So at one time you want to give out but we repel you with the strength and lack of subtlety in our response.
The sad thing is that we both want the same thing - intimacy. It's just that we have such different ways of going about it. When I saw my girlfriends breasts I felt privileged. I felt close to her. I didn't want to offend her or hurt her. I just wanted to be close and looking at her breasts made me feel close to her. Unfortunately it made her feel really uncomfortable.
As I said when I started out, I'm understanding this difference more and more each day. I guess it's really good that we (men and women) are different. The struggle to understand is what makes the successes feel so good - as long as we continue to strive for understanding.
For further thought, here is something from Female First.
Leave a comment