To Be Desired or To Be Respected

Property of Stormberry

There's an expression in Spanish that now I have a hard time translating, "darse a desear", which could be translated as "make yourself desired". This is an expression that pretty much every single Latin American girl and woman has heard many times through their lives from family, friends, mentors and others. It aims to teach women to basically play hard to get with men, as a requirement to be considered a decent, proper lady.

In my home - thankfully - the emphasis of our education wasn't to prepare a perfect lady (me) or a perfect gentleman (my brother), but to bring up good people who can provide for themselves, their families and be able to live happily. Perhaps because my dad comes from a very poor family, there was a strong emphasis in our upbringing about being prepared for life, so that we would want for nothing. In this sense, we both were educated exactly the same way. However, being that we didn't live in a bubble, I was naturally exposed to the rest of the society, and it was in that environment where I often heard this advise either given to me, or preached to me and a group of younger girls.

This advise came with lessons about how proper ladies always must reject men when they first approach them, and make them "work for their attention". We had been told that a man would never respect a woman that said yes to their first attempt, but would cherish a woman that had made them fight for them. Needless to say that I don't agree with this advise.

It might seem like a way to gain more attention, but in truth several things happen here. For once, this advise teaches women that they must manipulate men. Whatever they come offering, it's not good enough. They must come back offering more. Even if the first offer was perfectly good and desirable for you, you must keep pushing for more. Derivated from this, it also teaches women to distrust the feelings of men, dismiss them as simply a predatory impulse. In other words: men are uncapable by themselves of true, honest feelings unless women force them to have them. 

Curiously, not one of the Wise Ones imparting these advises ever thought about the effect of this tactic on the worth of women's word. Just think about it: "making yourself desired" works through devaluating the meaning of the word "no" when uttered by women, because "no" becomes the synonym of "try harder". It teaches women to purposefully send mixed signals because "that's what ladies do", and all women must strive to be a lady. As result, the word of women is devaluated, because "they speak in indirect terms", and men "need a dictionary" to start and decypher what they really mean to say. So, by following this advise, you might make yourself desired, but how could you be cherished when you can't be understood? 

Furthermore, when all your words are tergiversed, when your "no" means "try harder" (so, a sort of yes), and you are technically left with no word to express or say "no" (and if you find your way to say no, then you are a bitch, a hag, a sour person, a manhater...), then how can you be respected? When you strive so hard to be a lady, by manipulating men, by going against your own desires, by working to please the public opinion about who and what you are, you chip away your own respect. Yes, you might be "respected" in regards of what society expects of you, BUT if you dare to go against it, you lose that respect. Is that truly respect?

Is it respect within a relationship when your partner knows that no matter what you say and what you decide, your will can be bent into whichever shape they want with enough pressure? A third party can also keep pushing and pushing for you to give into an illicit liaison even when you keep saying no - even if you are married and all - because your "no" worths nothing, your "no" means "try harder".

Wise Ones will argue that "a woman knows how to send a signal". Really? Do we? Since women - true ladies, not tramps - are denied the luxury of direct speach, they must resource to telepathic signals to let men know what they mean? Or are women the precursors of neuromarketing, sending subliminal signs to men? And how can those subliminal signs not be confused with, maybe the wrongly fixed idea a man might have?

Society are also fed a lot of ideas about women. They all crave marriage, they all crave children, their only goal in life is to become mothers and wives. They all measure men by the size of their wallets, and diamonds are their best friends. All women secretly or not-so-secretly desire to be housewives. These are not true. Not one of them! Yes, there are women with these desires, but these are not universal wishes shared by all women.

This advise and this view also damages men. As mentioned earlier, it teaches them to be insecure. It invalidates their feelings. It teaches them to expect rejection from women, and predisposes them to misunderstand women. They are taught that women code their speach in an ENIGMA machine, and not all of them have access to the Turing machine (was it the MARK II?) to understand it. Rejection is painful, so they have to start finding ways to protect themselves, and their feelings - which they are thought to think of as undesirable and unvaluable - and so they build strategies and shields. Either they approach the matter with carelessness, and thus become the "feared" womanizers who simply hunt down women for sport, or they really find a hard time working up the nerv to approach a woman, going slowly, to either pass through a less painful rejection process, or to try and somehow succeed into avoiding it entirely. The effort they have to make!! How that doesn't make them feel inferior?

Just imagine the blow to your self image, at feeling unable to express your feelings openly for fear of being ridiculed or brutally rejected?

Oh yes, and women are prohibited from making a first step - they must always wait and be the RECEIVERS, never the GIVERS - so, how could a regular guy ever gauge their chances, or simply be relieved of the fearsome task of approaching a girl they like? No, women must wait and men must brave up and expose themselves time and again to the pain of rejection.

Also, by teaching men that worthy women are the ones that need to be chased, you also erode their sense of "enough". Are men told how much must they chase? Are they told when to stop? Then think about it: society is teaching men that they must compete constantly. Just getting a job is not enough, they must become bosses, and then CEOs, and then make their own company, and then make it successful, and then turn it into a corporation, and then a bigger one, and then become a Fortune 500 company, and then the richest man of the planet, and then... it's a never ending chase. Men are being denied of the chance of being satisfied. Momentarily, yes, but on the long run, no.

So what happens when the "prey" falls and the chase is over? Got the prize, and then what? A new chase must be started. So, ladies, how is that conductive to being cherished? Oh, yes, you must keep working, you must keep the attention of your man, keep making up chases... well, isn't that tiresome? The constant fear that your partner's attention is fleeting, that any new shiny thing can literally steal it away from you... Because men are taught never to be satisfied, and women are taught to make themselves desired. And none of them are taught to respect themselves and make themselves respected.

Let's break this cycle. Let's dare not to think in terms of men and women, but in terms of People, and our right to love ourselves, to value our feelings, to have them respected, and to have our words respected. We all have the right to express ourselves, to speak plainly. It doesn't make us less worthy. Let's stop that thinking. Let's teach our children that their thoughts count, that their feelings count, that the toughts and feelings of others must be respected, not necessarily shared or accepted, but respected. Let's remember that before being men or women, we are all PEOPLE.