For thousands of years, a woman’s role in society was largely defined by her domestic and reproductive functions. There are always exceptions to any rule, but for the most part, women have played the supportive role to other people in their lives and they have been defined by their role in other people’s lives. Their relationship with other people, whether it was with their family of origin or with their husbands or with their children, was about supporting them. This support could take on many forms, such as caregiving, nurturing, enabling, helping other people in need of help, cooking, cleaning, sewing, raising children to be functional and successful, healing, assisting their husbands in their endeavors etc.
Fast forward to today. Times have changed. You can’t just erase thousands of years’ worth of conditioning about this being a woman’s role. You can’t just erase thousands of years’ worth of conditioning that a woman is and should be caretaking, nurturing, helpful, collaborative, receptive, passive, gentle, service oriented, vulnerable, sensitive, caring, submissive and supportive. This is still a bias people have towards women. And yet, society has also changed. Most especially with the woman’s rights movement. The women’s rights movement changed a lot for the better regarding women’s lives. But the women’s right’s movement didn’t only usher in good things for women. There were some real unexpected downsides that came along with it. One of them being that it brought women into a dire lose-lose situation. The women’s rights movement cast a light on the “traditional” roles for a woman within society as being nothing more than the byproduct of patriarchal oppression… As evidence of a woman being seen as less than and therefore not equal to men. And from this place of being seen as inferior, women who were part of the movement fought to gain equality by being able to be what men could be and by being able to do what men could do. Gradually, as a result of this social movement, society began to shift what is valued in women as well as the idea of what role they should have. In much of the world, especially the western world, women are now expected to become independent and educated and enter the workforce in a career and gain personal success.
The lose-lose situation is that now, women are subconsciously expected to do and be both. Both the support giver who is nurturing and gentle and helpful and who does the domestic tasks, including bearing and raising children. And the success oriented, career driven go getter who is strong and assertive and independent and competitive and a financial provider. To simplify this, we could say that the women’s rights movement ushered in a gender crisis in both men and women. But women were suddenly expected to be both a man and a woman at the same time. To be all the roles and therefore all things to all people. In reality, a woman cannot be stretched so thin as to be able to do this. But, if a woman chooses to be either, she is damned either way.
A woman is damned if she chooses to be success oriented and career driven in today’s society which was built by men, for men. If you want to learn a bit more about this, you can watch my video titled: Why Successful Women Struggle To Find Love. But for the sake of this conversation, let’s look at how a woman is damned the other way.
There are a great many women whom at their very core, are caretaking, nurturing, helpful, service oriented, collaborative, receptive, gentle, vulnerable, sensitive, caring and most of all, supportive. In alignment with this, these women would be naturally called to roles within society that are supportive ones. Their soul calling and personal expansion would lead to them thriving in positions that would be seen as more traditional female roles. Including roles as “housewives” and/or mothers. They may be far more fulfilled supporting another person’s endeavors, such as their husband’s career success for example. They may thrive in a relationship arrangement where they do not hold the financial pressure. These women are an absolute blessing to a society, regardless of whether their role within a society that is based off of marriage and nuclear family looks more like being a house wife and or stay at home mom. Or whether in a society that is structured differently, it would look like being a caregiver and nurturer who offers help and support to the rest of the social group in whatever way is needed at the time.
But women who naturally fall into this category, are not valued in today’s society. Sure, again and again in experiments and studies, these qualities in a woman cause people to perceive her as more likeable. But just because they find her likable, doesn’t mean that they respect her. In fact, the opposite is true. This is how she is seen in today’s modern society: She is not fulfilling her true potential. She is oppressed into a position of inferiority. She is going against women’s rights and is therefore against other women and for patriarchy. She is a pawn to the far right politically. That she will end up in a domestic abuse situation. She showcasing that she and women in general are incapable. Essentially, she is not seen as a truly valuable member of society.
The women’s rights movement, threw men into a lose-lose scenario too. As a result, it has created serious friction between men and women. In some cases, out of spite and in some cases because boys have now been indoctrinated and raised within a polarity flipped society, the vast majority of men, especially in the western world, have jumped on the bandwagon of expecting a woman to do and be everything. Many men look down on a woman who “doesn’t have something going for herself”. Of course, this means, a woman whose authentic calling quite literally is about supporting others. Many men are now looking for a woman who will pull her own weight financially and who is driven for personal success in some way. It is far harder in today’s world for a woman who falls into the category of being a natural supporter, to find a relationship that works for her. She is looked down on. And as a result of this, in order to be valued within society, feels she has to go against her true authentic nature.
So many women are suffering and suffering badly because they do fit with the more traditional roles that women held over the last centuries. But now, they can’t be valued in those roles. They are made to feel bad and wrong about themselves. And they end up going against their own personal nature. Nor can they find men who want to enter into relationship dynamics that enable them to be in those roles. Men are suffering because of this because so many men need this kind of support, but they are afraid to admit it to themselves or other people, because it is seen as so wrong and bad to want from a woman. And they find it hard to find women who want to do it. Children are suffering greatly because of this as well.
Basically, the supportive woman is now stigmatized. This conundrum that supportive women are put in will only change when we change a great many things. First and foremost, we need to change our attitude towards women who exhibit these character traits that are synonymous with support. We need to deeply recognize their value and by doing so, enable them to be in the positions and roles that suit them best. We have to stop making people, especially men, bad and wrong for needing and wanting a woman in their lives to fill this role. We need to stop politicizing people’s lives, including the lives of women who are choosing what people are calling traditional wife roles. And we need to open our minds up to possibilities. If you look back over time, there were many roles within any kingdom or society and many different roles that offered a man or a woman esteem. There are so many different expressions of masculinity and femininity. What is important is that we find our authentic expression and whatever role fits in with that. It is critical that society supports exactly that, rather than spending its time trying to cram people into boxes. Something that was recognized back when the feminist movement was started is that not every woman is born for her expression to fit into the current model or to be in the role that we expect her to be in. But guess what, this is as true today, with our current model, as it was with the 1950s housewife model. And it is going to be much harder for women to break this current limited paradigm and all the pain it causes if the rest of us won’t break it both with and for them.
