You belong to me

Monday, December 9, 2002

Mike Hendricks

The kiss of death to any relationship is the concept of ownership. In fact, the whole idea of a relationship should be based on a partnership, not an ownership or a dictatorship. You do for me, I do for you and we'll both be happy.

Unfortunately, this perspective is lost on some of the more intellectually and emotionally challenged souls out there who believe they can DEMAND love, loyalty and dedication from another person based on threats, fear, and terrorism. When most of the world was ignorant and innocent, this theory of intimidation worked from time to time. Today, it rarely works at all.

Fortunately, due to progress and civilized thought, women are no longer the property and chattel of men. Men can no longer dictate to their women to "shut up" or "get in the car" or "don't talk to anyone or go anywhere without my permission" and get away with it. Men played this bluff for as long as they could. Most men today realize the folly of their forefathers. Most men appreciate women for their beauty, their intelligence, and their fervor and passion for life and all the things it has to offer. But some men still don't get it.

They are literally "Neanderthal Man" inappropriately placed smack-dab in the middle of the 21st century. Their attitudes and behavior towards women and around women have changed little if any since the days of the cave man. They still believe they can rule a woman, dominate a woman and control a woman through threats, fear, and intimidation. They still believe they can gain a woman's love and devotion by demanding it, rather than earning it. How can "Neanderthal Man" still exist in a "Renaissance Man" world?

It, like everything else, has to do with all the experiences we've had since birth. If that's the kind of behavior we observed during our formative years, that's the kind of behavior we're most likely to model. I've written before that abused children are more likely to become abusive parents than are children who aren't abused. Children from alcoholic homes are more likely to become alcoholics than are children from non-alcoholic homes. Male children who see their father abuse their mother are more likely to become abusers themselves and female children who see their mother abused are more likely to become victims. We are what we learn.

If we're not instilled with respect and awe for women early in our lives, we're most likely not going to find those qualities later in life. If we believe we can intimidate women into being our property and chattel, to be used in any way we see fit, it's highly unlikely we will someday "see the light." Change is difficult at best and, at worst, downright impossible.

Of course, some women are enablers to these men. Any woman who stays in a situation where she is constantly dehumanized and victimized by a dominant man and does nothing to alter the situation she's in transmits a message to the man that his behavior is acceptable.

No matter how much she hates it and no matter how much she loathes him for doing it, if she continues to stay, the man sees that as voluntary compliance on her part which, in fact, encourages him to repeat the behavior over and over again. Women cannot have their power and their integrity taken from them without their permission.

If a woman gets married relatively early in life and is exposed to this kind of treatment almost from the beginning, then her only awareness of how she's supposed to be treated comes from the treatment she receives. She quickly comes to assume that "this is just the way things are supposed to be."

So the domination and control continue and she complies, thinking it is her wifely duty, even though she hates him a little bit more every time he does it. It becomes a vicious cycle where her inability to change her situation due to fear or lack of confidence just encourages him to continually repeat the same behavior.

A few women finally reach a point in their lives when they decide enough is enough. Other women have to literally be rescued by someone else, someone who's able to show them through words, actions, and deeds that there is a life so different from anything they have ever experienced that, once they take that huge step and change their lives, they'll think they've died and gone to heaven.

No man secure in himself as a person, lover, or mate has any need or desire to control another person. These techniques are used only by those men eaten up with insecurity and ignorance who believe the only way they can hold on to their "property" is to scare it into not leaving. So they follow them around, or they tap their phones, or they demand an accounting of every minute the woman spends away from the man. In the process, the woman literally becomes a prisoner in her own home with no life of her own at all.

But for some women, there's hope.

It's possible that when a woman finally becomes aware of how the man sees and defines her and how he uses her to achieve his own ends with no thought of her desires at all, she will finally realize there are other options available. Rather than living under this kind of control and domination for the rest of her life, she is ultimately empowered with the ability to actively take steps to change her life.

It's literally a choice between life and death because any woman who remains in an "ownership" situation where she's the property and the man is the owner is dead already. She just hasn't been buried yet.