Women Are Not Who Men Think They Are

Some time ago, I was enlightened by a stark reality proposed by Dr. Alan Francis in her worldwide bestselling book titled “Everything A Man Knows About Women.” Her book, by the way, was over a hundred and twenty-eight blank pages, symbolizing what men actually know about women, and I sincerely was no different. As a young man, I was trained and raised to perceive women from an extremely limited point-of-view. It is no wonder that we as men are the number one oppressors of women. Men have been oppressing women almost since the beginning of recorded time. No other group has been more inflicted throughout the journals of time more than women, and for such a long time I had no idea of any of this. I couldn’t see it. I knew about the oppression of enslaved Africans, (my own ancestors), the Jewish people, the Irish and other groups, but for some reason I was unable see the most obviously oppressed group of them all… women. Because of how I had been taught to view women, I didn’t have the prescribed lenses to see the stress imposed upon them. The painful experiences of women were invisible to me just as it is for most men.

Like so many other men, I was also thoroughly led to believe in a male-dominated philosophy, which completely limited my view of life itself. I was like a mythical Cyclops, going through life with only one eye. At the time, even on my best days, I struggled to see beyond a Woman’s physical portrait; the hourglass shape of her body, her childbearing frame, and the idea that women are supposed to cook and clean and perform other domestic duties… essentially to be the caretakers of men. Yes, I do understand what I am now confessing is a portrayal of a former chauvinist. I was, at that time, an upright walking chauvinistic pig, and it sincerely troubles me to admit it honestly. However, I realize at some point, I have to admit this for there to be any chance of me evolving into that higher form of the human being I’m striving to manifest myself into. For countless years I struggled to see women as more than nicely packaged sex objects. I must admit that deep down I was seriously ashamed and embarrassed that as a so-called modernly civilized Man, I possessed thoughts of women that prevented me from seeing all the resources women bring to the table. And of course, I knew it all wasn’t really my fault. After all, I had been taught to view women as being inferior to men almost since the day I journeyed from my Mother’s safe womb. Ironically, in many cases, it was women who’d taught me to see women in this way.

This was how women occurred to me for the first half of my Life. But thank goodness the universe has a way of somehow balancing the scales to get you to see what you need to see to do what you’ve come into the world to do. I myself am a father of four adorably wonderful daughters; and, after the birth of my first daughter, I took one look into her eyes and I knew immediately that I had to make a quantum leap in my evolution, yet I wasn’t just doing it for her. I was also doing it for myself and for women all over the world. I wanted to contribute something to the rise of women, because somehow I instinctively knew that not seeing women in the light of their greatness also meant that I wasn’t seeing myself in that light as well. My limited view of women was my limited view of myself. Having such an underdeveloped perspective meant that I was unconsciously suppressing the feminine expression in myself; and yes, all men have a softer side. Most men suppress it, just as I did, because they don’t understand it and are generally terrified of it, because our society views the softer side as weak. Even women have been socialized to view their feminine expression as weak and feeble and many suppress it for this reason. Like myself, they too don’t understand that it is the softer side of nature, which gives to us beauty in all of her forms. And as we well know, in the end, it is beauty that subdues the beast. Nothing is more powerful and strong than beauty, and men have beauty within them, a quite drive to make the world a wonderful place for others to live. No matter how much men would like to deny it, we all have the X chromosome as well as the Y. It’s because all human life starts off female, and then later transforms into male as a result of a slight chemical change. Technically speaking, since all human beings start off female, I guess you could say that biologically, women are the prototype.