“But if I tell men the truth they will run away!”
We have been programmed to put on a show or act “good” to snare men. Then we hope once they are safely in our fold, we will slowly reveal our true selves and maybe it will be too late for them to run away.
The need to be perfect and of good standing is so serious we have seen women pass off their own biological children as siblings or even as domestic help so that their soon to be husbands think they are blemish-free. You have women carrying capsules of chicken blood on their wedding night to trick some dizzy goat into believing she is a quivering virgin.
This hiding of one's real self is not confined to personal life but to the professional one as well. We wear box suits and dull colours to hide our femininity in the workplace.
Some deranged fellow told us that if we wore our favourite colours and our frilly dresses, we would distract grown men or fail to be taken seriously. So it is better to hide your breasts and hips. So they think they are working with fellow men. By the time they figure out you are feminine, too late! (I am rolling my eyes here)
This has been my finding. As a recovering “good” woman. Just show up as you are.
In relationships, platonic or romantic. Be you. You will win all the time. Either they leave you alone because you are too much or they stay because you are enough for them. Being left is not the worst thing that can happen in any relationship. Especially if you are being authentic.
It is only a tragedy because you used too much energy being fake, suffocating your true self and now after all that and all the time invested, you have still been left. That is why you hear phrases like “After all I did for you?”
So let us call it what it is, trying to be society’s idea of being good for women is a form of manipulation. Witchcraft (the bad kind) if you like. Your aim is to make the other party do something for you under false pretence.
I was out over the weekend with a friend. She loves country music. They played a song she liked so she stood up to dance. She danced for all of two minutes then sat down. I asked what happened. “I think I spotted a potential sponsor for my event!” “So?” “I don't want him to get the wrong impression about me.”
What is the wrong impression? He is here too and you do not have the wrong impression of him. She was dancing to country music on a Sunday afternoon. Country music! I mean, all they do is dance in rows.
We have been programmed to think that a woman just living her life is unprofessional. We want to believe that when you leave the boardroom, you go home to change into another grey box suit and get into bed.
If not, you should probably be writing a proposal or doing research on global warming. God forbid that you should relax, dance or laugh loudly. It shows how careless you would be with an investor's money.
I had an immediate boss tell me once that as a young salesman, they had a running joke, “If you had not seen your client naked, you had not got the business” (All those who work for Jesus as supervisors, please hold on, do not send that email damning me to hell.)
They, salesmen, often took their clients, male of course, on lavish (I want to say wild) weekends away (company sponsored) and most times would discuss the details of a deal in the sauna (hence the seeing naked).
My second lesson. People like doing business with human beings. Flawed, vulnerable, fun, relatable. I like doing business with someone who has my ideals. So if we meet at a rumba joint, and you are on the dance floor, I know you are my people and I will gravitate towards you.
Who wants to be in business with a stuffy woman who walks around like there is a sharp pole up her derriere?
This how to “behave” is a way of holding women back. Elenor Roosevelt said, “Well-behaved women rarely make history.”
