I’ve seen several posts in the past several days entitled something along the lines of “How To Keep a Woman Happy,” which then proceed to mock or openly complain about how difficult it is to “Make a Woman Happy.” I’d just like to point a few things out:
1. “Making” someone do anything implies that they are your responsibility, not their own.
2. The desire to be attended to physically and emotionally, listened to, shared with and valued is in no way gender-exclusive and does not indicate the sense of heightened vulnerability in women implied in these posts.
3. It relieves the women in these relationships of any social expectations to make an effort in supporting their partners and contributing to their own romantic endeavors in a meaningful way.
4. The post-er therefore implies indirectly that they (if female) or their female partner are at the most incapable of, at the least not obligated to, equal participation in said relationship.
Would it be, perhaps, more appropriate to create gender-neutral, less sarcastic memes and graphics entitled “How to Be a Loving and Equal Partner in a Healthy Relationship”?
….just sayin’.
Goodnight, Irene 