The Myth of the Strong Woman
Separating human nature from cultural norms.
I was looking at the very concerned face of a physical therapist I’d been working with for several weeks. I had just told him I was about to embark on a 9-week road trip by myself. He said something to the effect of “I wish you had a boyfriend to go with you to carry you around so you don’t re-injure yourself.”
Later he asked, “Aren’t you afraid?” I noticed the “not” implying I was expected to be afraid. Before leaving this topic he pronounced me to be “a strong woman.” Not a “strong person” or just “strong,” a “strong woman.”
Although I believe these comments came from a caring place, they were incredibly aggravating. They were presumptive, infantilizing and sexist. His last comment, which perhaps bothered me most, inferred to me that being strong is atypical for women.
The media industry seems to agree with him. “Strong female leads” are all the rage right now. Go to a streaming app or a site that covers entertainment and you’ll easily find a list of the best titles in this “category.”
Is anyone talking about “strong male leads?”
Of course not. The fact that a male lead will be strong is a total given. If I presented as a man, I don’t think this PT would have made the same comment.
Our culture expects men to leave their families, go out into the world, blaze new trails. From the Bible to cowboy colonists to Silicon valley founders–this narrative is pervasive and constant.
And of course, on their journeys, they find a woman. Men do the finding. Women are found.
This idea plays out in our culture’s still largely intact marriage proposal tradition. Men select a woman and propose–often to another man first, the father–that she join him on his journey.
It’s the “someday my prince will come” story.
We may not think of it that explicitly these days, but these vestiges of the past that are still part of how men and women interact covertly keep the attitude intact.
Millennial women continue to ask their male partners “where is this relationship going?” implying it’s only the man who has the agency and decisioning rights over the future. Women frequently describe the day of the actual proposal to be the best day of her life. Her prince has officially arrived.
So really, it’s no surprise that as a female-presenting person, I’m expected to be afraid to journey all over the continent by myself.
But should I be? Is there any basis in reality that this move was dangerous or risky?
I told this PT that I was probably just as likely to face harm in my own neighborhood or using mass transit as I would on my roadtrip. My hunch was only a little off.
As I write this I’m thousands of miles away from anyone I know, and statistically speaking, that actually makes me safer.
The latest available statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice show that women are far more likely to be victimized by people they know than by strangers.
In 2007, only 10% of female murder victims were killed by strangers; in 64% of cases the perpetrator was an intimate partner or family member.
In 2008, 57% of rape and sexual assaults against women were committed by an offender whom they knew. And about 99% of the intimate partner violence against women in 2008 was committed by men.
So prince charming (harming?) and dysfunctional relationships are the real threat, not the wild wolf hiding in Grandma’s nightgown.
This data reinforces my belief that this fear of being alone is just an invention of our culture.
Maybe even the core fear engendered into women. It starts with Disney, and continues in all forms of music and Hollywood narratives ad nauseam.
What we think of as romance is actually just sugar-coated codependence.
But pop culture isn’t the only perpetrator in our domestication. Individuals and families have been active participants for thousands of years and most of the patterns we pass down are done so unconsciously.
My therapist told me a story that succinctly and humorously illustrates.
A woman makes a meatloaf and cuts off both ends before plating. Her daughter asks her why she does that and she doesn’t know, so she asks her mom. The mother doesn’t know so she asks the grandmother. The grandmother tells her, “because the plate was too small.”
Many of us don’t question the behaviors and patterns passed down to us–the things we tell ourselves we should do, especially if they seem frivolous.
But if we don’t do this self-interrogation, we get trapped living lives based on what other people have defined for us.
And the stakes are higher than meatloaf.
We lose the ability to make authentic choices for ourselves. Perhaps the saddest part is, we don’t even realize we’ve given up our agency.
According to one study, girls as young as 6 and 7 already hold the subconscious belief that they are not as smart as their male peers and make decisions about what activities they’ll participate in based on this belief.
The domestication seeps in young and continues to permeate ambitions and decisions as we grow older.
This leads me to an idea presented by Reshma Saujani founder of Girls Who Code in her TED talk.
She suggests that our society raises boys to be brave and girls to be perfect.
I’d never thought of these traits as opposites but perhaps they are.
Being brave involves facing unknowns which inevitably leads to mistakes and failures, and therefore learning to cope with and learn from these imperfections.
If we aren’t encouraging girls to be brave, then aren’t we setting them up for the opposite? To be timid, scared of the unknown. To only do things with high confidence of success.
If perfection is the expectation, can any woman be truly independent? The only way to experience more of the world would be by the side of someone who can take the lead on tasks one can’t do perfectly.
This world-view doesn’t just hinder women’s ability to move through life. It’s also detrimental to self-worth. Again, if perfection is the goal, every single mistake chips away at that worth. Every split end, scar, every quirk and irregularity takes its toll until they can’t see worth on their own.
They then need someone else to validate them, to tell them how they should see themselves.
In effect women are taught to be dependent and even codependent for so much of what’s needed for a healthy and enjoyable existence.
This is the effect of living in a society that wasn’t built for women. Sure, overt sexism may be frowned up, but just like racism, it hasn’t gone away. It just manifests in more covert ways now. Maybe not even covert, but just normalized.
As long as women feel unacceptable or uncomfortable in public without applying loads of paint on their faces to make themselves look like not-real-humans, we’ll be living in a sexist society.
Back to enjoying life — how are women supposed to do that?
Ahh, yes, the prince on the white horse, the hero of the story, here to save you from your naivety (Snow White), your self-sabotaging impulses (Sleeping Beauty), your horrible family (Cinderella), your general inability to survive in this world.
A recent ex of mine was genuinely worried about my ability to safely cross the street when I was by myself. Seriously.
I don’t blame men for embracing this role. I mean, who doesn’t like to be the hero? The problem is that to ensure men get the payoff of being the brave rescuer, women are handicapped to feel they have no choice but to be rescued.
This brand of domestication feels like Munchausen by proxy on the grandest scale imaginable.
And just like young Gypsy Rose, women don’t know they’re not actually sick.
Women are not naturally timid. Or incompetent. Or even lacking libido. But they unknowingly participate in self-fulfilling prophecies and proliferation of bias.
I was thinking about this in regards to driving and the stereotype that women are bad drivers. If practice is how we get better at things, and men are always the ones in the driver’s seat (which was the case in all my past relationships), just by virtue of them doing it more, of course they’re likely to be better! Good driving skills aren’t in our genes.
This leads me back to strength as some rare quality.
I am not special. Strength is not my gift, nor have I honed it as a skill. I don’t have any talents that enabled me to do this trip alone.
Tellingly, the fact of one major imperfection in my life and my acceptance of that fact may be the one advantage that I have. I’ve been in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction for 2.5 years, which has taught me to take the time to identify, examine and dismantle any fears, beliefs or assumptions that are not rooted in reality.
I question all the “shoulds” my brain generates.
I consciously choose to reject the brainwashing engendered in me and to instead think and behave in ways that feel natural. My new MO is grounded in strength.
Of course, seeing strength as innate to all human makeup is hardly novel.
In the Indian mythology I’ve learned about, feminine and masculine energies represent different and complementary aspects of the human essence. Feminine encoding is receptive, generative and continuous. Masculine encoding is penetrative, protective and finite.
These energies are two sides of the same coin, equal in their value and present in all human beings regardless of sex or gender.
The Western shared narrative attributes similar qualities to feminine and masculine energies. However, they are typically presented in a binary fashion, either/or, not both/and and are attached to characters whose genders and presumed biology match the same energy.
They are also represented selectively rather than in the broad sense that encompasses all of life (e.g. childbearing vs. any form of creation).
Additionally and maybe most importantly, Western narrative does not place equal value on feminine and masculine qualities.
Our culture’s patriarchal mindset and preoccupation with competition, battle, war and physical strength has biased our perception of what equates to strength.
Penetration is assertive, correlates to the sword and the ability to push past. Protection occludes, correlates to the shield and the ability to keep danger out and protect the continuity of life. It is finite and willing to die for the bigger picture.
My mind is flooded with an endless stream of Western media depicting this story.
That no doubt requires strength, but let’s look at the flip side.
Receptivity is the ability to take things in and hold space. It holds everything–the entire stream of life–pain, suffering, injustice, hatred, grief, as well as the pleasant.
Generation is the power to create. Not only procreation of offspring, but the ability to bring ideas into form. To make not only physical substance, but systems, organization, change, etc.
The feminine represents the continuity of life that carries on no matter what. It continues on even after death, but yet must endure (hold) the loss.
I’m struggling to bring to mind even a single example of this narrative in Western media. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but there’s no flood in my head as there was in thinking about the masculine qualities.
As to strength, there’s no question that it’s pervasive in these feminine energy qualities.
Not just physical, but also mental, emotional and spiritual strength. Life and society would not be intact today if not for the strength of the feminine essence.
It’s always been there, but again thanks to our society’s value system it’s hardly depicted in our storytelling or even reality. Think of the saying “behind every great man there’s a great woman.” Exactly.
The “strong woman” is not some unicorn, superhuman, mother of dragons.
The strong woman is simply the natural woman freed from her domestication.
She is the norm, not a select, gifted few. She is someone who chooses to break out of the box society has shoved her into. And she has much more in common with the natural man, despite what societal norms would have us believe.
