This is an age old question that men joke about and women wish was easy to explain, there was even a movie about this very topic. But here is my answer, and it represents women around the entire world. Women want love, beauty, safety, and hope.
Love.
We women will go great lengths in life to find and/or hold onto love. Whether it's from a man, a family member, or a friend...we want it. Without love in our lives we become bitter, cynical, and hatefully desperate. We see the woman stay with the abusive man and answer that the reason why is because "she loves him." and in that one little line she is silently screaming out that she hopes he loves her too. We see women drop everything they are doing and drive miles and miles to go be with their friend that is in pain and suffering. That is love. A common phrase we are hearing in the married world lately is this, "Women need love, men need respect." And we find that when we women aren't feeling loved from our husbands, we become bitter and resentful over it...thus not producing any respect. When we women feel as though our friend we loved so dearly has betrayed us, what do we do? Well let's just say it's rare to find a woman that will forgive her friend right away without any hesitation. That actually has to do with loyalty which in a woman's mind translates to this, "If you loved/cared for me, then you would be loyal. If you break that loyalty and trust then you obviously don't love me." And THAT is why it irks us so much when someone breaks our loyalty. Why? Because we want love. We need love. We feel so utterly hopeless without it. BUT, there is one that we can ALWAYS count on loving us and that's Christ. No matter how little of people you may have in your life, Christ will give you all the love you need.
Beauty.
There are many stories and pictures we see of what women go through in all sorts of places in the name of beauty. They will go into debt and spend thousands of dollars to be cut open and have their looks altered. They will tan their skin, bleach their skin, put cream after cream on, watch hair and makeup tutorials, and in some tribal cultures we even see women lengthen their necks. And why do we do these things? For beauty. When a woman doesn't feel remotely beautiful she loses.....hope. Even when a woman has never seen herself in a mirror, she will still do things in the name of beauty. Why? I have no idea, but we do. So men and women, please tell your wives, friends, sisters, mothers, and daughters that they are gorgeous and then tell them exactly what you think is so gorgeous about them. Don't just tell them once (this goes especially for you men) and then think that they will always remember that, no, you need to tell them on a regular basis.
Safety.
I recently read a "Dear Abby" letter and reply on one of the popular news sites. The letter was about a mother and daughter and how the middle aged mother would start an argument with her adult daughter and then decide she doesn't like what her daughter's opinion is and stop the car in a very dangerous area, make her daughter get out, and drive off. Apparently, she had done that more than once. I am a little different than the majority of folks I guess because I felt the daughter needed to forgive her mother and figure out a way to dodge the arguments and take control of the situation. Instead, I read hundreds of comments of women bashing the mother and saying that the daughter should cut ties with her for putting her life in danger like that. I thought that was a bit extreme but it got me thinking, we women truly do make our decisions based upon whether or not we feel our own self, or our loved ones, are safe. We will break off a relationship with a guy that we feel wouldn't protect us, we would cut ties with a friend that put us in harm's way, we won't live in a scary part of town if we had the means to live somewhere else, we will even keep some sort of weapon near us all in the name of 'feeling safe'. So men, show your gal that you will protect her. Prove to her that she is safe with you and that you would do whatever possible to keep it that way...you will win thousands of brownie points for it.
Hope.
This, in my opinion, is the most important of all. In my mind, when a women loses hope in something she gives up. Some even give up their life over it. Hope is an enormously important and necessary thing to life. It's why we trust, why we love, why we get up each morning and pick out our outfit and go to work or make breakfast for the kids, it's hope. We hope that this day brings us something better, we hope 'this person' loves us, we hope we'll have a long and happy life with the man we say "I do" to, we hope. It's the real reason why the abused woman keeps returning to her jerk of a husband, hope. She hopes he loves her. She hopes he'll change. She hopes she can stop it from happening again. Hope. It's the reason we get up in the morning and go to bed at night, hope. Without hope all reason is gone. And you know what gives us hope? God. God is love and God is hope. He gave us his son because of hope and love. Oh how powerful those two things really are.
So the next time you hear this conversation, "What do women want?" "I don't know and I don't think they even know." Tell them that all we want is love, hope, beauty, and safety.
Here is a little funny I found for your day:
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