Why women need safety

I wrote a post earlier here. It was done quickly and I didn’t have much time to flesh it out like I usually do because it was 2am in the morning and I wanted to get to bed. But now I have the time and the energy so I’m going to explore this topic in the fullest of detail.

Women need safety. There’s no denying it. If you look at the core messages for women out there that are flying about in the void it’s all about the safety of women. And that’s something men can get behind because men on the whole will support women’s causes. After all, we are the provide and protectors. We protect women.

Protecting women has been around since the stone age. Humans used to run in packs, and the biggest and most dangerous males would protect the tribe (and the women) from any external or existential threats that may come our way. This would also result in the strongest men in the tribe having his pick of any women. We don’t think about it now but it used to be very dangerous back in the stone age, and it was preferable for women to pick a strong and healthy mate.

But times have changed and we have fostered a world that year by year is becoming increasingly safer. I can for instance take a stroll all around my town at 2am in the morning and generally not feel threatened. I have also been known to walk back from work (across country) very late at night when the stars were out and very few people around.

Safe as houses.

But biologically we haven’t changed as a species; even although it is safer out there, not much can kill us these days, and generally men on the whole don’t need to do that much fighting — we still have a primal urge in ourselves to itch those biological feelings, no matter which way you want to cut it.

If you look at the female scape right now we have Feminism. Feminism wants men to soften up, to stop being fighters, to be more touchy feely, to open up more, to listen to her more and at the same time it viciously condemns men that even think of stepping out of line when it comes to female boundaries. The message is a little muddled because women want different things, and I have seen women treat their boundaries like a spectrum. What is good for one lady, might not be acceptable for the next.

However, if you draw back and weed through all the fluff you’ll get to the core tenets of Feminism and why it has spread like wildfire over the last ten years.

Safety. Female safety.

If you read between the lines then it has went on an all out mission to destroy societies most abusive men, and quite rightly so, from what I read that Harvey Weinstein was no picture of perfection. Of course it’s not all good though because with every big movement there are always casualties.

That being said for all the harm it has done to male and female relationships it has also done quite a lot of good. There are some people in this world that will probably think twice about pressurising women into sex, whereas that’d be a normal thing back in the 80s. Whilst that isn’t a really bad thing per se, it’s on the upside helped a lot of women be less on guard.

But now that the world is the safest it’s ever been. In fact I can think of no other time in history when it has been this safe to be alive, we seem to be at at a point where our biological is overtaking our nurture. Mother nature is taking over.

Never underestimate the human need to struggle.

So now we have begun inventing struggles — some women are now inventing oppressors such as “the male gaze,” “mansplaining,” and strange things like “Man’s spreading” — and yet all the while these can be annoying at best they aren’t really the top tiered list of priorities that is facing our country our the western world right now. I’d say poverty, credit card debt and homelessness are WAY up there.

But I think this is just a distraction. I think this is from a deep rooted feeling of not being safe in the mind. This I think is quite a new concept because humans sort of have a priority list. If you’re homeless then physical safety has priority and safety of the mind is way down the bottom of the list. But for a civilization that has now ultimately almost solved every very real struggle that we’ve ever had throughout history we’ve taken to concentrating on other things.

Safety of the mind.

And this is BIG for women. I think men downplay, don’t think about it too much, or are completely unaware of it, but I’ve heard and read women speak about how fear is a constant in their lives and they choose to be around people that make them less afraid. This is something I’ve never had to worry as a man. I mean going to the shops at night and cutting through the dark alley may be scary but it’s not a constant in my mind, nor have I bonded with people where safety is a priority.

So how do you make women feel safe in a world that’s already safe?

Well, there’s the rub. You have to begin to understand women. And I think that’s why a lot of men are falling behind. If you look at the male success rate in academia and life in general we are spiralling down by almost every metric. Women are outpacing us, society is becoming increasingly welcoming to women but more unaccepting to be a man.

A man could just be strong and go into a flash job, and boom, lots of offers from women. But this isn’t the case anymore. Men have found themselves competing against women in their work pool, in school, and also in higher education. This isn’t a bad thing per say but then nothing is being done on an institutional scale to help men right now, although I think that time will come eventually.

So if I were you (and you are a man reading this) I’d start to try and understand women. That’s what I did. Because I had no bloody clue when I was a kid. Women to me were scary and interesting all at the same time, but being the autistic boy that I was (still am) I had no idea why they did the things they do and the weird social games they play. A woman’s social domain is completely different from a mans. Women act and do things differently to what men do in theirs.

And from what I’ve learned in all my twenty years of trying to understand women I find that safety is central to their core. The utmost pivotal emotional and physical aspect of a woman is her safety, and I think that’s what men really need to understand. It’s not all about keeping her physically safe anymore it’s about keeping her mentally safe.

We’re a bit slow on the uptake on this one because I have a YouTube video out that’s attracted a lot of viewers about rekindling a sexless marriage, and it has been met with a lot of pushback from men that can’t see the forest for the trees. Granted some of those comments will be from men in one sided and harmful relationships with women, however I do believe society is tilted towards the good and that the majority of relationships have broken down not because of ill intentions but because of communication issues. I don’t believe in bad/good people. Only shitty choices.

But from my (self) study of women (mainly my wife!) I’ve found them to be particularly receptive to me when I’m open to talking with them about anything and everything. The key note here is to not judge and just listen. I’ve been called a wet wipe, a pussy, a nancy boy for all of this but a lot of it is to do with making her feel safe in the moment to talk to you. If she can’t open up and talk to you about whatever is on her mind then how do you expect to solve any issues that you have?

I mean there was a time not that long ago where physical safety took credence and we really didn’t worry about our emotional health at all. Men worked hard, brought home the money, and women worked hard in the house and had it awesome for when the man came home. But now both women and men are in the workplace and the home simultaneously and you can’t catch a cold and die like we used to be able to.

I accidentally found this out about safety when I decided to hear my wife out when she was complaining to me about something that was on her mind several years ago. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon and firing my six-shooter at her I decided to just listen and not judge, use the skills I had learned at work in my relationship even if it hurt like a bitch to hear that she wasn’t happy and I needed to do something about it.

But it worked of course. Our relationship fully mended and the effort became more reciprocal. Because I listened to her, she began listening to me and my needs. It was quite the chicken and the egg scenario but in a relationship I’ve found the woman needs to feel safe before she can open up to what she truly feels — and if the man isn’t allowing for that then, bad news for you dudes. She won’t open up and it’ll fester and evolve.

Ever had her blow up over something unrelated? Yeah, it’s probably a string of issues that are niggling at her and whatever was happening there reminded her of it. Sit her down, listen to her, don’t fly off the handle. That’s it. Chances are she wants to make it work but you aren’t giving her the opportunity to.

And that’s what us men need to learn. It’s not so much physical safety anymore, but mental safety. If we can tackle that then the whole world is our oyster. Marriage rates will heal, and people will thrive.

I have hope!

Freshly pressed on my blog, here: https://happymindthrive.com/why-women-need-safety/