Engender Truth

A friend of mine sent me the link to a site called Don’t Date Him Girl which claims to be dedicated to “empowering women” and “defending women’s rights.” The most prominent feature of this website is the opportunity to add pictures, profiles and warnings about men who are serial cheaters.

I think there are several issues to this concept of accusing and demonizing men online from a position of anonymity.The first issue is that there always remains the danger that the reputation of an innocent man could be damaged by the cowardly and vindictive actions of a woman scorned. Secondly, I tend to think that there is little anyone can do to prevent these people lying and cheating on women. I don’t think that putting pictures, warnings and profiles of these men will stop their actions, I doubt they will change their ways and they will always find others to suck into their games of deceit. So, from my point of view, a website profiling the actions of such individuals is a complete waste of energy and resources. It gives men an unfair press but also makes women look silly, petty and bitter. (I notice that there is a domain name called dontdateherman.com which is supposed to do the same for men about cheating women, but this directs back to dontdatehimgirl.com – not sure if they are building this site behind the scenes at the moment). The only logical and honourable action woman can take in this situation is to learn from experience and move on.

The title of this post (Can women behave like men in relationships) is from a question posed by readers of dontdatehimgirl.com in the blog section of the site. The question appears insightful but it is a question that presupposes the answer as it has various assumptions that underpin it. These assumptions are highlighted by the response from one of the senior members of the site:

Tasha says…The short answer is no, not if they want to be accepted in society. It’s unfortunate, but women are held to a much different standard when it comes to affairs of the heart than men are. Why? Maybe it’s because women will eventually become mothers and no one wants to think that the mother of a child has slept with many men, had a one-night stand or had an affair. After all, mothers are supposed to be chaste, just like the Virgin Mary, right? I think women should not aspire to behave like men anyway. Who wants to behave like an alley cat, sneaking around and jumping from woman to woman with abandon? If a woman behaves that way, eventually she’ll be labeled one of the many niceties society has attached to such behavior. You know the ones – slut, bitch, whore, etc. It’s not fair, but it’s the way it is!

This answer disappoints me because it doesn’t ask the most obvious question to clarify the issue: How do men behave in relationships? Without clarification of this issue, the answer is based on assumptions, some of which are inaccurate and unfair.

In this response we can see that the author has made the assumption that all men sleep around, have affairs and that they behave like “an ally cat, sneaking around and jumping from woman to woman with abandon”. Sure, there are many men out there who act like this, but not all. Is it fair to assume that all men act in this way in relationships?

Is it fair to paint a picture of cheating being “male behaviour” especially in light of the fact that women are now statistically not far behind men in terms of promiscuity?

Taking this into consideration I would pointedly disagree with “Tasha” that women cannot act like men, because they can and do, regardless of the labels they are brandished with as a result.

For the sake of balance, there is a male respondent on the site which tries to answer the same question.

The Average Guy says...Women should not behave like men, period. But you can if you want to. However, you should know that you will be characterized as a woman who has sex with numbers of different men, sleeps around, has sex on the first date and unfortunately, that is not the kind of person men want to marry. Men don’t want to marry somebody they think half the town has slept with. We want to believe that a sexual relationship between us and a woman that we have feelings for is special. We don’t want to walk into a bar and feel like our woman has slept with half of the men in there. However, it is also time for men to adopt a more woman-like attitude and sleep with one person at a time. And try to develop an emotional connection with the people that you sleep with. And this is something that both men and women should do. Meaningless one-night-stand sex is just that, meaningless. Men will get the reputation of being a dog and potentially get put on this site and women get the reputation of being sluts. I wouldn’t want to be tagged with either label. Tell us what you think!

I agree with the comment that women should not behave like men, and it is also true that women can act like that if they want to. It is after all a choice you make as an individual.

However, I doubt a man would be upset knowing that his partner had some sexual partners in her history; I think it is more an issue of woman having self-respect. In my observation, women who sleep around and throw themselves sexually at lots of men tend to do so because they mistake sexual attention for a genuine interest in them (or they are influenced by alcohol, it is certainly a factor too).

I think this comment is good: We want to believe that a sexual relationship between us and a woman that we have feelings for is special. (For the record, I think a majority of women like to think the sexual relationships they have with the men they have feelings for is special too.)

However this comment I find inaccurate: However, it is also time for men to adopt a more woman-like attitude and sleep with one person at a time. I don’t think such attitude is “woman-like” since women like to get themselves involved in affairs and multiple partners as much as men do.

My simple answer to the question of whether or not women can behave like men in relationships would be – yes they can and do. Although it can appear a double standard that men sleep around and are not called names, whereas a woman does it and she is called names, I don’t think it is much of an issue unless you think it is acceptable for men/women to act in this way.

In my personal view indiscriminate sleeping around robs both men and women of their humanity and the humanity of others (it turns them into nothing more than pieces of flesh). This does not mean I think that men and women should be celibate, or that women and men who sleep around are dirty, wrong and immoral people. Sex can be many things, it can be cheap, exploitative and impersonal and it can be deep, meaningful and special. Sex can be whatever you want to make of it. It is possible for a woman to enjoy her sexuality without being labeled a slut, if you are careful and discriminate about who you jump into bed with and be cautious about playing games of kiss-and-tell. Ultimately it is up to the individual to make a decision about how to express their sexuality, and deal with any consequences that may come out of that decision.

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