First off we need to get beyond the desire for and defining ourselves around romantic love, psychologically speaking. At least, we need more of a balance between romance and the business part of marriage and relationships. Our thinking here is skewed.
We need to say no to storytelling that is bad for us (movies and romance novels). Ever notice how the storylines always revolve around the man being a complete psycho fuck-up who FINALLY sees the light and then is forgiven by the girl? We need to Just Say No to this pain porn. It’s actually not worth it.
We need to talk about standards of dating with our young women in honest terms. Where do you draw the line? What’s acceptable and what is not. Difference is, instead of telling them, we need to lead them through thinking it through for themselves. They’re the ones that have to live with it so they should have the responsibility of it from the start rather than sending them out onto the world blind.
We need to challenge anything in our society that strips the confidence of girls and leaves them in a self loathing state prior to adulthood. That includes “Daddy’s little princess”, diet culture, over focus on beauty, etc. As adults, we need to stop putting our money in businesses that perpetuate misogyny on a societal level and they need to know that’s why they lost our business. Rolling boycotts.
When I got married, my grandfather gave me $5K in a secret bank account, just for me, in case I needed it. I’ve promised my daughter the same, inflation adjusted. That’s a much better wedding gift than a fancy wedding. The freedom of safety, just in case. If you never need it then you have a nice trip to Europe or wherever when you retire. I would highly recommend no woman cohabit with or marry a man without that safety net.
Don’t date until you’ve had a basic self defense class and/or have worked on how to handle a man who is becoming a danger to you. We need to have discussions with young women about what constitutes a danger and that you cannot believe them, instead believe their actions.
We need to talk to girls and young women honestly about all the ways a guy can screw you over and how to deal with it. Dating, but also places of work, men who abuse authority like teachers or youth leaders, friends, colleagues, etc. What happens in the process. What are your legal rights and responsibilities? How do you prove your case? How do you collect evidence? What are your options beyond legal ones?
We need to establish habits of checking the character of men we are involved with.
We need to talk about grooming, how to recognize it and how to handle it.
Basically, for years there’s been this push for women to be passive and passive recipients of relationships. We need to break that across the board. I think it’s important to distinguish that were not talking about going full aggressive in the same toxic sense that men are now because that’s not the opposite of passive. Being active is.
