“Guys don’t like girls to know about serious stuff, just smile and keep saying I do not know.” My friend was taking me along on her date and was giving me some last minute advise to help me get a boyfriend too so we can double date.
I had this, according to them, bad habit of speaking my mind and sometimes even disagreeing with a guy and the girls were convinced this was the reason I was forever dateless. I was used to being urged to keep quiet and just keep smiling. On of my cousins says that one of her earliest memories of me, was at a family gathering where little short me was holding court with our male elders and our aunts and grandmothers kept asking whose child I was. I have always been opinionated and am not shy to give my opinion and say if I disagree with yours. My colleagues love to tell me how guys are always asking them who I’m seeing and saying, “That’s a brave man”.
As women, we’ve been trained almost to not have an opinion. We were told and convinced that we shouldn’t have our own views on things; and if we do, it’s deemed unladylike or even disrespectful. Listen to any radio talk show and the majority of callers expressing their views are male.
Many are the times that I have heard a sister express her opinion and after her man had spoken, change it yo agree with him – almost as if she wants to delete from memory het previous lapse into thinking for herself. That baffles me as an opinion cannot be wrong. By definition it’s a “subjective statement or thought about an issue or topic and is the result of emotion or interpretation of facts. An opinion may be supported by an argument, although people may draw opposing opinions from the same set of facts.”
My take on things is based in how I see it and therefore there is no right or wrong – simply differing reactions to the same events.
How many of us keep quiet at work because we don’t want to be seen to be rocking the boat? Or agree with our boss or colleagues even though we think differently? How many of us say we love football, or jazz or even certain foods just to impress the guys we have been eyeing forever?
We are not lying to other, but even worse, to ourselves and the truth has a funny way of coming out eventually. What do you think?
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