DO women sabotage their relationships with inappropriate attitudes and poor self-esteem?
Male or female, confidence in yourself ensures that you will not submit to being controlled, to abuse and neither will you do the same to your partner, says Phillipa Street-Collings. This also increases the chances that you will find a partner who has confidence.
Still, there are individuals, especially women, who can be confident in one area of life and yet be insecure in others. Note the many examples of females who often prove themselves to be capable academically and in business, yet in their personal relationships they subject themselves to abuse.
Often, they are trained to be capable and in charge, but do it in such a way that the man does not know. Meanwhile boys are socialised to feel empowered as a result of the women they are with. We have failed to adequately prepare the female for a powerful, fulfilling relationship role. They are trained to be more submissive.
Another bad word in our relationships, Mrs. Streete-Collings observes, is being 'accountable'. A lot of Jamaican men do not want to be held accountable for their time or decisions to women, she continued.
And their mothers, sisters, girlfriends, do not demand change in behaviour. They all collude with each other to maintain the status quo, she explained.
"We often secretly or openly delight in their sexual exploits without helping our mature sons to see the value in a committed relationship. Sisters collude with others to embrace and enjoy the side effects of being sister to the brother 'who the girls dem love.'
It is unhelpful, also, when girlfriends and wives knowingly tolerate each other even with anger and bitterness, but do not terminate relationships with the man.
Several ways to ensure your daughter breaks this cycle of low self-esteem or counterproductive collusion are:
Develop her sense of self-esteem, accomplishment and achievement. Enable her to feel comfortable with herself.
Provide her with an emotionally secure environment so she can test who she is, while supporting her ideas. Give feedback - imparting your own values, yet at the same time enabling her to dare to be herself. Provide her with experiences throughout her life in which she meets with success academically and socially.
With a good sense of self she will be able to recognise what she likes and what she does not like. If she has no sense of self, she will float with the wind and allow others to dictate what she says and does.
Do not limit her, within reasonable terms, to what a female can do. Help her to have platonic relationships with members of the opposite sex, recognising that men are not just sex objects, but neither are they to be feared. Help her to understand the opposite sex in a way that does not involve the erotic emotions of 'puppy love'.
Parents should be good role models, both singly and as a couple.
