Being independent doesn’t mean you don’t have a soft side.
AYourTangowriter shares her own experience with a pampering husband and an independent life.
On my 18th birthday, I went to the biker tattoo parlor and got my navel piercedalone.
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Later that year, I moved 600 miles away to a state where I knew nobody.
I got a Master’s of Fine Arts in fiction despite everyone telling me it was a bad idea.
I quit a Ph.D. program when I got pregnant on purpose.
The point is, I make my own decisions; I’m independent.
This independence comes out in other ways, too.
I can open my own doors.
I can check my own oil.
In short: I do my own thing.
That’s a false dichotomy that’s harmful to women everywhere.
It sets them up to fulfill unrealistic expectations; it damages their self-esteem and their ability for self-actualization.
Women can be independent and pampered at the same time.
The Independent Woman ignores them, or possibly sleeps with them and kicks them to the curb.
She knows what she wants.
Then there’s the Dependent Gal.
I’m from the South.
This is actually a thing.
If women don’t act this way, their husbands are considered whipped.
If he helps with the kids or the cooking, he might as well take it up the ass.
These dichotomies harm women.
An independent woman can make room for men.
She can make lots of room for men, in fact.
But this independent/dependent dichotomy doesn’t help anyone.
Just because I can change my oil doesn’t mean I don’t like a door opened for me.
I appreciate that men stand when I walk in the room.
I like being called “ma’am.”
When men offer to carry heavy things for me, I hand them over.
I don’t have to have to be a model daughter of the South to appreciate gestures of politeness.
I’ll go further than that.
I like having a husband who takes care of me.
He lets me sleep while he watches the kids.
He gives me foot rubs.
He gives me back rubs.
He does other stereotypically un-masculine things I’m too prude to mention here.
He’s been known to wash my hair for me.
I basically won the pampering-husband lottery.
But all those gestures have nothing to do with my independence.
I share custody of the house, unlike many women I know.
I’ve randomly come home with piercings.
I’ve talked about race on CNN and been called a Jew, a hypocrite, and a racist.
I got slammed for writing about Dylan Flood and the Charleston shooting.
My husband has nothing to do with any of these things.
I love that he washes my hair.
I need those nighttime cuddles, but they don’t preclude me from speaking my mind.
I’m independent, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want pampering.
After all, it’s only polite, and politeness and independence aren’t mutually exclusive.
At least, most of the time.
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