The entire concept of men being entitled to rule over, objectify, to control women is flawed from the get go. This whole concept of men being granted some special god like power by virtue of their penis is the lie that started the fall of man, not some mythological woman eating an apple. A penis grants no one any greater importance, no superiority, no special powers, a penis is not a leadership wand to be waved over women to control them. Testosterone gives men more physical strength but that, in and of itself, is only one tiny thing on a list of gender traits that doesn't equate to superiority UNLESS you've been conditioned to think that force and aggression have more value than nurturing and intuition. Sadly, that's been the pervasive thought form for 1000s of years and it's created this imbalance that prevents us from healing. We can NEVER heal as a people if Black men think the world revolves around them and Black women feel as if their identity is enhanced if they have a man.
Let's take a look at a Creation story from traditional Africa BEFORE enslavement and Christianity. God, The All There Is, was not a man, God was a powerful force, no gender attributed to it, just spirit and energy. In this story, God created man and woman as brother and sister, equals. Now, think about it for a minute. Man and woman are equal, there is no curse on women, there is no sin, and women aren't inferior. Who would benefit from creating a situation in which men had dominion over women? God? I can't imagine the Creator of All, The Most High God being that insecure with his own manhood that he needed to create woman to own like a pet, to control. That's a really insecure God, don't you think? That sounds more like a characteristic of a person who is lacking confidence, who wants to assert themselves and control everything. Who does that sound like? God did not create us in his image. White man created God in his.
Left is not better than right. Hot is not better than cold. Up is not better than down, and man is not better than woman. Until we can get that basic concept in our heads and in our hearts, we can't even come to the table to discuss black relationships. Think about it. If we sit down at the table and one person assumes that they have more power, that their word is final, that they hold no obligation to compromise with the other person, that's not going to be a very healthy conversation, is it? I don't need to tell you why Black men's sense of masculinity is so fragile and so easily threatened. During slavery, Black manhood was stripped away from our men. Not just their ability to objectify women as they pleased but the ability to walk with dignity, to make choices and decisions on their own. Manhood was redefined for them and it came to mean how big your dick is and how many things you could possess, women being one of them. That's the mindset of most Black men today. If the TRUE definition of manhood was left on the shores of Africa, where men and women were compliments and not master and slave, then we can't even speak in a healthy language when we get to the table of reconciliation until we shed ourselves of our false beliefs.
If you take a look at the men who are the most outspoken and the most argumentative about Black relationships, they are the men that INSIST that women are at fault for everything. If only Black women would stop tolerating such bad behavior from men, if only Black women would carry themselves in a more feminine manner. It's Black women who try to emasculate them by not letting them be the head of the house and damn those Black women for asking for money. That's nothing more than articulation of a belief that women are supposed to serve the needs of the Black man without considering that they have needs of their own. The head of anything needs to demonstrate leadership. A penis alone isn't a evidence of leadership so if the head of the household is only appointed as such because he has a Y chromosome, that is a doomed relationship. If that household can't take the strengths of both partners and compliment the weaknesses of both partners, regardless of gender, then you are fucked.
I don’t want to overwhelm you with concepts that you can’t digest so I’ll hold off until later to discuss how Black women suffer from a belief in man as superior and how it disables the conversation at the table of reconciliation.
