The Confident Woman: Start Today Living Boldly and Without Fear (16 page)

Dorothea Lynde Dix (1802–1887) initiated the most widespread reform for the mentally ill that occurred during the nineteenth century, both in America and in Europe. Her father was an alcoholic preacher and her mother was not in good mental health herself. From early in life she taught school, encouraged by her fiancé Edward Bangs.

Though she decided not to marry him, and in fact remained single throughout her lifetime, Edward continued to encourage her in her teaching and in her social work. Her first experience in mental health reform came about as a result of an opportunity to conduct a Sunday school class in a Cambridge, Massachusetts, jail where she found mentally ill people kept in unheated cells because “the insane do not feel heat or cold.” Her reforms first carried the day in Massachusetts, helped along by her friends Bangs and the governor, who knew her personally. From there she traveled throughout the eastern United States, presenting careful research to legislators who usually enacted some kind of reform. One of the conclusions of her research, which had an impact on mental health care both in America and in Europe, was that by merely improving the living conditions of the mentally ill their illness could be greatly alleviated. One source states that Dix played a major role in founding thirty-two mental hospitals, fifteen schools for the feeble minded, a school for the blind, and numerous training facilities for nurses.
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All that must happen in order for a tragic injustice to crumble is for someone to confront it. That person must have perseverance and must not be easily defeated by opposition. Dorothea had the qualities that were necessary. It is totally amazing what one woman can accomplish if she will press forward confidently rather than shrinking back in fear and assuming that she could never do the job that needs to be done.

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) was the unknown seamstress who started the modern American Civil Rights Movement. On Dec. 1, 1955, she refused to move to the back of the bus after a white man got on board and wanted to sit in a front seat in the city of Montgomery, Alabama. What is not so well known is that this act of defiance to segregationist laws was long planned by a woman well qualified to go into history as initiating the civil rights movement. Born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Rosa was eleven when she attended the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, a private school founded by women from the northern states. The school supported the philosophy of Rosa’s mother who believed “you should take advantage of the opportunities, no matter how few they were.”

Rosa also related in later interviews that her lifelong acquaintance with fear made her determined and gave her courage to appeal her conviction during the bus boycott that followed her arrest and conviction. She had already worked on numerous cases with the NAACP before the bus incident. Following Parks’ arrest, blacks boycotted the bus system for 382 days until an agreement was worked out. The U.S. Supreme Court also ruled that segregation on buses was unconstitutional. Parks was the first woman to receive the Martin Luther King Nonviolent Peace Prize.
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From Rosa’s life, we see that if one person is courageous enough to step out and attempt to do something about a problem, other people with the same desire will also come forward. Rosa refused to live in fear; she was determined to have what was rightfully hers and her determination sparked government reform for all.

Judging from some of the testimonies we just read, I would say that women are definitely not “the weaker sex.” Their contribution to the world has been magnificent and cannot be ignored any longer.

God made men and women to be different in many different ways, but muscle mass is just one of those differences. Though men are usually physically stronger than women, this fact certainly does not make women “the weaker sex.” It should not apply to our intelligence or our emotions and we should not allow it to!

Whether you are married or single, you will encounter and need to deal with men throughout your life. I believe it is important for our confidence level as women to understand ourselves and the differences between us and men. We need to remember that those differences aren’t better or worse, they’re just different; once we accept those differences, we can understand and appreciate what each of our genders offer.

Let’s start with physical differences. Women’s hearts beat faster. Men’s brains are larger but women’s brains contain more neurons. Depending on whether you’re studying the brain of a man or a woman, different areas of the brain will light up in response to identical tasks. Even the rate at which we visibly age is seen differently in men and women.
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I don’t have to compete with a man for his position, I have my own position and I am comfortable with it.

In his best-selling book,
Love and Respect,
Dr. Emerson Eggerichs points out that the obvious differences found in men and women can be seen in something as simple as looking into a closet. Eggerichs writes about a couple getting dressed for the day:

She says, “I have nothing to wear.” (She means, she has nothing new.)

He says, “I have nothing to wear.” (He means, he has nothing clean.)
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Some women have such a competitive spirit with men that they forget to be women. Recently a minister whom I greatly respect paid me a tremendous compliment. He said, “Joyce, you are a woman in ministry that still knows how to be a woman. You are not trying to act like a man or preach like one.” He went on to share that he felt I was strong but feminine and he admired that. He told me that throughout his years in ministry and church leadership he saw many women fail in ministry because they tried to act like men and it caused them to be disliked and rejected.

I am sure we have all heard the saying, “It’s a man’s world and if you want anything in this world you have to fight for it.” I choose to believe it is my world also and I don’t fight—I trust God that He will help me be all I can be. I don’t have to compete with a man for his position, I have my own position and I am comfortable with it. I like being a woman and I don’t want to be a man. But, I must admit there are mornings when I wish all I had to do was comb my hair and shave instead of doing my skin care routine, putting on makeup, curling my hair, arching my eyebrows and trying on three outfits before I finally feel it is safe to go outside.

The Bible says that people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). I believe marriages, friendships, and business relationships are destroyed due to men and women not understanding the differences that make us unique. In our pride we usually think that we are a shining example of what is right and we expect everyone to act as we do and like what we like, but that is fantasy, not fact.

One man said, “I know I’m not ever going to understand women. I’ll never understand how you can take boiling hot wax, pour it onto your upper lip, rip the hair out by the root, and still be afraid of a spider.”

Let’s look at some other ways men and women are different from each other:

Women offer unsolicited advice and give direction, but men usually don’t take advice very well. The woman thinks she is just trying to help, but the man thinks she doesn’t trust him to make the right decision.

When a woman disagrees with a man he takes it as disapproval and it ignites his defenses. Men only want advice after they have done everything they can do. Advice given too soon or too often causes him to lose his sense of power. He may become lazy or insecure.

Men are motivated and empowered when they feel needed. Women are motivated when they feel cherished.

Men are visual creatures; once an image is in their head, it’s hard to get it out. Women are more inclined to remember emotions or how something made them feel.

Men tend to go into their cave and want to think about what is bothering them, but women want to talk about what’s bothering them.

In one survey, more than 80% of men, four out of five, said that in a conflict they were likely to feel disrespected. Women, on the other hand, would feel unloved.
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Because a woman’s vocal cords are shorter than a man’s, she can actually speak with less effort than he can. Shorter vocal cords not only cause a woman’s voice to be more high pitched, but also require less air to become agitated, making it possible for her to talk more with less energy expended.
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Communication experts say that the average woman speaks more than 25,000 words a day while the average man speaks only a little over 10,000. One business executive said, “The problem is, that by the time I get home from work I have already spoken my 10,000 and my wife hasn’t even gotten started.”

Men don’t feel like they have to share everything while women usually share everything and more. I’ve seen this occur in my own marriage when I don’t feel well and have a virus. Of course, I tell my husband Dave the moment I am not feeling good, and I’ve been surprised to find while sharing my symptoms in detail that he had the same virus one week earlier and never said one thing to me about it.

When a man and woman have had a problem and the man is ready to reconnect, the woman waits for him to initiate a conversation about what upset him. However, he doesn’t need to talk about his upset feelings because he is no longer upset. He wants to forget it and move on, she wants to talk about it and make a list of ways they can avoid having it happen again.

Before I learned better I always wanted to try to figure out why we had the problem or argument to begin with and Dave simply said, “It is part of life.”

Men are simple . . . women are not simple and they always assume that men are just as complicated and intricate as they are. The whole point is that guys don’t think deeply all the time like women do. They are just what they appear to be.

I recall once getting irritated with Dave and telling him that we needed to have deeper conversation. I shared that I was tired of conversations with no real depth or meaning. He looked very confused and asked me what in the world I was talking about and then went on to say, “This is as deep as I get.”

While I have always been a deep thinker and absolutely love to sit and talk and talk and talk about all the possibilities of a situation, Dave keeps it very simple and merely says, “We’ll see what happens.”

Women want to be loved, respected, valued, complimented, listened to, trusted and sometimes, just to be held. Men want tickets for the World Series.

Women want affection, men want sex.

Most women cry an average of five times per month. I haven’t seen my husband cry five times in forty years. Women are simply more emotional than men. Men are very logical.

Understanding does make all the difference in the world. My husband, for example, is very protective of me and is constantly telling me how to do things to prevent me from getting hurt. Before I understood why he gave me instructions on everything from how to get out of the bathtub to how to go down the steps, I thought that he thought I was dumb. I often said, “You don’t need to tell me that, I am not stupid.” He would look hurt and say “I’m just trying to help you.”

Now that I understand, his actions make me feel cherished. The Bible encourages us to seek understanding. Read a couple of good books on the differences between men and women and also one on the differences in personalities. If you do, it will give you insight and understanding that may prevent thousands of arguments or misunderstandings.

Chapter Ten

STEPS TO INDEPENDENCE

S
everal studies show that women are more likely to be dependent on others than men are and often have more difficulty establishing their independence. This does not mean that women are by nature weaker and more dependent; it means that some of their training has not been as balanced as it should have been.

When girls are growing up they usually spend more time with their mothers than their fathers. A boy begins to realize that he is not like his mother and he differentiates himself from her. His masculinity is defined by separation. This does not mean that he gets away from his mother or no longer needs or depends on her, but it means that he will normally seek his own identity and individuality. A girl does not feel this need and usually remains close to her mother.

Some mothers have great difficulty allowing their sons to find their own identity. They sense them pulling away and it frightens them. If a mother is successful in preventing this healthy separation in her son it can and usually does cause tremendous problems in his life later on.

These facts help form the way we cope with issues when we grow up. Males are often known to be good at independence but not good at relationships. Females are usually better at relationships but not so good with independence.

As much as six times more women experience depression and about 70% of the mood-altering or anxiety relieving drugs are taken by women.

This reason has been suggested by Maggie Scarf:

“Women are statistically more depressed because they have been taught to be more dependent and affection-seeking, and thus they rarely achieve an independent sense of self. A woman gives her highest priorities to pleasing others, being attractive to others, being cared for, and caring for others. Women receive ferocious training in a direction that leads away from thinking “What do I want?” and toward “What do they want?” They may be in danger of merely melting into the people around them and fail to realize they are an individual with rights and needs and they need to establish independence.”
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Let me establish what I mean by independence. We are never to be independent from God. As I have said repeatedly, we cannot do anything properly without Him and should be dependent on God at all times for all things.

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. [For all things originate with Him and come from Him; all things live through Him and all things center in and tend to consummate and to end in Him] To Him be glory forever! Amen (so be it.)
(Romans 11:36)

I have pondered this Scripture for quite some time and I believe it helps make my point. God is everything and we are nothing without Him.

Needing God and needing people is not a sign of weakness. We can be dependent and independent at the same time. Bruce Wilkinson once said that “God’s power under us, in us, surging through us, is exactly what turns dependence into unforgettable experiences of completeness.” We can feel complete when we acknowledge our dependence on our Heavenly Father.

It has been statistically proven that 10% of people will never like you so stop trying to have a perfect record with everyone and start celebrating who you are.

I believe that women have a need to feel safe and cared for and I don’t believe that is wrong. My husband takes very good care of me and I like it. He is protective and always wants to make sure that I am safe. The difference in me and perhaps someone who has an out of balance attitude in this area is that, even though I thoroughly enjoy Dave taking care of me, I also know that I could take care of myself if I needed to. Even though I am dependent upon him and rightfully so, I am not so dependent that I am handicapped by it.

A balanced independence is what we should seek and to me that is being able to trust and depend on God and other people and yet establish my individual identity. The Bible teaches that we are not to be conformed to the pattern of this world (Romans 12:2). Everyone has their own idea of what we should be. To establish a balanced independence in our lives there are several things we must do.