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Last week, we started talking about the word “hierarchy.” Let’s face it, the word just sounds big and domineering, not to mention I feel like I’m dislocating my jaw when I say it out loud.
But before we completely write it off, let’s remember where we left off in Part 1: most men, I’ve discovered, have an innate sense of responsibility when it comes to protecting women. And women, instead of getting offended or discouraged, could benefit from adapting to an attitude of gratitude toward the intentions of these good men.
Recently I was with a friend in Atlanta, and she was trying to convince me that her neighborhood was safer than other pockets of the city. “There’s only been one murder at my apartment complex,” she said.
Where do I sign the lease?
“It’s really quite sad,” she said. “A boyfriend and girlfriend were coming home to the complex, and a gang saw the female and decided they were going to rape her. When the couple got to the complex and were headed up to the apartment, the gang came after them at gunpoint. The boyfriend shoved her away and told her to run, and in his effort to stop them and help her get away, he was shot and killed.”
She got away.
There are too many stories like this to discount something that seems to be inherent in most men’s minds. Whether this trait is self-imposed or God-designed, I see it turned on when a man is with a woman. Though she isn’t without desire, I simply hear far too many women saying how much they love feeling “safe” with a man (and I don’t often hear that from men) that I believe…
…this is a way that we can simply say, “Thank you, good men, for your desire to make us feel safe.”
That’s a social construct, Joy!
Maybe so, and you are free to believe what you want, but I want to say one final time that I don’t think this has any bearing on the strength of a woman. Rather, sometimes I think it takes more strength for us to acknowledge the man’s desire simply to protect.
One story my dad tells is about Bill and Hillary Clinton when they were doing an interview together. Something in the studio exploded, sounding like a shot-gun, and Hillary Clinton, one of the strongest female figures of the 21st century in the United States, jumped into the arms of Bill, who was equally reactive in throwing his arms around her.
Go figure.
I may not be Hillary-Clinton strong, but I know I am capable in my singleness to be on guard and have my own back. But boy oh boy does it make me excited to know that if I find a good man who is living within God’s design, he will (without tooting his own horn) love me like my friends’ husbands love them. I hope he will never have to take such a visible action as throwing himself in front of a gunman, but that his desire to protect is there. And I hope my little friend Bear will also grow up and feel a responsibility toward his girlfriend someday. He probably won’t voice this feeling or even recognize it as something unique, but he will understand with a nod when one of his friends says, “Every time my wife travels with me to Africa, it makes me a totally different person.”
My new awareness that little Bear and my future husband have this expectation of each other creates a gratitude in me that I think many women neglect to voice. Not because they aren’t grateful, but out of a lack of understanding that this protective awareness is one way that men love.
I want to say thank you to the men who love well in this way.
“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” ~John 15:13
From my grateful heart,
Joy
How can you show gratitude to the good men in your life?
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Love and Respect (Now) is a division of Love and Respect. Please be considerate.
I would like to say “Thank you!!!” also! To my Dad, Grandpa, 2 brothers, brother-in-law, brothers in Christ, uncles and husband-to-be-someday. This quality is so valued, appreciated, and attractive in you, men of God!
I love how you’ve expressed, Joy, that this is a trait representative of living in God’s design for manhood – and I would reiterate that we as women have been designed by God to appreciate and respond to it. What a special, beautiful partnership! 🙂
How to show gratitude? I believe we need to live our gratitude by showing our menfolk respect and trust. Instead of questioning their every move and decision, exhibit confidence in their God-given abilities and motives. Encourage your children to respect and honor their father and, believe it or not, your daughters to treat their brothers the same.
Thanks, Joy, for writing these articles. It’s exciting to see young women realize these truths in a society that has minimized and demoralized men.
I think respecting men and being appreciative of their desire to protect women is important, but I would love to hear more about what you think about the ideas related to hierarchy in marriage that says the man is supposed to be the “head of the household”, lead the family in spiritual matters and that the wife should defer to the husband’s judgment in “major” decisions. For me, those are the bigger issues with hierarchy and what I think other ladies my age are more concerned about.
Joy,
You are a joy to read! For the sake of other young single women, I’ll state what you already know here. Until you find that man who will be your husband and be willing to die for you, remember that your father is that man for now. I have a single 24 year old daughter living 8 hours away, and believe me, my husband feels very protective of her until he can find a brave honorable man to whom he can give her away.
Aron (@AronDarling) thinks...
Great series here Joy; or maybe it could be called a couplet. There is a story in the first or second chapter of ‘Point Man’ by Steve Farrar where he describes going through a jungle and the team gets ambushed, the thoughts that go through men’s minds in situations like that. Then he goes into the same type of situation where a man is leading his family through the jungle of life; if it is a jungle in Vietnam or the jungle of life and what the “World” throws at us and our families. The man and young boy in this story are priceless and they are depicted truthfully as I think back to the way I tried to be strong when I was very little and how I hope to be leading as a man and some day as a husband.
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