The Power of a Smile?

It always worries me when people start proselytising about relationships by making pseudo-philosophical statements of power. Worse than that is the connotation that power in the hands of a man is used as a negative unless its sole purpose is to please the woman. It sits uncomforably for a number of reasons, not least because it can be demeaning to men and women at the same time.

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The Assumption that the aim is Control

The common negative assumption of men is that their goal is to capture a woman that they control or keep as their own. Indeed, the history of marriage is one of ownership in many cultures, and there is a prevelance in western cultures especially that a man asks the permission of the father to marry his daughter. Some find this romantic: I find it a sign that the father has raised his daughter to be submissive to men, if indeed even the man with whom she shares a love must ask for his permission to be "released" into his care. Or ownership.

The idea that a man's power must be defined by the woman's public display of pleasure makes for both a patheticly shallow man who hold's his woman's display as some kind of affirmation. It is also quite sad that a woman might want her man to feel empowered merely by her smile. It's about as on par with women who feel they have a secret power over men by faking their orgasm: enjoying their own secret power by allowing him to falsely think he achieved pleasure for her.

It also perpetuate's the notion that all he seeks is to bolster his own control over someone by giving them pleasure, rather than wanting to be a partner to shared pleasure. Indeed, what the philosohpical image above fails to mention is whether the man and woman smile together. Surely and equal relationship should not be a matter of power, but an opprotunity to seek collective success, mutual success: to smile together.

The Assertion that a man's success is defined by a woman's reaction

What if there is more to a man than the reactions of a woman? It is possible that a woman may smile and that a man has "done well by her". But it is equally possible that the woman smiles and the man grimmaces because he's trapped in a relationship where if the woman doesn't have a huge smile on her face due to his submission then society will judge him - if not an oppressive force - a weak and emasculated fool? Again the assumption is that we must focus on the woman and her reaction in order to judge the man.

What if the woman is smiling because she's cheating on him with some other chauvenistic, sexual overlord and then going home to a boring life she hates, but compensates with her own infidelity? What about if her smile is more about the little slip of cyanide she just slipped into the beer he made her get from the fridge a moment before?

And why should it be a woman's place to define the success or level of power of a man? Is that not the same Narcissistic obsession that makes women take children and cut men out of their lives to show their own dominance over him? Should it be the woman's place - or indeed society's place through the woman - to grant a man's "real power" merely by the pleasure of a woman? Or should we not, as suggested before, be talking about their shared power they achieve together?

That a woman has the right to feel it is her role to define a man as "real" or not

It is one of societie's ludicrous hypocrasies, claiming that we should all be respectful of equal rights by proferring so much "power" to women at the expense of men. Of course, one must now expect to be reminded of the many centuries or millenia of women being oppressed by men. But when that happens - and usually at the behest of the angriest of feminists - it only serves to reveal a smattering of ignorance when it comes to women in societies of the world. Many cultures work on the basis of a matriarchy and the respect for the power of the woman is far higher on the agenda of any man or child.

It is a throwback to the female oppressed days, and a kind of rebellion that women dreamt of, to have the "power" to define a man as "real" or not; to ridicule men for their masculinity; but to ridicule them further when they are part of roles that became defined as female, such as looking after children. We always hear little quips of sexism when the children have been "left with daddy", or daddy is on "babysitting" duty - as if he is just the joke side of the parenting. Ironically, if a man was to refer to a woman as a homemaker or doing her job at the home - even if in the most positive of ways, political correctness has gone to the extent of calling that sexist.

When power-judgement supercedes value

When comments start being thrown around about defining man by woman or woman by man we forget the most important part of judgement: by self. A man with a smiling woman is no more a sign of his power than it is of her pleasure, comfort or safety. And why should a man's value be reduce to the simplicity of an assumption that the single goal is to achieve power in order to define him as "real"? Why is it a woman's place to define a man as a "real" man, anyway? Should a man claim to do the same of a woman he would be immediately classed as a misogynist of some kind: I mean, how dare he think he has the right to define a woman? After all, women have been fighting for decades to define themselves - not just as mothers, or homemakers, but as equally valuable in the workplace, too. Equally. As in the demand of equal pay for the same job as a man. (Unless they play tennis, where they want equal pay for 60% of the work). (Oh, and equal except that they don't feel that men are as equal in the home.) (Oh, and when it comes to bringing up children, apparently the mother is supreme.)

So why should a man's "real power" be defined by a woman's smile?

It shoudn't - or at least, no more or less than a woman's "real power" should be defined by the smile of the man sitting next to her. Statements like the one in the picture are based on the assumption that society owes women a greater right to define a man's power as if we should all feel endebted, somehow apologetic for all the women who were not or are not able to smile, presumably because of a man. And then the main difference is simple, and the same as always:

Make a sweeping, generalised comment about men, their power, and their status of being "real" and a woman is applauded and praised for her wisdom or wit.

Should a man do the same about women....well...