Excusez Moi...

All women I know-barring none- have two facets . One is our general everyday persona; the other our relationship one. And since most women I know are strong-willed independent career oriented lawyers in everyday life, it distresses me to see them struggle through relationships, putting up with all kinds of &^%$ from the men in their lives. We have this incredible capacity for feeling guilty. We can justify anything and everything that goes wrong with us, particularly in relationships, as being our own fault-we are either too sensitive, or not sensitive enough, or too high maintenance or too easy to please, or too nagging or too indifferent- you get the picture....
Why, I wonder? I guess, when society is busy enough blaming women for anything that goes wrong with us(she got raped/felt up/harassed??- well, she must have led him on; she wore provocative clothes; she should have known the consequences yada yada yada- I can even cite Supreme Court judgments that take this line), we internalize this blame-game thingie....Nothing explains why otherwise strong independent women consent to be in abusive relationships for years together; why some feel guilty for wanting the boy to be more committed and others feel guilty for not caring enough, why they excuse so much in the men they are with....Which is the true us though? Is it the everyday persona that's a mask? Or do we accept certain relationship rituals and role-plays without really believing in them?
Do men go through this perpetual self-castigation? Do they have this in-built guilt churning machine inside them too? I dont know, but I sure as hell hope they do.....i'd hate to feel that on top of everything else, we got a raw deal on this one too...
Read this for an interesting take on power justifications for perpetuating social structures even if men and women had been a bit different....