Why I Need a Man....

I need a man.  After moving yesterday I realize this. Forget what your girlfriend said, forget what your mama said, women need men. I know, I know. Didn’t my mama raise me to be a strong Black woman? She did. In fact, my mother is one of the “strongest” women I know. Now is she happy? That’s a different story.  In fact she constantly repeats the infamous mantra of many “strong” Black women, “Niggas ain’t shit!!” As a young girl this idea was pressed into my palms and sown into my thoughts. Chanted all around me like Tina Turner did nam myoho renge kyo.            

Niggasaintishitniggasaintshitniggasaintshiiiiiiiiiittttt!!!  

Long before I even had the opportunity to experience a man in any relationship, other than my father and brother, I was raised with the expectation to be disappointed and suspicious of Black men.

            Granted women like my mother have their reasons for believing all men are no good. My mother was abandoned by her father and, unfortunately at the time of their marriage (yes, my parents were actually married), my father was off the hook too. Why I’m sure he loved my mother and I know he loved his three children, but his addiction to drugs ruptured my mother’s love for him. Now, I don’t know what it’s like to be married to a drug addict and even though my father was one, he never abandoned me.  He’s been clean for majority of my life and we have a great relationship.  But still my mother reminds me, “You do not know what your father put me through!” She’s right, I have no idea. My mother is very strong……

             I do not have the desire to always appear “strong”. I believe this is an idea sown into us from slavery, from being bred as chattel. It is a dangerous myth. Michelle Wallace wrote a book about it called Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman. I read it when I was 18 and I was suffering from strongblackwomanitis. This idea that I should be able to take any amount of pain, struggle and suffering because I am a Black woman and not even shed a tear. Not only should I be able to take it, but that shit should be a banner across my chest. A sash announcing to the world who I am like Ms. Virginia in the Ms. America contest. “Here comes Ms. Strong Black Woman. Able to work forty plus hours a week, and raise five children with no help from their father! Give her a round of applause!” It is a trap because it becomes an excuse for the world to heap more shit on our back. Then we turn around with a paradoxical mix of pride and anger and say, “Look at all the shit I got piled on my back!”

But after moving yesterday, I realize I have no desire to break my back to show the world how strong I am. There are some things that a man should do. Period, end of discussion. Call me sexist. I should not have to touch garbage. When I was married, I never ever took out the garbage. Yesterday, I took out so much garbage from my apartment, it looked like a garage sale! Now, I did hire movers though. I ain’t crazy! Those Russian men were sweating and breaking their backs carrying my boxes, bed, bookshelf and dresser down the stairs. But they are men, that’s what they are supposed to do. 

As a woman, I don’t want to have to lift anything heavy, or put furniture together. Now I am not the prissy type. All of you who know me, as either Tameka or Shepsa know I am not prissy. I probably look very strong to you. And I am in the way of being focused and handling my business. I know how to get shit done and I know what I want. But what I have observed from women—beautiful women like my mother who do not have a man around---is a hardening of their shell. They begin to take on a sort of roughness, a coarseness that smells like the aroma a’la angryblackwoman. We have all smelled this before. On the train or the bus with the woman who probably really loves her children but is cussing them out. Why? Cause she’s angry! She’s tired and frustrated! She, by nature is feminine but life has forced her into this masculine sphere for her survival. Does she really wish she could be soft? Yes. Does she want a man to come and take care of her and her kids? Yes, yes, yes! But right now she’s being the man and the woman so her energy is way off.

What I am saying is that I have no desire to be that way. I desire to have a man/men (wink) around me to fulfill the masculine sphere so my energy will stay in balance. So why did you leave your marriage then? Hey, I explained that in my first blog! I have no desire to be single forever (I have no desire to be legally married again either). What I do desire is deep, intimate relationships with men who can lend me their yang as I nurture them with my yin. And this is not just about moving furniture. This is about moving life back into balance.  Ashe.