WHY ARE BLACK WOMEN SCARING OFF THEIR MEN?

WHY BLACK WOMEN ARE SCARING OFF THEIR MEN?

Have you met this woman? She has a good job, works hard, and earns a good salary. She went to college, got her Master's degree; she is intelligent. She is personable, articulate, well-read, interested in everybody and everything. Yet she's single.

Or maybe you know this one. She is active in the church, faithful, and committed. She sings in the choir, serves on the usher board, and attends every committee meeting. She loves the Lord and knows the Word. You'd think that with her command of the Scriptures and the respect of her church members, she'd have a marriage as solid as a rock. But again, no husband!

Or perhaps you recognize the community activist. She's a black lady - or as she prefers, an African woman-on-the move. She spots a short natural, sometimes cornrow braids, or even dreadlocks. She’s an organizer, a motivator, a dynamo. Her work for her people speaks for itself - organizing women for self-help collective, raising funds for a community cause, educating others around a new issue in South Africa. Black folks look up to her, and white folks know she's a force to be reckoned with. Yet once again, the men leave her alone.

What do these women have in common? They have so much. What is it they lack? Why is it they may be able to hook a man but can’t hold him?

The women puzzle over this quandary themselves. They gather at professional clubs, at sorority meetings or over coffee at the office and wonder what's wrong with black men.

They hold special prayer vigils and fast and pray and beg Jesus to send the men back to church. They find the brothers attending political strategizing sessions or participating in protests, but when it comes time to go home, the brothers go home to someone else.

I know these women because I am among all these women. And after asking over and over again "What's wrong with these men?” it finally dawned on me to ask the question, "WHAT'S WRONG WITH WOMEN?" What I have found, and what many of these women have yet to discover, is that the skills that make one successful in the church, community or workplace are not the skills that make one successful in a relationship.

Linear thinking, self-reliance, structured goals and direct action assist one in getting assignments done, in organizing church or club activities or in positioning oneself for a raise. But the relationship building requires different skills. It requires making decisions that not only seek to gratify you, but also satisfy others. It means doing things that will keep the peace rather than achieve the goal, and sometimes it means creating the peace in the first place.

Maintaining a harmonious relationship will not always allow you to take the straight line between two points. You may have to stop to conquer or yield to win. In too many cases, when dealing with men, you will have to sacrifice being right in order to enjoy being loved.

Being acknowledged, as the head of the household is an especially important thing for many black men, since their manhood is so often actively challenged everywhere else.

Many modern women are so independent, so self-sufficient, so committed to the cause, to the church, to career - or their narrow concepts of same, that their entire personalities project an ”I don't need a man" message. So they end up without one. An interested man may be attracted but, he soon discovers that this sister makes very little space for him in her life.

Going to graduate school is a good goal and an option that previous generations of blacks have not had. But sometimes the achieving woman will place her boyfriend so low on her list of priorities that his interest wanes. Between work, school and homework, she’s seldom "there" for him for the preliminaries that might develop into a commitment to a woman. She's too busy to prepare him a home-cooked meal or to be a listening ear for his concerns because she is so occupied with her own.

Soon he uses her only for uncommitted sex since to him she appears unavailable for anything else. Blind to the part she’s playing in the problem, she ends up thinking, "Men only want one thing." And she decides she's better off with the degree than the friendship.  When she's 45, she may wish she'd set different priorities while she was younger.

It's not just the busy career girl who can't see the forest for the trees. Couples I know were having marital troubles. During one argument, the husband confronted the wife and asked what she thought they should do about the marriage, what direction they should take. She reached for her Bible and turned to Ephesians. "I know what Paul says and I know what Jesus says about marriage," she told him. "What do you say about our marriage?” the man asks. Dumbfounded, she could not say anything. Like so many of us, she could recite the Scriptures but could not apply them to everyday living. Before the year was out, the husband had filed for divorce.

Women who focus on civil rights or community activism have vigorous fighting spirits and are prepared to do whatever, whenever, to benefit black people. That's good. That's necessary. But it needs to be kept in perspective. It's too easy to save the world and lose your man. A fighting spirit is important on the battlefield, but a gentler one is wanted on the home front. Too many women are winning the battle and losing the home.

Sometimes in our determined efforts to be strong believers and hard workers, the contemporary women downplay, denigrate or simply forget their more traditional feminine attributes. Men value women best for the ways they are different from them, not the ways they are the same. Men appreciate women for their grace and beauty. Men enjoy women for their softness and see it as a way to be in touch with their tender side, a side they dare not show to other men.

A hard-working woman is good to have on your committee. But, when a man goes home, he'd prefer a loving partner to a hard worker.  It's not an easy transition for the modern black woman to make. It sounds submissive, reactionary, outmoded, and oppressive. We have fought so hard for so many things, and rightfully so. We have known so many men who were shaky, jive and untrustworthy. Yet we must admit that we are shaky, jive and wilful in our own ways. Not having a husband allows a woman to do whatever she wants, when and how she wants to do it. Having one means a woman has to share the power and certain points will have to be surrendered.

We are terrified of marriage and commitment - yet dread the prospect of being single and alone. Throwing ourselves into work seems to fill the void without posing a threat. But like any other drug, the escape eventually becomes the cage. To make the break, we need to do less and "be" more. I am learning to "be still and know," to be trusting. I am learning to stop competing with black men and to collaborate with them, to temper my assertive and aggressive energy with softness and serenity.

I'm not preaching a philosophy of "women should be seen and not heard." But I have come to realize that I - and many of my smart and independent sisters are out of touch with their feminine centre and therefore out of touch with their men.