Zerlina Maxwell, writing at BET, delivers a stern message to women passing off bad relationship advice: We are not in the 1950s. She is responding to advice from the sandwich-making New York Post reporter and one of the "Housewives," who essentially suggest that women cater to their men in order to keep them.
It's 2013, but if you were to pick up a recent issue of the New York Post or a new book by one of the New Jersey housewives, you might think you took a ride in a time machine and ended up in 1953.
For every step of progress women have made in their professional lives, it seems the personal lives of women take several steps back. The idea that women should simply think like men or be submissive and give into the desires of their boyfriends or husbands is setting women back decades.
The New York Post recently ran a story about a woman who literally makes sandwiches for her boyfriend in the hopes that he will eventually put a ring on it. Not only does this “I'm 124 sandwiches away from an engagement ring” story seem like the worst kind of trolling, it makes a relationship seem transactional.
It is evidence of a played-out narrative that women are single or not in long-term partnerships because they aren't catering to their men enough. It's never the male behavior that needs to change, or a little bit of balance between two equal partners that is suggested by the mainstream media. It is a constant narrative that women are the problem and need to change.
Read Zerlina Maxwell's entire piece at BET.
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