The “I Don’t Need A Man” Epidemic

Lately, I’ve really started to pay attention to the little things, especially in movies and television and even books. I have been trying to zero in on the little throwaway lines that are used. These lines are usually spoken in an offhanded manor and quickly dismissed to go onto another part of the conversation. And one line keeps coming up over and over and it is starting to really irritate me.

I think the title of this post should be a dead giveaway. So much anymore, you hear women constantly saying “I don’t need a man”. It is a focus in many movies, especially more recent ones. But it is also a side story to a lot of plots as well. I have also heard it spoken by several women outside of movies and TV. I’m not sure if I’ve ever said it, but if I have, I take it back, I think it’s a load of crap.

What really irks me is when I hear women say this in the context of having kids. “I don’t need a man to have a baby.” Bull shit! It takes both a man and a woman to create one. So actually, you do need a man to have a baby. You may not need to be in a relationship to have a baby, and you may not need a man to help you provide for and raise your child, but you still need one at some point to make the little monster. Even if you use artificial insemination and never meet the father, you still needed him to provide the sperm.

But aside from getting knocked up, do you really need a man? Well, maybe not, but I still find the saying irritating. If you are a lesbian, fine, that makes sense, but I have never heard a lesbian say she doesn’t need a man. I have always heard heterosexual women say it and we all know they are full of shit. And the saying is true, but it is only partially so. You may not need a man, but you want one a lot.

I have a friend who I once heard say she didn’t need a man. This friend, at the time was so desperately trying to find one though. She wanted to have a good man to love her, and in the way she pursued it, you would think she truly did need a man. If she truly believed that she didn’t need a man to be happy, she wouldn’t have been trying to find one so badly.

The other day, I heard the results of a study. They had asked a bunch of women and a very large percent of them (somewhere between 60 and 80%) claimed they could truly be happy without finding love. These were straight women, by the way. And obviously, they were all lying.

I know I have said that I will live if I never find love, but that is very different than saying I’d be truly happy. Maybe some of these women could be, but certainly not as many as claimed to be. Could you be content? Yes. Would it be the end of your life? No. But to be truly happy without love, I think is very difficult to pull off and I think these women are being incredibly disingenuous.

I don’t mean to take anything away from the women’s movement and all. I just want to point out that there is an epidemic of women thinking they are so much better than men. And that is so wrong. I know that there are bad men in the world, but guess what, there are bad women too. Men have a place on this earth too. And it’s not just making babies and moving furniture.