Stand up for your man. Build your man. Fix your man. We would still use 'Bottom up' in this context of encouraging women to, literally, start small with the men in their lives and walk with them from little or nothing, into their years of wealth and health. Beats me.
But aren't these some of the many narratives Aunty Tabby and Aunty Magdalena have taught us about being a good woman? That a good woman is one who doesn't ask for the fine things in life but accepts to generously share herself and what she has, in the name of love.
We all see potential in a man. Actually, every man is a potential husband and father. More like some project sort of, a woman will be encouraged to overlook material things in a man pursuing her, overlook his ability to take care of one more person apart from buying two eggs and 250ml of milk for himself and love him anyway.
Women do this, all the time. But it's the entitlement and disappointment that comes with being Bob the Builder. You've probably read about a woman from around whose husband of three years left her after he got himself a job. As if that was not enough, he rubbed it in and told her he was only with her because he was jobless.
The poor lady had apparently bought a piece of land under the guy's name. We've heard such narratives around us, haven't we? Of women sticking when he has nothing but he leaves immediately he finds something, someone. Society expects women to build their men. Build the men they wanna settle down with, eventually. Societal moral cops dictate that a woman should not look at the ability of a man to provide, but see potential and work on, with him to where she wants him to be. A good woman should put up with all the fuckery and poverty in order to qualify as wife material. She should make herself small and massage his fragile masculinity regardless.
I know y'all will say how men have been building women and building for them since the days of our grandmother's lives, taken them to school, paid dowry bla bla. But isn't that what they're supposed to be and do? The head of the house, home? The stronger gender and provider of the family? When did the roles change? What happened to the male ego of wanting to lead and, literally, remain on top even if just being there - on top, for provision?
Helping a man when at his lowest is not a guarantee that he will be there for you happily ever after. Because generally, women do this with the mind that this man will stick by them till Kingdom come then get shocked when they walk away or upgrade when they can finally stand on their own. The 'after I've stuck with him when he had nothing' narrative is not automatic. He won't hold on when he feels it's time to let you go and get himself the love of his life.
Women and men have different mindsets when it comes to love and why they love the people they love. While for a woman, being there for her emotionally and financially means a lot of things that will make him love you for good, a man doesn't really make a deal out of this. I'm not refuting the fact that there are successful relationships and marriages that women have built and fixed their men and ended up happy, but you'd rarely find a happy ending.
This focus of building grown-ups should entirely be left to people's parents. Just as I don't subscribe to the narrative of a man taking his woman to school, for example, then when she finds a better man than him and dumps him, he goes all over wailing how he paid for her education, women should as well stop this fixation focus. Leave that to his mother.
You were not brought up and educated by your father to come raise another woman's son. Wait for your own. A man must be emotionally intelligent and mature in all aspects of his life before thinking of having a woman in his life. Babe is going to stop her own life to accommodate another then later on when he shows her dust, she cries rivers and oceans.
And this is not limited to going overboard to give wife benefits to a mere boyfriend. There's a huge difference between building him and building with him. Stay woke, ladies.
Being Bob the Builder will have women crossing dangerous oceans for sons of their mothers-in-law even when they don't know how to swim. He'll let you drown on your own and grab the next available woman he wants. Lover conquers all. But love is not supposed to be stupid.
Find you a man who matches your energy, build with him - don't build him just because you were taught by senje to be an African woman and accept the bare minimum.
