There will never be a way to co-exist with a woman who equates empowerment to dominance

You remember that she is first, foremost, most crucially, a woman. 

You remind yourself, even though you really shouldn’t have to, that the biology is what attracted you to her in the first place.

And biology is fairly straightforward; there are soft bits and swollen bits, curved plains and undulating hills, fragrant surfaces and melodic sounds. You focus on those soft, jiggly, swollen, undulating bits and you forget everything else.

You refuse to call her by the name her work colleagues use, and you dislike the adoration going on around her.

She may be a doctor with a slew of advanced degrees under her belt, but in your house, she is simply ‘babe’, and the only degrees that should interest you are the ones you can fold her into late at night.

You are no slouch yourself, it is important to note. You have your competencies too, even if they are not peer-reviewed.

Even if there is no slip of paper with your name and something called an Upper Division announcing to the world that you can get through exams. Strip everything else away, and the two of you remain man and woman.

How do you live with an empowered woman? You must first ask what it means for her to be empowered.

Find out if it begins and ends with the thrill of signing checks typically signed by a man, or if it is all about being able to say “I bought this with my first salary”.

It may happen to spill over into “I am feeding and looking after a grown man as if I’m his mother.” If the mask slips once in a while, and that empowerment feels a little like wearing your father’s oversized shoes; funny for a moment or two, but uncomfortable soon afterwards.

It would be tempting to revel in what it means for you, the man recently relieved of the pressures of being empowered.

Does it mean you can rubbish any talk of dowry, for instance?

Can you collect all rent and utility invoices and slide them over to the empowered side of the bed? What if you gave this stay-at-home dad thing a real go? Why not wait for the bacon to be brought home, then have her cook it as well because empowered women can do it all? If we accept the position that anything a man can do a woman can do (better), then are we as men supposed to retire from doing things?

Are we to consign doing of things to them all the time? And once a woman has done that thing that a man can also do but not as well, shall we allow her a celebratory lap, where she lifts her arms, kisses her biceps and yells “Feminism”?

Or perhaps we can acknowledge that while women finally being able to do things is a wonderful step for equality, it should not fundamentally alter how they relate with men.

Really, though, you deal with an empowered woman by providing leadership, not authority.

By standing firm, often in the face of a relentless campaign to devalue what it means to be a man.

Leadership means knowing that even when your woman insists on wearing the pants in the relationship, you have your own pants, and they will never fit her. It means playing your part, however small.

That could mean redoing the paint when it starts to peel. It could mean greasing the hinges which announce to the world that someone is sneaking into the kitchen.

It could also mean paying for WiFi while she takes care of rent, water, electricity, Netflix, shopping, fuel for the cars and anything else that needs taking care of.

But ultimately, there will never be a way to co-exist with a woman who equates empowerment with dominance. For her, the newly-found power is an opportunity to pay back all the men who have done her wrong in the past.

Once a woman like that tastes power, she will not stop until she has your balls in a small purse she wears around her neck. In that case, you deal by running fast and running far.

So, how does one deal with an empowered woman? The same way he deals with all women.

With respect out in the world, and consensual disrespect in the bedroom.

Whisper it quietly, but an empowered woman is a woman underneath it all.