Can we talk about how hard it is not to internalize the message that it’s a woman’s responsibility to “keep her man interested”?

I’m in my early 20s and work mostly with women in their 40s-60s. Many of them have adopted the role of a mentor when they talk to me about dating and relationships.

But, their views on the matter differ significantly from those of myself and the women on this sub. Some of the women I work with describe sleeping in their makeup so they always look put together for their husbands. They talk about waiting until their husbands aren’t home if they need to use the washroom and poop or fart. Most of them talk about basing their fashion choices on what they believe their husbands will find attractive, or seeking their approval before changing their physical appearance.

When I hear this, my first thought is how crazy it is that this messaging is still so widespread and how I pity these women for viewing it as their personal responsibility to maintain a man’s attention. But then I realize I and most other women I know are guilty of engaging in some of the same behaviours, perhaps to a lesser extent, but never admitting it out loud.

No, I’d never sleep in makeup or wake up before a guy I’m dating so that he never sees me without it. But I’ve been guilty of spending hours on my appearance before a night out to try to capture the attention of the guy I was interested in. I would never outwardly ask for a man’s approval before altering my appearance, but in the past I’ve made these changes knowing ahead of time that a guy would probably find me more attractive anyway. I’m passionate about exercise and recreation for the sake of staying healthy, but I know it also makes my body more attractive to men. It feels absolutely inescapable.

One of the biggest challenges I’ve been working to overcome is letting go of the notion that it’s on me to hold a man down. I feel like the message is rooted so deeply within women that sometimes I’m not even conscious of how it manifests itself in my behaviour until the moment has passed and I’ve had some time to reflect. The last thing I want to do is spend my life feeling that I am in perpetual competition with other women for male attention and validation.