Women and Manners

Women make both the manners and the morals of a people. Neither rises higher than the gauge which women set in a community.... Where a woman has bad manners, it always has in it an element of vulgarity which is more painful than it could be in a man. The result will be a society hopelessly vulgarized...with no end but to sink in an ever deeper abyss of vulgarity."

~ Thomas Nelson Page

I totally agree with this statement. The one thing that hurts, angers and disappoints me is to see a woman with bad manners. My biggest pet peeve is a woman who cusses like sailor. I don't think it's cute, endearing or witty. I tell the girls I work with that you cuss when you run out of intelligent things to say. You have no more argument left, so you resort to cussing.

Any man reading this post is about to get whiplash from shaking their head so vigorously in agreement with what I'm saying. There is very little as assaulting on a man's ears as the sound of his woman using the same language, tone and mannerisms as his boys.

I have discussed this with any and every man that I talk to for more than about 10 minutes. Inevitably we get to the "what are you looking for in a mate?" conversation. I use this opportunity to take an informal poll and ladies I have to tell you that it's at 99.5%. I think there was a guy once who said he didn't mind, but changed his mind about 5 minutes later (after I gave him a brief demonstration...LOL).

This is one of the first internal struggles that I quickly overcame. All it took was a couple of experiments with different men to convince me. For much of my 20s I was the queen of "if I thought it, I said it." I was the Christian, black female equivalent of Howard Stern. I went for shock value. And boy did I get it. But I also rarely received another date or return phone call. It only took a few times of this to think that maybe it was time to try something different.

When I decided to make this change, I adopted the following mantra:

A wise women thinks twice and speaks once--if at all. ~Maya Angelou

The first thing I did was lighten my voice. I made it a bit softer, lighter and tried to make it sexy (LOL). I admit, I thought it would drop my IQ 10 points, but it didn't. I still said much of what I wanted to say, but it seemed to be received differently simply because of the tone of my voice. This works with my S.O. right now...shhh don't tell him I told you that.

Secondly, I learned the art of asking questions. We as black women are famous for "I'm gonna need for you to..." or if we ask a question, it's "How about you...?" (insert neck rolling here). So I decided to ask his thoughts on things or if he had ever thought about something a certain way. 9 times out of 10, he pauses and then says, "No, I haven't thought about that. You are probably right." BAM!

Ladies, let's face it, we set the atmosphere and tone in our relationship and in our home. Remember the cliche, "If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy?" Bet you're wondering what that has to do with bad manners. If you're happy with yourself, you carry yourself like a lady...at least attempting to exude the same positive feelings you have inside. When you're unhappy, you don't care how you look, act or sound.

One thing that is interesting about feminism is how it lacks community responsibility and promotes self-gratification. I believe feminists have little concern as to how their actions influence those around them. They are only concerned about them being able to do what they want to do, no matter the cost. A real woman knows that she not only represents herself, but her family, friends, community, etc. Yes, ultimately each person is responsible for his/her behavior; but as women we are often the ones who set the moral and emotional compass for those around us. Most women don't understand what a position of power that is. That moral compass results in laws, legislation, programs and services that align with the moral compass.

But when we as women, especially women of color, have bad manners, the moral compass is off. I believe that we are the only ones that redirect not only ourselves, but our families, friends and community. And that's where real strength lies.

Lesson Learned: Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. Colossians 4:6

Challenge for the Week: At least try to lighten your tone this week with your S.O., kids, co-workers, etc.