The lack of initiative

It is common for men to be the ones to initiate the “conquest” of women. It is said that women always “expect the men to give the first step”, because “it has always been so”, and “it remains to be”. But increasingly, women are the ones who “take the lead”, but still “some are not doing due to lack of initiative”, or “lack of self-confidence”. In these cases, it is said there is a “psychological barrier” which is explained by purely individual “anomalies” depending on the individual. Because that is what psychology does. Study normality and abnormality.

But actually there is no psychological barrier. It is a social barrier. It is called male chauvinism (in Spanish “machismo”). It is what explains that in gender relations there are still one part that are free to do whatever they want (men), and another part cannot do it (women). Ones that can go drinking without fear nothing, and others that have to be always thinking stratagems in order for it in any case some men can overstep the bounds of propriety, inside or outside the premises. When women perceive that they are not free to dispose of his life, to decide what to do with it, to decide the companies they keep and the companies they keep not, who they fuck with or who they fuck with not, etc., then women do not choose, women do not “have the initiative”. That’s what keeps happening with many women: they do not “have the initiative”. Because really they do not feel they have it, because in reality they do not feel they are allowed to have it, that “lack of self-confidence” which is still spoken, which actually is not a lack of self-confidence. It is a very realistic confirmation, although most of the time unconscious and not verbalized, of a clear fact: woman does not decide because in a sexist and patriarchal society she does not have the possibility (becoming an ability) to decide. And it is not “normal” to do so under these conditions. What would be “abnormal” were to do it. Thus the dispositions that some would call psychological do nothing but register, through the mental categories, which is engraved in society and is recorded in the bodies and minds: the objective, objectified, verifiable, measurable statistically fact that there are some who have freedom, the possibility (becoming an ability) to decide on his own life (men), and others that cannot do it (women), and all it does what are considered “lack of self-confidence”, “lack of initiative” etc. it is to translate these objective facts in verifiable actions, or, rather, lack of actions. Because the “no action” is the most appropriate category for measuring what are doing the ones that feel, very realistically, that they cannot do anything: not acting, not “taking the initiative”, or not “being self-confident”.