DE-CENTERING FORGIVENESS FOR WOMEN

A WOMEN'S MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH POST

FIRST A REVIEW OF WHAT WE'VE LEARNED SO FAR

So now I'm trying to figure out which forgiveness scenario leaves the children better off -- the way men are seen after cheating versus how women are seen after cheating.


If the mother cheats, "betrayal" is understood from the outset. She is more likely to get kicked out as a "whore" 

The child might be told the mother is gone or not worthy of being his/her mother. The children are not being told cheating a,k.a. "betrayal" is a tiny thing, that the mother is just human. When the child finds out (even in a fictional world of books, music videos, and plays) the child understands cheating as "betrayal."

If a man forgives a woman for cheating, he forgives betrayal there's no minimizing beforehand. There's no whispering of "she's just human," as if  "cheating" is a little thing. Forgiveness is not the objective so as to be seen as masculine either. The relationship self is worthwhile or it isn't.  If his friends, if they find out, will likely call him a fool - UNLESS he is attending a church somewhere. If not,  a man that forgives a woman that's slid into the "whore" zone is observed to be sacrificing a lot.

****


If the father cheats, a lot of times he stays in the home.

A certain percentage of his buddies may see him as a hero for being able to keep multiple women on a string -- his false masculinity increases.  

Not wanting to be an unforgiving b*tch, a woman actively pursues minimizing the betrayal into nothing because "boys will be boys."   It's not long before there's virtually nothing for her forgive -- over and over and over again.

The man stays in the house, the wife-mother acts like everything is jake, and the girl children learn it is their lot in life to suffer while the boy children learn they have the right to indulge themselves and be forgiven, over and over --unless the woman is a b*tch. 

And if the woman is a b*tch (a.k.a expresses knowing her self worth when a man isn't capable of fidelity), the boy child learns he can just move on to the next woman where

"pseudo-insta-forgiveness" is at the center of a woman's decision making 

instead of  

 the man's worth and the imperfect relationship's worth

It seems clear to me that we, as women, need take an attitude that is quite a bit more like men in this instance.  We need to stop minimizing. We need to let cheating be "betrayal, " as big as it and then decide WHICH form of forgiveness is appropriate.

 OR 

In order to rework how we are responding to various forms of betrayal, we probably need to de-center forgiveness. We probably need to stop thinking of how forgiving we are or aren't. We need to stop thinking of how perfect we are or aren't.

When we as women are betrayed, we need to stop thinking about forgiveness until AFTER some time has passed, time enough to decide whether the relationship is worthwhile.

The relationship is the center. Forgiveness is a path to what kind of relationship you'll have, and there's more than one.

Restoration of relationship is always better. But the pseudo-insta- forgiveness shown below wreaks havoc on everybody for generations. 

.
This TINY forgiveness that doesn't even qualify as forgiveness.
This just winds up being a method of making the offense small enough to ignore. 

* * * * *


The way this is different for Beyonce, than it is for most women, is that she stands on a stage x number of times per year and people tell her she is beautiful. In the world as it is now, as terrible as this is, for a woman this is the same as being told you are a worthwhile human being.  In this society, her money and power also tell her, and everyone around her, that his betrayal is not really about her. She even states this aloud in her song.
In "Lemonade" she essentially says she knows she's gorgeous and she knows she's puttin' it to him in the bedroom, too.


In other words, his betrayal is not tearing her apart emotional limb from emotional limb like it would 80 to 90% of other women.

So I kinda get why a person like Beyonce might take a pass or twenty through the bullsh**  (I'm lying. I don't get it).  Maybe she's sleeping with 10 guys outside their relationship for every one woman he steps out with -- if "Lemonade" is real and not PURE fiction for album sales.  But Beyonce is selling something rancid and rotten to everyday girls that follow her. She is selling something rotten to girls who will one day become mothers.

I know it's not Beyonce that's really leading since women have been pretending that the worthwhile lowlife they are hanging onto is worthwhile since the dawn of time. But she is a powerful woman and a feminist and black, I expect better.

I expect her to NOT REPEAT that it's a black woman's lot in life to suffer. Nobody is putting out the black woman imagery on as large a scale as she is right now. She's pop culture but she's important. There are black girls without Beyhives to tell them they are special, worthy, and important when a man betrays them.


Why does a powerful woman do this to herself?

I don't know. But I know I've seen women excuse betrayal  over and over again -- super intelligent, beautiful women in my own life. But I doubt I'll ever really have an answer -- other than

1) women are taught incorrect lessons on forgiveness,

2)  women don't have enough lessons on how to rebuild yourself a backbone when you're scared of being lonely

3) women don't learn what it means to be a friend to a woman who is failing herself. Sometimes you gotta step up and say I don't like he's treating you and/or I'm not staying to watch this. Do not blow sunshine up another woman's skirt. Ever.

I hope, in Beyonce's real life -- if Lemonade was about her real life AT ALL -- there was some evidence of repentance from her husband. I hope their cute little family stays together. But I'm not going to let what she's put out pass without severe critique.

You can't put out art that's supposed to be about forgiveness when it's really only about the same thing black women talking about forgiveness is always about-- putting on the blinders, minimizing the betrayal into "he's just human" and destroying the black community one insta-pseudo forgiveness act at a time.

Let me say it again.

When and if I ever give Lemonade to a little girl I care about. Either the last song or two will be erased or they will be  dubbed over.

In my personally dubbed over version of "Lemonade," the last songs will have Jay Z will giving a 10 minute laundry list of the things he's done to that shows he is genuinely repentant and worthy of the gift that is circular forgiveness that restores relationship RATHER THAN linear, we need to go our separate ways type forgiveness.

Better yet, I will replace the last songs of "Lemonade" with a more feminist version of Beyonce from a movie she was in.

 In the movie "Obsessed", Beyonce tells a husband by Idris Elba, 'I know you didn't cheat on me. I'm kicking you out because you lied to me about that woman coming on to you. I'm kicking you out because WE SAID that WE ARE A TEAM and you lied to me again and again, didn't even tell me she she was very actively trying to seduce you.'

And Movie-Beyonce kicked Idris out of the house until he made multiple efforts to restore trust.


 In "Obsessed" fictional Beyonce knows that true forgiveness, the circular one that involves restoring relationship, requires two people talking  -- and not just one person wishing like there was in "Lemonade." 

In real life, we don't know what happened. And I loved the black woman imagery in "Lemonade" But the end of "Lemonade?" The end of "Lemonade" had a message was off -- way off.  And the reason most women don't recognize it as being "off" is because we've all been told these messages since birth -

Boys will be boys

Girls are made to suffer and pseudo insta-forgive so they can suffer some more

At the very end of  my adjusted version of "Lemonade" for young black girls, I will change the Beyonce's attitude to being one of unsure hopefulness instead of the hopeful satisfaction.

Beyonce will seem hopeful that she's seeing EVIDENCE that Jay Z deserves more than linear forgiveness. She will seem hopeful that the relationship is worthy of a circular forgiveness that can restore their relationship because "Lemonade" as it ENDS repeats a destructive pattern that I would destroy out right, with my magic wand if I had one.