Finally, American Women Tell Us What They Want

(photo via Vanity Fair)

Heterosexual men always seem to be searching for the one great answer about What Women Want. Everything thing from stronger emoting to bigger penises to thicker wallets populate the pages of GQ and Esquire and other men’s magazines as the answers to What Women Want.

But in a moment that can only be described as serendipitous I had the great fortune to hear Faye Wattleton speak last week. Imagine my surprise when she provided a definitive answer to What Women Want.

The answer is both shocking and simple.

According to research conducted by the Center for the Advancement of Women, 92% of American women want us (that means men, too) to work to reduce the incidence of intimate partner domestic violence and sexual assault. This issue of violence against women is so important that it ranks the same as equal pay for equal work as the top agenda item from the women polled.

I said it was shocking. I can’t think of any issue where so many different women agreed. So where does that leave us as men? Well, don’t stop trying to be a better lover (hint: learn to perform oral sex and tell her her genitals look beautiful from time to time). But in between those intimate times how about creating a white ribbon campaign in your neighborhood? How about donating to your local domestic violence/sexual assault center?

How about vocalizing the simple fact that battering and rape are always choices?

What women want is really very simple, and it’s the same thing that many of us men have, but we don’t think about: moral agency in a world free from intimate partner violence.

Our actions can make a very real difference in the lives of women. Whether she is our sister or our cousin or our administrative assistant or our boss men can stop rape and intimate partner violence. And that’s what women want.

The Finally, American Women Tell Us What They Want by Jay Sennett, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.