Women erroneously blame themselves in bad relationships

There are two types of people in this world: people who are passionate and people who are not. I would consider myself to be of the second category in that; while I have opinions and thoughts about certain things, I don't necessarily feel it's my place to let people in on them.

I figure that if your opinion differs from mine, there's probably a good reason, and quite frankly, I'm just not passionate enough about much of anything to start an argument about it. It is for this reason that I am usually content to sit back and observe rather than extend my opinion about any given topic.

Here, however, is a topic that I have never been able to just sit back and observe quietly: men, the craptastic way in which they treat women, and how women just take it. What is up with that?

Now, I know I didn't grow up with the best example of what would be considered a "normal" and healthy relationship between a man and a woman. (My father is an emotionally abusive alcoholic. So, my time spent living under the same roof as him was very brief.) I came up in this world under the wing of my very firmly single mother. Everything I've learned about relationships has come from movies, music, my own naïve imagination and the little personal experience I've managed to accumulate over the years.

Even with this questionably attained bank of knowledge on the matter, I have somehow managed to turn out more grounded than many of the young women who surround me. Everywhere I seem to look, another woman is being told how much she isn't worth or being made to feel as if she doesn't matter by a man in her life who should be lifting her up. And she just takes it. Why?

Something needs to change in the way we are teaching our young girls to think in terms of relationships, and soon. Instead of wondering what it is that she did wrong to make him treat her that way, the real question any given woman in a dysfunctional relationship needs to be asking herself is, "What has gone on in his life that's making him act out in this way?"

I've always wondered if I somehow came out a little screwed up as a result of growing up without a father, but recent events in my life have led me to believe that I've turned out just fine. The day I let some guy who doesn't even care about me dictate how I feel about myself will be the day I jump off the Empire State building.
Metaphorically speaking, of course.

— Alexandria Vasquez is a junior human services major and member of Pi Lambda Chi.