On the heels of One Billion Rising, celebrated on the 15th anniversary of V-Day, as one billion women and those who love them rose worldwide to bring awareness to the issues surrounding violence against women, I have been thinking about interpersonal violence in our own country. There appears to be a distinct disconnect between the message we want to send to girls and young women-that they can love and respect themselves and acknowledge that they have needs of their own that come first-and the message they are receiving-that they should look or behave a certain way in order to receive love and acceptance.

So why aren’t girls and women getting the message that they are fine just the way they are? Perhaps those of us trying to send this message are getting drowned out by the sheer volume of socially constructed messages bombarding girls and young women every day. Examples of objectification and violence are thrown in our faces constantly. While the recent charges of rape against high school football players in Steubenville, Ohio–young men who allegedly raped a 16-year-old fellow student last August while other students videotaped the unconscious girl–may seem extreme, we see other seemingly unimaginable stories day after day. Take the story of the “fantasy team draft” created by ninth-grade boys at the elite Landon School in Maryland in 2010, where the boys chose girls, rated them, and planned sexual conquests as part of a competition in which money would eventually be exchanged. Then, there was the violent murder of a University of Virginia lacrosse player by her abusive ex-boyfriend, a former Landon student.

It is no wonder that young women are so confused. If boys today are being sent to prestigious private schools like Landon only to be taught to objectify and debase young women by drafting them to teams with such names as “The Southside Slampigs,” and the punishment for planning sexual conquests is a slap on the wrist and a “boys will be boys” mentality, then the cycle will only continue. The former Landon student who murdered his ex-girlfriend had been seen previously choking her. He had also attacked a male teammate he thought had kissed her, and he became so out of control with a female police officer during a drunken rampage that he had to be tasered. But apparently everyone looked the other way, and through silence, the behavior continued to be condoned.

Many women struggle to find pleasure and fulfillment in their sexual relationships. Over the past few years, almost 300 women have responded to the swagger survey. Of those women 56% report high levels of swagger at work, but only 41% say they swagger in their relationships. One of the most frequent answers to “Where would you like to swagger?” is “in relationships” and “in the bedroom.

Sex therapist Dr. Jenni Skyler said that she is not surprised that women responding to the swagger survey feel more confident out in the world than in intimate situations. She believes that the bedroom is a place of vulnerability and the confidence developed in the outside world may not translate into confidence in situations where you are emotionally and literally naked.

“Sex can be a taboo for many,” said Skyler. “We, therefore, seldom get the message that women are deserving of pleasure. We get the message that it is ok to be hyper-sexualized and objectified, but not that it is ok for women to enjoy sex and be the recipients of pleasure.”

In her practice, Dr. Skyler works with women in a two- step process to reclaim their right to pleasure. The first step is to deconstruct the old programming by exploring the messages we received growing up from our families, our religion, and the media.

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What does it mean to swagger in a relationship? It means that although you love someone, you don’t give up your authentic self. When you swagger, you stay true to your core values and you keep your own power. You don’t give up who you are in order to keep the relationship going.

Many women of swagger find it difficult to be in long term committed relationships, but some manage to do it. Can you tell us about a time you kept your swagger in a relationship, even if that relationship didn’t last forever? We want to understand the best ways to be full of swagger and still get the love and companionship that we want. In the book-in-progress The Girl’s Guide to Swagger, Chapter 5 is about relationships. I have stories about finding the swagger to leave relationships, but I want to also include the ones in which women have kept both their swagger and their intimate relationships.

No matter what the relationship – boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, parent, or other, it can be challenging to continue to be yourself and also have a harmonious connection. I believe it is possible and have experienced times when I was able to say what I wanted simply, directly, and consistently. When I was able to do this, the relationship generally was healthy. When I began to hold back my true feelings and try to be accommodating, that is when the relationship started to become difficult and painful.

What makes it possible for you to maintain your swagger in relationship? Comment here or email us at thegirlsguidetoswagger@gmail.com.

Do you swagger in your relationships? In the swagger survey, “relationships” was one of the most frequent answers to the question – where would you like to swagger?  If you swagger in your relationships, especially your committed relationship – like marriage, I would love to hear your story. Most of the stories that I’ve gathered are about women with swagger leaving relationships or making it on their own. In the swagger survey, 41% of the women responding said that they swagger in relationships. Can you tell us how you do it? How can you keep your swagger alive when you are married or in a real relationship with a significant other? I know many women of swagger and some of them are married or in a committed partnership. Please tell us how to do it!

Thanks,

Cindy Brown, Swagger founder

Would you like to be able to recognize a controlling and possibly abusive person, before you get too involved with them? Or maybe you just don’t want to waste your time on someone who has completely different values that you do. It can be hard to see a potential partner clearly when you are in the breathless haze of falling in love or lust. Here are some suggestions from the swagger team and some information from experts in the field on how to tell if a new potential partner might be right for you and how to identify someone who might become controlling.

Swagger Screening tool

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Are you in a relationship with someone you love, but feel like you can’t do anything right? Maybe your partner is critical of you or is continually telling you that you are not doing enough for him.  He may try to control which of your friends you see and check on your whereabouts – to make sure you are OK, he says.  He is not violent, so he can’t be abusive – right?

In relationships, particularly between men and women, there are a surprising number of men who seek to control women so that they can better get their needs met. They may intimidate and verbally abuse their partners, without using physical violence, at least at first.

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Why is the stereotype always that women want commitment and men don’t? For most of my life, I’ve found it to be the opposite. I want to have a relationship, but maintain my freedom, while the man often wants more commitment and more control over what I do.

According to some anthropological theories, we still operate as if we were cave men and women to some extent. Prehistoric women may have had a cave where she stayed safe and raised her children. Perhaps she wanted to attract a bear hunter who would bring her meat and help protect her and the cave. She was on the look out for a reliable and loyal bear hunter – which equals a commitment. The bear hunter on the other hand, may have had the biological impulse to spread his seed to different women and thus ensure the most possible offspring. To achieve his goal, he might wish to have more than one cave woman – which equals lack of commitment. Read more…

Ex-Girlfriend: “You are much nicer than I remember; I like how you’ve changed.”

Ex-Boyfriend: “Thank you, I like the changes I see in you too. You seem happier.”

Ex-Girlfriend: “Yes, I am. What else do you see different in me?”

Ex-Boyfriend: “You have… a Presence.”

More often than not, a woman hates it when an ex-boyfriend…or even a current boyfriend sometimes, is right about something. But in this case, the conversation above was exactly something I needed to hear from this person. Because truth be told, he was right.

Have you ever been in the same room with someone you loved and felt like you weren’t even there? It was a pretty painful experience for me.  There were many times when I didn’t even get a hello.  I tried to work it out with him. But eventually in the end, the calls stopped and in public, I would be surprised if I got a kiss hello or a hug.  So, like repeated punches to the stomach, the emotional knot that developed inside me just wouldn’t release until I finally let go. But before I did, I just wanted to crawl somewhere and disappear whenever he ignored me, especially if it happened when we were in the same room with people who knew we were together. We didn’t even have to have an argument for this to happen. Affection, tickles, cuddling, holding hands…these simple acts of intimacy couples often take for granted. But when it goes missing, you realize just how much it means.

To be fair, this kind of treatment was the result of one those frustrating relationships many people have at some point in their lives. It see-sawed high and low and circled back around on-and-off for almost three years. There were a few sweet lulls of love and happiness during that time, but I pretty much exhausted myself trying to make things work. As time went on, he got bored with me it seemed, so he noticed me less and less. After a while, I got sick of trying so hard to get noticed, so I finally ended it. It shouldn’t have been so hard to be seen in the first place.

But there’s a silver lining to an ending sometimes. And it’s been over five years since we broke up, so the lining shines a little brighter for me now. Much has changed about how I treat myself. Simply put, I love and respect myself more, so I demand higher expectations from myself as well as from others. I’ve become pretty unwavering about this over the years too, because I feel I deserve to be loved just as much as anyone else. If you love and respect me, I’ll return it in spades. But if you don’t, well…there’s the door. So, I guess it seems natural, that my ex would notice a difference in me too. It was like I was a new person to him, because in essence really, I am.

As time passes we can learn quite a bit from our romantic relationships. It’s not always clear to us at first when things end, but in time, that foggy cloud of love and anger can clear up and you see what may have caused the problem. Sometimes it can be the simplest thing as mine was. It boiled down to respect and more self-love… which in turn, could be transferred to others and also back to me. It didn’t matter what I looked like, who I was with in the past and who I will be in the future, how much weight I gain or lose, what I was doing at work or with family, respect needed to take precedence for me, no matter what.

Demanding respect doesn’t always have to be done through words, though sometimes it does. But around 65 percent of communication is non-verbal, and sometimes, the simplest action can set people on the right course. A few months after I started dating my current boyfriend, we were having a peaceful intellectual conversation. But at one point, he didn’t like that I disagreed and inappropriately raised his voice loudly in retaliation, thinking I would cower away. I remember immediately stopping in my tracks. He kept on walking until he realized I was no longer next to him. When he turned and saw the look on my face, he realized the mistake he had made. He also knew that if he didn’t do something soon, I would simply turn around and head home. Fortunately, he walked right back to me, apologized for raising his voice and kissed me. I told him not to do it again and accepted his apology. And just to repeat that, I told him, not asked him. He took my hand after that and more than four years later, he still has it. I realize that some incidents aren’t as peacefully resolved. But more often than not, it’s easier to demand respect than you think, especially if you demand it in the beginning of a relationship and refuse to waver from it.

If someone cares for you, I think they’ll eventually try to understand your needs, even if it doesn’t work out. And when we can understand each other, it’s pretty rewarding. It may not happen right away, but if you stand firm and have patience, it will. And what I’ve also learned so far, is that if they cared for you at all in the past, they may realize what was missing too and apologize for it later. I am lucky enough to say that I was able to get the apology I wanted from my ex-boyfriend, and I accepted that one too.

Like many women I know, it’s sometimes easier for us to treat a man like a god than it is to treat oneself like a goddess. A major problem with my last relationship was that I needed to love and respect myself just as much, if not more-so than him. And now I do. I am fortunate enough to be able to say that I learned my lesson and got out of that situation before I really did disappear behind a self-created curtain of shame. I am also fortunate that my demand for respect has taken me farther in life and I am happier because of it. My ex-boyfriend seemed to gain some insight too, which I believe has made his relationships better as well.

So I am here now body, mind and spirit…and I will no longer be invisible by choice. Because I love me. I respect me. And I will always have a presence.

This post was written by Gina Pujols

Even those women who successfully swagger at work, in sports, church and the classroom have trouble swaggering in their family relationships. Women are chronically wrestling with multiple roles within their relationships and the ongoing need to assert themselves to achieve equality and success.

Some women, though, have found a way to carry their confidence into their personal relationships. Jessica says, “In relationships, I have swagger. In every moment it feels like I’m challenging the cultural trance about sexuality. I’ve told my partner that my vagina is not available to him now. I’m available to play sexually and to deepen our sexual intimacy, which is very different than mandatory intercourse. The swagger I express in this area is the opposite of our typical understanding of swagger in bed, which is defined as keeping up with the boys. Saying what’s true for me and no longer pretending is actually my most authentic expression of swagger.”

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