‘Do Strong Women Need Strong Men?’ This question implies an expectation – let men change the way we, women, need it, you are to be like we want you to be. It is difficult to build a relationship based on partnership this way – says Zbigniew Miłuński, a philosopher and therapist, trainer and consultant for organizational change in the conversation with Renata Arendt-Dziurdzikowska.
- Women – as sociologists claim – are searching for their identity, changing, almost on mass scale. It is no longer enough for us to see our reflections and find confirmation of our self-esteem in men’s eyes. We need strong men and relationships based on partnership. However, we notice more and more often that our emancipating desires are perceived by men as threatening. They ask boldly: ‘Since women are becoming so independent, what are we for?’ We have a trouble then – how can we discern men’s state of being at a loss? What can we do?
- Do strong women need strong men? This question implies the expectation – let men change the way we, women, need it, you are to be like we want you to be. It is difficult to build a relationship based on partnership this way. If we want to have relationships that are not build according to patriarchal model of domination and dependence that prevails in our civilization, we can’t use the same methods. Otherwise it will turn out that the only change is that now there is a strong woman on top who imposes on a man what he is to do and what he is to be like. What’s more, when I tell you: ‘you must be strong’ and you comply with my demand becoming strong, then you are weak because you have submitted to my demand. Therefore, the very use of ‘weak-strong’ scheme makes it more difficult, and not easier to understand what is happening to us. Undergoing a change is even more difficult.
- When I say a strong man, I don’t mean one, who dominates, but one who accepts the fact that a woman can determine her life and be internally independent. He himself is internally independent. Also, speaking about strong women, I mean these who know what is good for them and decide about themselves, and not about these who have power over men.
- Still, in the prevalent understanding of the word strength equals power. In English ‘power’ means both strength and control/influence/authority. It means also status. And power is related to force. Are you trying to say that women who decide about themselves need men who respect their decisions?
- And they don’t feel offended or threatened. They are strong because they love.
- To an average European strength means having a good job, post, car and influence on others that results from his/her high social status. Such men usually express their love by working hard. They focus their activity almost exclusively on building their ‘power’ i.e. status, in order to take care of themselves and their families and thus fulfill physical needs and create a sense of safety. But as a result – as Joseph Campbell, one of the most eminent myth experts, notes– they finally discover that the ladder they climbed is leant against the wrong wall. In many tribal cultures, like Toltecs for instance, a man first of all was building his personal power. It is completely different from modern understanding of power. Personal power is something I’ve got regardless of owning a car or making a success. (Although, obviously, success in the world and personal power are not mutually exclusive). Personal power fills me and radiates on others regardless of gadgets I possess. The most important thing here is who I am; what a man I am.
-So it means that independent women need men with personal power.
-We all need such men and such women as the shape of the world we want to live in depends on it.

A model: a man is someone who can always manage.
-Women work on their personal power while men do it rather reluctantly.
-There are some masculinity patters that impede personal development. The basic stereotype says: A man is someone who can always manage. A real man does not look for help because he should know himself. If he started his personal development, it would mean that he can’t manage and thus he is no man.
According to such a pattern a man should deal with ‘important stuff’, which is building and protecting his power-status. Men have to fight for survival and they have to win because the world is a ‘battlefield’. They have to be better, because the weaker ‘disappear from the market’. This is what the world is like. And such has been the traditional division of tasks for at least 5000 years now. The realm of man is ‘world’, i.e. fighting and hunting and the realm of women is ‘home’, that is ‘feelings care for others and for herself’. It is a very rigid, one-sided division. Men and women do not realize many ‘aspects of their beings, because for thousands years they have played only these roles. Despite many changes the division is still very deeply rooted. For example, a belief that ‘the world is a battlefield’ makes the world be such. Men live on average 8 years shorter than women; they suffer heart diseases, psychosomatic diseases, but still ignore their deepest needs.

I had such a wonderful wife.
- Imagine a man comes to you and says: ‘I had such a wonderful wife – submissive, helpless. I was an authority and oracle to her. And now? She takes part in some women’s meetings, intends to go to work, and asks me about nothing. I am no longer important. What am I to do?’
- Obviously, the world is falling into parts for this man. He lived in such a masculinity model – a man is a head of a family, the herd leader, takes care of the weaker, i.e. of his woman and children, he makes the rules and takes decisions. And now suddenly he collides with something hard – in his opinion his masculinity has been challenged. I would ask such a man what he desires, what he really cares for. If he said he wanted the former situation back, I would advise him to look for a new woman. It is obviously a provocation, but unfortunately this is exactly what many men do. He does it this way because he can as there are still women who accept the patriarchal model. So, if that man doesn’t change while the woman keeps developing, their relationship will probably collapse. I said probably, because the domain of relationships is one of the most mysterious areas in our lives and making generalizations about them is very risky.
So what I would do first of all, I would make the man who comes to me realize what is going on and at what point his relationship and his life is. The decision is his, not mine. The decision what he wants to do with his life, as it is his life and his struggle.
- Let’s assume though, that he cares for the woman, who has changed so much now, and that he wants to be with her.
- It is a wonderful, though usually not easy, situation for both. The scheme they lived in, that seemed so obvious, ceased to work. Until it worked, it worked. A day came after a day. There was no reason to question it, though it was not ideal. They both knew what to do and how to live. But now this sedative reality disappeared. It got uncomfortable, uneasy. She has changed, and it is clear that there is no coming back to the old schemes and roles. If – as you’re saying – they want to be together, have the intention and will, then the opportunity arises for them to create a relationship, in which each can realize himself/herself. And as the woman is already doing it, it is the time for the man. He has to take care of himself. An important factor in the workshops I conduct for man is working with fairy tales. Myths and fairy tales describe models, structures of the world and pattern situations in which we live. They are collective dreams which dream us, but they can also become mirrors, in which we can see ourselves and make discoveries. What is important to me? Who am I? What do I want? What brings me joy? What gives me a sense of fullness? They give clues how to reach this fullness. They say, for instance, that even when a hero fails – let’s say he has to set free an enchanted princess, and he oversleeps the very moment of trial three times in a row, because a bad witch gives him a cup of wine – then the very act of responding to the call, he heard, changes the situation – the princess returns to the human shape though she is still unapproachable – and the story can go on, and the hero himself acquires new abilities– the inexhaustible source of food, and nothing can mislead him now or make him fall asleep. He will be able to notice at last the presence of thieves, who steal from him something that allows to reach the pick of glassy mountain without effort.

The life is happening for real.
- Many a woman would send their men to the men’s workshops…
- ‘Sending’ their men to the men’s workshops is not a good idea, just as ‘sending’ their wives or girlfriends to the women’s workshops. Moreover lots of men can take it not as an expression of love and care, but as an extra task they are burdened with: ‘After al, the scheme was plain. I’m supposed to play my role and I do it. I do what I’m expected – I get along, I give a sense of safety, I earn, I have the status in the society. What’s the matter? After all you were to take care of all the rest and now there are some new tasks for me? It is unfair, and besides, no one has ever told me that I am to be in contact with myself and develop my inner self.’
- ‘So, I, the woman, I’m telling you this right now,’
- Unfortunately, it is not enough, and sometimes even too much. It is not enough for a man to hear from the lips of his beloved woman – I release you from fulfilling the prevalent masculinity model’. Such a simple statement is not enough. Something more is needed here so that he could release himself, and without it no change will take place.
- I was convinced that a woman, who develops herself and finds her personal power, is a man’s salvation. What kind of pleasure is it to bear a helpless and dependent woman all life long on your back?
- It is true that women’s self-development is a great opportunity for men as well. Potentially, it allows men to leave the inflexible role forced upon him by culture. It doesn’t mean it will happen painlessly though. We live in a world in which men have had a privileged position for thousands of years. Sociology knows the following rule – the privileged one doesn’t notice his privileged position, because he doesn’t have to see it. His high position protects himself. Men from the start were the winners because of sex. So, many of us have a deep-rooted habit of not noticing things and also the unwillingness to get round to take care of ourselves.
- What kind of men participate in the workshops?
- Those who want to meet other men, discover what it means to be a man in the modern world, how to live a more satisfying, richer and fuller life. It happens to be difficult in the beginning as there is no such model for men to meet in our culture, unless they go out for a beer or to watch a football match together. Contemporary men do not know very often what they feel and what they want. They know their basic needs – to eat, to buy a car, to make a success.
In our culture a young man is not trained to discover what he desires, but to comply with a given model, and only this really matters. Many young men can’t build permanent emotional relationships. Fathers didn't show boys what a deep relationship with woman consists in. After all, fathers didn't unveil many important secrets. They didn't help to understand and feel that we are the part of a bigger whole. They didn't reveal that the paradox of being fulfilled and satisfied as a man is based, among other things, on the acceptance of one’s own incompleteness. If I am a helm, a sailor and a ship for myself, and the hub of the universe, then I will always feel unfulfilled. I will be doomed to hunger appeasing which will have no end. Only when I discover there is something bigger that exceeds me and to what I belong and whom I can serve, then I discover my fullness. I don't have to dominate anyone or depend on anyone. In short, the workshops for men are not, I hope it is clear by now, a therapy, but may fulfill such a function as well. They serve a purpose for us of not having in a few years a sense of wasting our lives, and failing to fulfill and experience anything. The workshops help us feel that the choices we make bring consequences; that what is happening now is happening for real, and that the time one day will stop running for us.

I need, I care, I would like
- Can we, women, do something to make our men see at last that the masculinity model, they live in, limits them and often simply kills?
- The most important thing women can do for their men is to develop themselves. Certainly, don’t send them for therapy but clearly express your needs and feelings. Begin with yourself: ‘if I want him to talk to me, I start talking to him. A demand: ‘you must talk to me’ is predetermined to failure. It is also throwing a burden of entering a new area on the partner. Give time and space for a change to take place. The worst thing one can do is to situate oneself on the other side of the barricade: ‘I will be changing you now.’ Do not push, do not press, do not force. But at the same time let yourself express your own needs and expectations. If I want something that is important to me, I clearly communicate it – ‘this is what I desire’. And it differs from ‘you must do it’. Instead: ‘I need, I care’, sometimes even ‘I'll not stand it any longer’. The partner will surely hear it, unless he is someone to break with. The reaction may not be immediate, i.e. what is happening between people is a process which takes time. Sometimes we react sharply, but the important thing is where the reaction flows from. One can always feel it. What level do we speak from? Is it really love that leads us? Love towards oneself and love towards him. The very nature of love is not greediness, it doesn't build prisons, but just the opposite - it supports and gives strength.

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The interview for Gazeta Wyborcza