The Power of a Woman’s Gaze

There came a point where I understood the power of reflection, how it functions to evoke greatness from another and how *this* is the unregistered power of all women. A woman’s gaze can evoke from another whatever it yearns most to see, whatever is seeking confirmation.  All beliefs seek to be confirmed. A woman’s vision by either stroking the strings of another with her gaze or not, erects a hero or takes down one who was unwilling to elevate themselves to the potential a woman sees. 

This capacity is what lies behind both the joke that a woman marries potential and the idea that behind every great man is a woman. Her vision carries with it a force that can uplift, support, heighten, deliver him to heroic dimensions.  

The challenge lies when she steps beyond the call of setting the standard, reinforcing the movement in the direction towards, and withdrawing attention when he grows inflated or goes off track from the potential that lies within him. Her vision is a compass and a fuel, but it is not the driver. He is and must be. Otherwise, he grows entitled and demands to be carried. He grows weak and dependent. 

This is why resilience in women is so vital. This is why knowing one’s value is so important.  Because regardless of what he throws at her she cannot afford to be detoured. She cannot afford to coddle him in order to receive love, to withdraw when he thrashes, to do for him what he could do for himself. 

We have many king babies and exhausted women in the world. But that is our own doing.  Desperate for love, we intoxicate men with our reflection, pump them up to get them to love us, then get bored with the daily labor of visually building his greatness. 

He is not a project but he is potential. 

He will always and ever be heroic in direct proportion to the amount of feminine power that activates and steers through the gaze, the latent potential within. 

We equally have the power to destroy by withdrawing this force. We call it self care but it is a form of feminine cruelty fueled by not recognizing our power.