“Men are the weaker sex” the woman responded in a comment on social media this morning. She was serious. Dead serious.

And seriously wrong.

As I sat next to my stay-at-home-dad husband, who woke at 4:30 AM this morning to get up and drive me to a client in Eastern Washington this morning, I felt sorry for her.

With an attitude like that, she’s missing out on so much.

I know. Because I used to think the way she did.

Me, the girl who works dominates in a male-dominated field, the one who travels and brings home the proverbial bacon. The one who hires and fires and negotiates deals and slays dragons. Strong. Opinionated. I-can-do-anything attitude.

I mean, c’mon, who needs a man when you can do all of that?!

Turns out…I do.

From the outside looking in, it probably appears that I didn’t marry a “man’s man.” Rusty is not the guy who played tackle football or hung out at bars with the guys. Some have looked at my marriage and probably thought, “she married a guy she could dominate, too.”

And to be honest, for a long time, I did. After all, with his loving and nurturing nature, I saw him as just that: weak.

Huge mistake. HUGE.

That philosophy almost ended in disaster.

Here’s what I’ve come to learn: as much as I am in tune with the masculine side of myself (I had to be, but that’s a longer story…), there was a girly-girl hiding in there, too. This girl likes to dress up and get her hair and nails done. She likes doors being opened for her. She likes flowers and romantic dinners. And she can do more than bring home the bacon, she loves to be in her garden, her kitchen, and even her laundry room!

Certainly, I could have gotten my own self up this morning, made my own coffee, and driven myself the 300 miles to Eastern Washington to see the client, and turn around and come home the same day. Who needs a man’s help for that?

Turns out…I do.

And the fact is, he needs that, too.

Sure, Rusty cooks and cleans and schleps the kids to their events. He makes our house a home. You know, all the stuff a “mom” would do.

But with all of that love and care, he still needs to be a guy. He needs to take care of his girl. He doesn’t do that bringing home the proverbial bacon (a conscious choice we made more than a decade ago, not because he’s a lazy SOB). He does that by opening the doors, by mowing the lawn, by shooting guns, and teaching the boys about cars and BBQ and how to treat a woman.

You know, like driving his girl to Eastern Washington at 4:30 AM.

The fact is, that woman on social media had it all wrong. Men are not the weaker sex. And neither are we. The fact is, we were made to complement one another.

In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.

Sit with that powerful philosophy for a moment.

What if we thought of each other in this way? Could it improve personal relationships? Marriages? Heal families? Heal the world?

Certainly, men don’t give birth and have a hard time with the common cold and their emotional ranges can be somewhat limited. But they are also built to be our protectors and our lovers and our leaders. I, for one, am pretty glad that I’m not the one who has to do many of the things he’s responsible for, namely mowing the lawn, taking out the trash, and lifting heavy objects…or going to war.

But, let’s be fair, women are not the easiest creatures to get along with. Our emotional ranges can be so widely ranging we can’t even stand ourselves! But, we are also built to be caretakers, we have great intuition and empathy, and we are sensual beings. I’m pretty sure the guys have long lists of things they are happy we handle and they don’t!

I hope that the woman on the internet will one day realize how beautiful life really is when you accept your strength along with your vulnerability. When you accept the masculine along with the feminine.

It’s so much better than one dominating the other, don’t you think?

The yin to their yang. Or, perhaps, the yang to their yin.