Ciara is right; single women truly need to level up

But here's the thing; was Ciara wrong? Did she deserve any of that?

No, Ciara wasn't wrong... completely

The singer had tweeted a trimmed part of a message by John Gray which was directed only at women and it triggered many single ladies who felt the singer was shading them.

[No available link text]In the clip above, Pastor John Gray had spoken of how women become wives not when a guy goes through the motion of wifing them.

Backed by the scriptures that says “he who finds a wife finds a good thing,” the import of his words is that a good woman remains ‘a wife’ with or without the presence of a ring.

When a woman has grown, embraces herself, constantly tries to evolve, loves herself and possesses all the great character traits that men typically want in a wife, then she’s a wife even if no one has yet put a ring on it.

That’s the essence of the Pastor’s words and that was what Ciara hoped to challenge single women to match up to with that LevelUp hashtag.

Apparently, that was the trick that worked for her between the time of her messy breakup with Future and her wedding with Russell Wilson.

That’s what her subsequent post reveals:

[No available link text]Viewed in an altruistic context, there’s nothing wrong with Ciara’s post and many people, including this writer, realise this.

However, in a society and cyber space already charged with a sense of the inequality of the sexes, it’s not surprising that altruism was the farthest thing on the minds of many women that saw the post.

They took the clip as Ciara playing the self righteous card that many women play when they become married; seeing every unmarried woman as hoes and failures for being single.

[No available link text]Considering how women often get the shorter end of the stick at relationships, many women did not like that Ciara, who should know better having been there with Future, was the one telling single women to fix up their lives in order to become marriable by a man.

Many of the responses reflect that women were fed up of being beleaguered by society to be everything in order to get a man to marry them whereas men were almost never bothered with those same requirements.

[No available link text]Ciara’s post is inherently not wrong. The message shared is valid and the bashing, simply because she directed it at women remains unfair, if understandable.

Whether or not it has been said a million times, it still needs to be said yet again that single women need to do better than hoping to get married without being mentally prepared to put in the work required to stay happy in a marriage.

However marriage is not for just one person so if we keep pushing women to their limits and stretching them to be better, what about the men?

Men need to do better, too

Most of the fury directed at Ciara is not necessarily for her. The outburst just pours out from a place of women being repeatedly made to feel like their singleness is their fault or that gaining all the knowledge and growth, developing their minds, and becoming great people is for nothing else but to just become Mrs. Somebody.

It makes no sense to ask all these of women but leave single men and their discretions unsupervised, with no conversations being driven about how they need to do better.

Women are actually not the only ones who need to level up. Men need to level up too!

It makes no sense to desire a complete woman, a wife; but offer a substandard character.

It is not OK to want a wife when you are no better than a boyfriend.

Having a penis or beard does not qualify any man to these women who have refined their minds and honed their spirits.

As Ciara’s post prescribes growth for women, men need to realise that that same standard applies to them because what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Many single ladies would have to level up if they’d want to become somebody’s wife and so would men, too, if they ever hope to end up with women who have levelled up.____________

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