Boyfriends, these are another elite set of champions in a woman’s perception of men. When a lady has gone through a series of boyfriends (which in our society today, both home and abroad) is usually the case, she tends to develop preferences. What preferences you ask?! I’m talking about your ‘spec’, your dream man or your ‘ideal man’. The ammunition boyfriends bring to the table is ‘love’. Love in any of its manifestations, is a very capable weapon that can build upon or destroy a woman’s perception of the man. I know a girl who dated close to four basket-ball athlete-looking bobos (really tall guys) and afterwards, claimed she couldn’t date men shorter than a 6-footer; this is a preference formed from the perception that tall guys are better lovers. I am also happy to report that in a funny twist of fate, she is now married to a guy barely 5’2.

The woman’s boss at the office is another trigger. He also has the power to build upon or destroy a woman’s perception. This is because, he is someone she respects (sometimes fears) and is also in a position of authority. A wicked boss, begets the perception that men at the reins of power, are wicked and heartless. These parameters were also used to measure male political leaders alone, for being heartless and shamelessly stealing public funds, or at least it was solely reserved for them, till a few flawed women (women inspired by these men) began to edit that line of thought.

Love, fear and respect. These are all emotional and psychological parameters that the woman uses to analyze the man. If a woman loves a man, fears a man or respects him, he can do a lot of good and a whole lot of bad to her perception of who the man is and what he represents. It seems unfair doesn’t it; well that’s just the cycle of life. The Holy Bible said the woman was torn from the rib of the man; is that where the perpetual need to love and respect them comes from? However, scientists would prefer to paint a picture that shows a natural animalistic tendency for male dominance over the female; after all they say we are only ‘higher animals’ right?!!

The Holy Grail influencing the woman’s perception of men is her husband. Permit me to refer to the Holy Bible again, a scripture says ‘’… of all these, LOVE is the greatest of them all”. Now, that scripture was talking about love in general, but nonetheless, the romantic love between a man and woman is a force that has managed to make little sense when it comes to a wholesome definition. Poets have tried, philosophers have pondered, but even with their brilliant conclusions, they have managed to fall short in perfectly describing the phenomenon that is love. Love for a man, can make a woman do crazy things (note that this goes both ways). A wo-man wooed by a man is practically high. What is she high on? She’s high on love. Whatever her lover does is the law, if he thinks a certain way, does things in a particular order, or even breathes a certain way; to the woman, this is how men behave or at least should behave. Anything that falls short of this is suddenly a surprise to her.

Loving someone includes loving their character and personality; it is even more intense when they have a bad habit or react in a not so pleasant way and to the woman that’s okay, it’s just fine. So imagine a woman being battered and abused and yet is still there playing the role of a punching bag without crying out, this is because to her ‘’that’s what men do, sometimes they get angry and they slap you’’. Then there is the woman who knows there’s even a limit to which a man can raise his voice at her. Love, love, love, it can suppress or appreciate the rationale behind the woman’s perception of the man. I beseech you women out there, check your perspective, make changes where and if necessary. Take back the power.

Men, have you seen them? Of course you have; they are practically everywhere. They have two arms, two legs, one head and basically all the typical features consistent with that of a human being. So what really makes a man, ‘a man’? Is it his role in the family? His position in the society? Or maybe it’s just the anatomical addition of that ‘thing’ that sits between his legs.

The first male figure most women encounter are their fathers. A lot of women don’t know that many of their ideologies about men, first come from their fathers. The second male figure is sometimes their brother(s). During a woman’s formative years, these two characters are responsible for the development of both her foundational perception and psychological comprehension of men. Unfortunately, these men are almost completely oblivious of the ‘power’ they behold. The words that proceed from their mouths, the way and manner in which they show love and care to these women (daughters and sisters) are very strong factors that come together to create a notion of who the man is to a woman.

In our world today, growing girls (future women) are bound to come across two types of early male encounters; the abusive father Vs the loving one, the stubborn brother Vs the kind one, the wayward (male) cousin Vs the level headed one. These men do not know how their actions affect the women around them. They are mostly unaware that their way of life affects the little girl that cohabits in their world. For some of them who rarely take cognizance of this, they are quick to resolve that a young woman, (like Esther, Bisi, Voke) is too small to understand what is going on around her. But Oh! How ignorant can they be!?! How negligent they have now become, expecting these things to wash away with time. I read somewhere that scientists have been somewhat able to estimate that if the human brain’s memory capacity were to be measured in bytes like that of a computer, it would be capable of holding all data seen, heard and experienced to a capacity of 100 terabytes to 1 petabyte; now that’s a lot of space.

As a woman progresses through the stages of life, she continues to meet more men. Classmates, schoolmates, neighbors and male friends from her church or mosque are all men she is bound to come across; I said it before, these men are practically everywhere. Note that as a woman grows, she is not impacted by every single man she meets. She is much older and can begin to form more meaningful bonds with specific men in her life. She is going to have male friends, male acquaintances, male classmates/colleagues, not forgetting the boyfriend and of course the toasters association that would be very present and sometimes remain present even after she is married.

However, whoever a woman decides to bond with, contributes a little ‘something something’ to her previously formed perception of men. It’s almost as if the girl’s idea of a man is a pot of soup and each meaningful bond she forms, is similar to someone adding a little salt, a bit of pepper or curry and at other times it’s a little sand or cement, to that pot of soup as the case may be.