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Male validation and why we don't need it!

What is Male Validation?

“In a nutshell, male validation is where women value the opinions – especially praise and sexual attention – of men more than they respect their perspectives or those of other women or non-binary people” [1].


At some point, most women have dreamed about being a princess locked away waiting to be saved by a prince or knight on a white horse to carry us off into the sunset and will love us forever. The reality is that sometimes love does carry conditions and we change the aspects of us that does not fit with men’s conditions. The problem with male validation is that it is subconscious behaviour, even the strongest willed women who might have the smallest interest in men sexually will find themselves doing it at some point in their lives.


We still live in a very patriarchal society where the opinions of men are more valued than those of women, so it makes sense that we take this on into our private lives. If my best girl friend tells me that I look hot in a new dress, it does not carry the same weight as a guy that I fancy saying it to me. But why does that mean that her compliment means less to me?


My sister tells me stories of her nights out when tell her to smile because she would be prettier, or she looks miserable because she is not dancing with them. The problem is we are taught that the nuclear family is the standard we should all strive for and to achieve that, we must attract the best male partner. So, get your tits out but not too much otherwise that is slutty. Wear lots of makeup but look natural. We women, place these restrictions on ourselves because it’s what we think we want but it’s what we have been conditioned to believe we want it when it’s the desires of men.


Male Validation in my eyes is…

In my head, I don’t believe that I am desirable in relationships because I am too emotional or weird so I hide my intangible qualities away to make myself more desirable to men. When I look at myself through male eyes, I objectify myself, reducing myself to just my physical attributes. Sleeping about is fun until you start telling yourself that that is all you are going to get because no man sees you as anything else.


For me, male validation has always taken the toxic form of seeking out men who I drop my standards for but the fact they find me attractive is enough to make them attractive. Even when I openly admit I do not like them, I still engage with them because it makes me feel good that I am wanted by someone. This has led to me finding myself in relationships that I know are bad for me; it did not matter because they made me feel what I thought was love but was lust on their part and me being emotionally vulnerable went along with it. Feeding off someone else to make me feel pretty and wanted is unhealthy and can often develop into ‘love bombing’. This is a form of “emotional manipulation used to gain power over a person by showering them with what appears to be tons of affection and attention" [2]. All this affection makes us continually seek it out even when the red flags are being waved in our faces because we are told that desirability is the most important attribute a woman can have.


My love life currently runs on empty promises and unopened messages. But all it takes is one ping! and I am pulled right back in. They will give me ‘crumbs’ tokens which I then show so much gratitude for. They treat me as dispensable because they know no matter how poorly they treat me, I will still do anything to seek validation from them. Men treat me depending on how much I see myself as being worth but then you become stuck in the cycle of male validation.




For example, In Women Don’t Owe You Pretty, Florence Given talks about ‘crumbs’ as the “audaciously small tokens” that they give us to keep us believing that they deserve a place in our lives. Crumbs can include but not limited to:

- Text messages

- Liking your Instagram pics

- Replying/reacting to your Instagram stories

- Saying things out of the blue that they know will fluff your ego.

- Dropping back in a period of ghosting. (When they’re running low on self-esteem, you’re their “hit” to make themselves feel better.) [3]


A good example of showing how far sometimes women will go to seek male validation is in season 2, episode 3 of Euphoria, Cassie gets up at 4am to spend 3 hours getting ready for school, in order to catch the attention of Nate, her best friend’s ex-boyfriend, who she is falling in love after secret meetings every Friday night where they hook up in his car. After all her effort, he doesn’t even look at her but one day, she dresses like his ex-girlfriend and he notices her, that small glance he gives her, reignites her self-worth but in that moment, she’s not even herself. That does not matter though because he noticed her. Later on in the season, she relinquishes full autonomy over her life to him; she leaves her family home, allows him to dress her and changes her demeanour entirely to feel his ‘love’.


Now, I would never get up at 4am to make myself look good for a guy and I doubt many women would but I am sure at some point, a lot of women have done this in some form. I have got really dressed up to go out when I know I am going to see someone I like out, for them just to look through me and in that moment, I feel like my chest has just caved in. I have been in relationships where I was told I dressed too inappropriately so changed my style or got told that I shouldn’t get anymore tattoos as it makes me less feminine and attractive so didn't. By the time I came out of those back-to-back relationships, I had no idea who I was anymore. So I fell back onto what I knew and that was chasing relationships that weren’t emotionally fulfilling and having someone to make me feel good so I did not have to do it for myself.


I have gotten to a point where I cannot be bothered to run and chase after them. Half of the time, it was not even worth chase, if you know what I mean…


How to combat the need for male validity


I realised that I had totally given up on my want for male validation was when I was messaging a guy and I sent a cheeky picture and this is conversation that followed:


“Wow, you look amazing!”

I looked at the photo and I thought actually yeah, I do so I just responded,

“Yeah, I know. What can I say, I am incredible amazing person, inside and out”.

I think initially he was a bit taken aback by my response and replied:

“Wow feeling very confident in yourself there.”


“Well, the chances of this developing into something are very slim cause you’ve made it clear you don’t want anything so whats the point in pretending to be all bashful and humble? I look great!”


At that point, I realised I had sent it to him in the hope that it would boost my confidence but nothing he could have said would have given me a higher opinion than I already given myself. The most powerful person and opinion in your life is your own and sometimes we start to seek out validation to make us feel better about those things we are insecure about. Being alone though is the best cure you can give yourself, the more opinions you seek out, the more your mind is filled with words which eventually carry no meaning to you, then the more shit you have to wade through to rediscover your own self-worth again.


As much as you might think that being alone and having to deal with your own inner thoughts and doubts is the worse option, I promise it is the total opposite. Often with self-discovery and love, the harder something is to deal with, the better it will be for you in the long run. Spend time doing things you love by yourself, get in touch with your own body and take a cheeky lingerie picture for your own satisfaction. Make it a whole photo shoot if you want, just fall in love with yourself so hard that when men compliment you, its a cherry on top of a four-tiered, heavily frosted cake of delicious self-love and adoration that you've given to yourself.


Links:


[1] Challenging my need for male validation by owning my desire by Minka Guides - https://www.minkaguides.com/male-validation/#:~:text=What%20is%20male%20validation%3F,women%20or%20non%2Dbinary%20people.

[2] What is Love Bombing? 12 signs in a New Relationship - https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/love-bombing/

[3] Women don’t owe you pretty by Florence Given.


Cover Image: New York Times.

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