Women, Movies, and Relationships

There are all these ideas floating around being spread through movies and books and shows on television that influence girls' thoughts about what a relationship is in a strange way. Nearly every love story describes a "need" for another human being and displays huge dependence on that person for their happiness and well being and people perceive it as "romantic." 

These stories portray female characters as hopeless and fragile while showing men as strong and heroic and honorable for the things they do. In so many movies, the man makes a mistake by cheating on the woman or leaving her and the woman always accepts him back after a big romantic gesture, whether it's him running through the airport to find her or bringing flowers to her door step and then they ride off into the sunset on his motorcycle and everything is perfect once again. If the woman doesn't accept him back, she's a bitch or too stubborn when in reality, she's just standing her ground and is more than capable of making her own decisions.  

Girls are taught that they need a boy to take care of them and that if they have a boy in their life then everything else will fall into place magically because a boy will fix everything. Boys, however, are taught that girls can be a nuisance. My problem is that even as adults, there are smart and successful women who still think that they need to be in a relationship in order to have significance. Having a boyfriend or a husband is not what makes a woman important and should not be what women base their value on. Women are valuable on their own and a man should never define a woman.  

Having a man in your life will not fix everything. This idea that a knight in shining armor is going to come along and "save" you if you just wait long enough implies that women can't save themselves. We are not incapable of taking care of ourselves and the implication that every woman needs a man to do it portrays us as weak and inadequate and it's just not accurate in the slightest bit. 

The idea that we need another human being in order to survive just doesn't make sense to me. When one person in a relationship describes their significant other as their "other half" I'm just baffled because that implies that you were only half a person before they came along. What I don't understand is why anyone would want to be completely dependent on another human being for their self worth and happiness instead of just depending on themselves.