Intimate Partner Violence: Why Women Must Pay Attention Now

Domestic violence and intimate partner violence remain deeply embedded in Black communities across the world. Yes, this is a global problem—it cuts across all races, classes, and cultures—but I am deliberately speaking about the Black community here because of a breaking story that once again forces this reality into our faces. There is also a Nigerian layer to this conversation that women must not ignore.

Just two days ago, right here in my own comment section, an Igbo man casually expressed his desire for patriarchy to return women to a condition where physical punishment by men becomes normal again. He said it openly, as though such a thought could sit comfortably in ordinary conversation. At the same time, I continue to receive hostility from Igbo men simply because I tell women to protect their money, understand their self-worth, and take true financial empowerment seriously.

Some call me crazy. Others reach for the usual insults: wild, unmarried, crazy, foreign, etc. Some use degrading language to reduce the message. Others openly warn me to stop teaching women about self-value, self-love, and the kind of financial independence that makes women harder to trap. That reaction alone should tell women something important.

At this point, women can no longer afford to follow men’s words blindly. We must follow actions, patterns, reactions, fantasies, jokes, bitterness, and the hostility that appears the moment women begin speaking seriously about self-preservation. Because men often reveal themselves most clearly when women start discussing boundaries.

And many women are already learning this quietly. I saw one young woman say in a video today that she is single, and if any man asks whether she owns her business, she deliberately says no. She hides ownership. She lowers visibility. She withholds financial truth. That is not irrationality. That is self-preservation.

Women need to be extremely careful because too many things women once dismissed as harmless are now repeatedly proving to be warning signs.

This is a short essay, but I want women to read carefully and think deeply about what I am about to say, because at this point, many women are no longer learning these lessons intellectually. They are learning them for survival.

The Real Issue Is Not What Type of Woman She Is, But Can She Be Controlled?

Men often pretend their complaints about women are about preference, but if you listen carefully, the preferences keep changing so often that the contradictions expose the real issue.

One day it is: we want broke girls because they are submissive.
Another day it is: we want younger women because they are submissive.
Then it becomes: do not marry a woman over 25.
Then educated women are a problem.
Then outspoken women are a problem.
Then women with standards are a problem.
Then poor women are suddenly lazy.
Then independent women are suddenly arrogant.

The categories keep shifting because the real issue is not age, beauty, education, class, or temperament. The real issue is that many men do not want a woman whose humanity interrupts male entitlement.

What many of them truly want is not a partner, not an equal, and often not even love in any mature sense. They want a woman who can be managed. Attractive enough to decorate their lives. Useful enough to serve their needs. Quiet enough not to disturb their ego. Soft enough to absorb disrespect without rebellion.

At the center of all this language sits one fantasy: the fantasy of the mindless doll. A woman who allows a man to feel powerful without ever demanding that he become responsible.

In plain language: many want to be married bachelors.

The Married Bachelor Problem

A married bachelor wants all the privileges of having a wife while resisting the moral discipline of being a husband. He wants loyalty without accountability. Domestic labor without gratitude. Sex without emotional maturity. Respect without reciprocity. Financial contribution without shared authority.

He wants to eat like a husband, rest like a king, roam like a single man, and still return home to a woman who behaves as though his contradictions are normal.

He wants marriage because marriage stabilizes him, but he resists the ethical burden of marriage because ethics demand restraint, fairness, and self-control.

That is why some men speak of marriage as though the wife is an appliance built to improve male comfort:

Cook. Clean. Endure. Forgive. F***. Finance quietly. Stay attractive. Stay available. Stay loyal. Ask fewer questions.

And when she begins asking too many questions, she suddenly becomes difficult.

Why Women of Means Become Targets

This is why women of means are often endangered species inside unequal marriages where they are higher earners than their husbands. I can’t emphasize this enough: women need to stop romanticizing marrying down as though love automatically erases structural resentment.

A poorer man may want access to a woman’s money, but many do not emotionally survive what that money represents. His humility often evaporates after the first few months of marriage.

Her money means she can think independently.
Her money means she can leave.
Her money means she can survive disapproval.
Her money means she cannot be cornered the way financially trapped women once were.

And that reality quietly unsettles men who were raised to believe manhood must sit above womanhood materially.

So the same woman whose income stabilizes the household often becomes the same woman punished emotionally for being capable.

When Control Fails, Violence Often Enters

These married bachelors often want submissive providers—women who bring value without disturbing male centrality. But the moment the woman says enough, the emotional climate changes.

The moment she questions betrayal.
The moment she demands accountability.
The moment she stops financing nonsense.
The moment she emotionally detaches.
The moment she begins imagining life outside the marriage.

For some men, that moment is not experienced as disagreement. It is experienced as loss of ownership. And that is where danger often begins.
Respectability Does Not Protect Women

Nancy Metayer Bowen, Vice Mayor of Coral Springs, was found dead in her home, allegedly shot by her husband, Stephen Bowen. Authorities are treating it as domestic violence.

By all public appearances, this was a respectable home. A respectable marriage. An accomplished woman.

And that is exactly the point.

The danger is often not the stranger outside. The danger is often the person women are told is safest.

The Truth Many Women Already Know

This is why #NotAllMen rarely comforts women.

Women are tired of being bullshitted by “good men.”

Because women do not die at the hands of all men. But too many women die at the hands of the one they trusted most.

This is why women are rethinking everything. Be careful what you sign up for.

This warning is for WOMEN OF ALL DEMOGRAPHICS.

Be safe out there.