Yes we like our men with barbeque sauce please...

I had two conversations with two different girls over two consecutive days about how we like our men. This conversation would have put feminists to rage. If I heard myself talking like that four years ago I would have had all three girls put to the stake.

Our conclusion was that we liked our men with backbones. Someone with principles and who sticks to it. We think it's hot that our boyfriends raise their voices at us when we are being irritating and whiny. When they do, we recoil back under their protection. We don't like it when they give in to all our whims and fancies. We like rock solid men who will be leaders of our families.

Of course this raising voice thing only works if they are normally sweet and loving. Suddenly when they get mad, it's like a storm cloud over the sun. If they are perpetually aggressive, they just have anger management issues. And that's not sexy.

From being the feminist of my class and penning all those crazy feminist essays when I was 17, I suddenly morphed into a Martha Stewart fan where I can imagine ironing my husband's shirts and looking after his children and cooking his dinner. I go to the bookstore and look at cook books. I imagine how my future house dining set will be. I even reach the stage where I think his career is more important than mine. I'm not the only thinking like that. Almost all my female friends think that way. Did the Betty Friedan in all of us suddenly gave way to the Elizabeth Ellliot? Girls who are scoring perfect GPAs and who come in top in everything they do are saying they want a strong man who can provide for them. In fact the only people who are talking about female independence these days are my guy friends. So very scary. Yet so timeless. That despite all our societal advances, at the end of the day, we as girls know our place in the family. We still want to be pampered. We still want to be loved and protected and adored by a man we can look up to and call our hero. We still want to crawl into the laps of our beloved, look up at him and see a knight in shining armor. I don't think there is any relinquishing of our ancient roles of protector and nurturer. We came one full circle, and we are still back to the story of Eden.