Prepare to be inspired

The BBC has an annual series called 100 Women.

BBC 100 Women names 100 influential and inspirational women around the world every year. We create documentaries, features and interviews about their lives, giving more space for stories that put women at the centre.

One of this year’s influential and inspirational 100 is a woman who calls herself “a surrendered wife.”

Californian Kathy Murray says she saved her marriage by giving up trying to control her husband. Despite considering herself a feminist, she follows – and now teaches others – the approach of a controversial book called The Surrendered Wife, which tells women to stop nagging their partners and start treating them with more respect.

Gee, thanks, BBC. I’m sure that out of the 2 billion or so grown women on the planet, that was definitely one of the top 100 influential and inspirational women you needed to highlight.

Murray and her husband fought a lot. Then the lord spoke to her through a reactionary self-help book.

I was about to end my marriage when I picked up a book called The Surrendered Wife by Laura Doyle. I mean, they don’t teach us how to be successful in marriage in school and the women in my life didn’t share the secrets either.

It was incredibly humbling to recognise that I had something to do with why my marriage was failing and perhaps even why my first marriage failed. But it was also empowering.

I didn’t know I’d been disrespectful to my husband or even that I’d been controlling and critical.

I thought I was being helpful and logical. I just didn’t know that respect for men is like oxygen, so no wonder my husband was no longer interested in me sexually.

I’ll never forget the day I first apologised to my husband for being rude for correcting him in front of the children, or the day I said “whatever you think” when I’d previously been extremely opinionated about what he should do.

So what is the inspiration here? For women in general to surrender? The BBC finds that inspirational, does it?

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