What Do Women Bring to the Table?
Dating Has Become a Negotiation. When Did That Happen?
What do women bring to the table? And why has that question become a battlefield?
These are the conversations that never made it into the classroom scenes of DISTORTION. They are parts I didn’t plan to share, but maybe they’re the ones worth talking about.
Three women. Three different ages, races, and lived experiences. One question that keeps circling our generation like a hawk. The question that has become a battlefield:
What do women bring to the table?
Below are the “deleted scenes”.
Susan, 28, Asian American
“I date men of all races, and so many of them ask the same thing: ‘What do you bring to the table?’
And they’re not talking about character or compatibility. They mean assets, like degrees, income, property.
I mentioned it to my dad once. He thought it was absurd. In his time, women weren’t expected to bring anything. Men built the table; women set it. That was the deal.”
Terry, 21, Black
“But women today aren’t like our grandmothers. We’re not submissive, and because of that, men don’t see us as their responsibility anymore.
We pushed against traditional gender roles, and men pushed back. That’s where 50/50 came from.
Everyone my age says the same thing: love yourself first, trust yourself only.
I’ve seen girls walk into relationships already halfway out the door. Guys too. Nobody expects it to last.
There’s a deep mistrust between genders now. It’s normal. And I don’t know how we fix it.”
Sasha, 22, White
“I disagree with both of you. Women have always brought something essential, we were just never recognized for it.
We bring purpose. What is the use of a table without the woman?
We bring life, literally and metaphorically. We grow the family. We become the emotional center of the partnership. When a woman is allowed to be herself, when she’s with a man who understands his role, she becomes his why.
Without her, the table is just furniture. Even single men use the idea of us as motivation. They dream of attracting the right woman. In that moment, he’s not thinking about the table, he’s thinking about her essence, her presence, the way she makes him feel.
I think men have lost the plot. And so have women.”
Reflection
Like most arguments, each of them is right, and also incomplete.
Susan sees the shift in expectations.
Terry sees the collapse of trust.
Sasha sees the loss of meaning.
What they’re really describing is the same fracture from three different angles.
We’re living in a moment where:
partnership feels like negotiation
self-protection is the default
old roles are gone, but nothing stable has replaced them
So the question keeps coming back:
What do women bring to the table?
But maybe the real question isn’t what we bring.
It’s what the table is even for.
Is it a place to negotiate?
To build?
To rest?
To belong?
Until we answer that, we’ll keep circling the same argument, just with better wording and more distance between us.
These scenes weren’t meant to be shared.
But they say something honest about where we are.
And maybe where we’re headed.
Thanks for revealing these perspectives. It's interesting to see how different women view the matter of " what women bring to the table in relationships". I lean towards the fact that women have mostly always brought something to the table. It's not always financial but other stabilising factors, such as stability and consistency, especially with children being involved. I would like to see how different men compare on this topic.