The previous October Frankie Goes to Hollywood released their iconic track "Relax", which was seen as an anthem to an out alpha male self-assertiveness, and alien to many UK homosexuals.
They're criticized as being weak if they conform to a feminine stereotype, but they're labeled bitchy if they embody the more stereotypically male traits ― assertiveness, confidence ― associated with leadership. .
Insistence on female probity is sometimes interpreted as a male response to female assertiveness.
The male-associated traits included assertiveness, independence and being achievement oriented, while female-like traits included warmth, supportiveness and a nurturing nature.
Presenting my findings to my friend as some kind of exciting discovery, I ventured that women seemed to like those traditionally male qualities of self-assuredness, assertiveness, and in the right context, even dominance, and especially when they were harnessed in the expression of desire.
Blindness removes the "male" connotation from traits and behaviors like assertiveness, competitiveness, and risk taking, which are necessary to get ahead at work.
Telepathy may help a woman trying to read whether a male coworker is attracted or repulsed by her assertiveness.
Does her submissiveness, or non-assertiveness, or craving for paternal or male affection even at the cost of her own dreams and desires, arise from the distance or the neglectfulness of her father?
Another demographic shift is the growing assertiveness of young women who are devaluing male-dominated hedonism.
Running for office as a woman requires a candidate to find and occupy an elusive sweet spot between assertiveness and likability, a balance not demanded of male candidates.
The director, Cary Fukunaga, is of course male, but the writer, Cheshire-born Moira Buffini, has celebrated women's assertiveness in the past with less obviously suitable material.
