Chickenhead envy is not a pretty thing. My first attack left me laid out – in foetal position – sobbing lke Toni Braxton in the ‘Unbreak My Heart’ video. For the life of me, I couldn’t explain why someone like me, whose response to severe emotional hurt was usually of the “Find him. Go to his home, office, gym, whatever and scream, holler and throw things, but whatever you do – fight” variety, was lying catatonic on the sofa, teetering dangerously close to the abyss.

Mercifully, the only soul capable of doing me any earthly good called unexpectedly. BethAnn pulled me back from the precipice. Carefully, gently, she waited for the epiphany, for me to realise that what I was suffering from was not a broken heart, but a full-blown case of Chickenhead Envy. And the only cure was for me to confront the sordid, green-eyed source of my pain. It was something I could only admit to a woman who loved me like a daughter. I hadn’t really spent the last four hours crying because Dude betrayed our friendship and straight-up lied to me. I wasn’t even mad that he was sleeping with his woman. I was mad and hurt that she was his woman at all.

Igniting my fury were the memories of endless conversations about his frustrations with this woman who seemed to have no greater life aspirations than being wifey. He paid her bills. Showered her with shopping sprees at Barneys. Handed over the keys to the Land Cruiser. He just wanted – correction – needed her to want something out of life besides him.

I remember the pride and interest he took in my work, the way he marvelled at my independence and self-sufficiency and the encouragement he provided every time I tentatively shared a new goal. But I also remembered the exasperation in his voice as he confided, “Yo, I tell her all the time, you want to go to school? I’ll pay for it. You wanna start a business? I’ll finance it, but all this free time on her hands leaves her with too much time to worry about my every move.”

I was mad because there was a black woman out there lucky enough to find a man who offered to financially support her every dream and somehow managed not to have any. I was crying in a sense, not only for me but for all the straight-up wonderful, ambitious, struggling and single sistas I knew – women who had dreams and mad love to give but could barely find brothers willing to listen. It’s not fair, BethAnn. It’s just not fair.

Unfortunately, power is still divided by gender. And in a world where men got the lucci and we got the coochie, the one selfinflicted Achilles’ heel men have is their tendency to defi ne power partially in terms of sexual conquest. Punanny is the one thing women control and men have an unlimited desire for. That makes it, even in these post-feminist times, one helluva negotiating tool. “Trickin’” – specifi cally using sex (or the suggestion of it) to gain protection, wealth and power – is a feminine device probably as old as sexism itself. For many women, trickin’ is less a matter of right or wrong than an issue of personal taste and context. It never dawned on me that sex fi gured prominently into this equation until one day, while longingly admiring my friend Tai’s (not her real name) most recent acquisitions (among them a slamming new pair of Anne Klein loafers), I ventured to ask exactly how her seventeen-yearold non-working and living in the projects behind could afford it all. She could not believe my naíveté. “Girl, my man gets it for me.” Then thinking of the ass-whooping I’d get if I tried to do the same, I asked what in the world she told her mom. “My motha is the one who told me,” she said. “Pussy ain’t free. Don’t be giving up my shit to these niggas unless they give me something.”

That sense of obligation was foreign to me. Since my mother’s value system never taught me to make a connection between sex and dollars, it never occured to me to base my decisions about sex on anything but my desires. While fi nancial stability and a career he loves are defi nitely among my dating prerequisites, they matter more to me as indications of a brother’s passion, commitment and a solid work ethic than what I think his money will do for me. There’ve been six- and seven-fi gure brothers who’ve suffered the same as the ones who were barely getting by. Still, there are plenty of times when those liberated principles get conveniently played to the left. Even though the values are intact – I still enjoy treating a brother to dinner or surprising him with a homecooked meal – I gave up the “Dutch” habit long ago. It was more trouble than it was worth. Most brothers viewed my insistence on splitting the bll as anything from unnecessary to unsettling. Call it the aftereffect of growing up in a cultural amalgam of Protestant work ethic (Hard work is next to Godliness), capitalism (It’s all about the Benjamins, baby) and social Darwinism (Only the strongest / richest survive), American men tend to invest a great deal of their identity and self-worth in what they do, how much they make and their ability to provide. For many, it’s an intrinsic part of how they defi ne their manhood. According to Keith, T. Clinkscales, successful BMW (Black Man Working) and president and CEO of Vibe, “Black men are very often characterised by the media, society and popular fi ction as not being ‘real men’. We’re depicted as not providing for our families or doing our thing. Brothers want to handle their business. They want to prove to themselves and everyone else that they are real men. Professional achievement provides black men with the state of mind necessary to combat racism more effectively.”

While Jacobs doesn’t buy that brothers are necessarily intimidated by strong women he does thing that sistas need to be more realistic about what they’re up against. “It’s rare for a woman to fi nd a guy that can deal with the completely assed out feeling that comes with being broke or just not being there you want to be. As a man in this world, not having paper makes you feel weak and vulnerable. Your girlfriend could not care and it would still matter. The second she takes you out in her circles and you gotta be cool around other niggas with jobs and status, it’s not cool anymore. The second anybody wants to know what you do, you feel like a pumpkin. “The bottom line is this: Women like to be taken out. They like to be with men who have status in their social circles. And they want to be with a guy with some money and at least a little bit of power.” Let’s face it, money and the ability to spend it freely is one of society’s strongest assertions of power – and power is a very sexy thing. There’s an undeniable, take-charge sex appeal that a man has when he’s trickin’ loot. Whether it’s game or not, when a man picks up the tab, he gives the impression of being able to “handle his” – himself, his affairs and his women. Men have long fi gured out what us liberated supasistas have been loath to admit: Men are not the only ones with a vested interest in sexism. When it comes to equality, most of us are only willing to go but so far. Equal pay for equal work, yes. Equal access and opportunity, certainly. But complete and total equality? Not hardly. Because while we recognise sexism’s evils, we also fully enjoy its privileges – not least among them chivalry.

Dating is one of the few areas in my life that I get to completely indulge my femininity. For a few hours, I don’t want equality. I want the door held open, the chair pulled out and I don’t want to think about money at all. As much as I enjoy the challenge of kicking ass at work, paying the bills, staying fit, staying sane and leaping tall buildings in a single bound, letting a man spend a little dough expresses the “feminine” desire to let somebody else take care of me for a change.

In the past, feminists were understandably loathe to condone utilising erotic power as a means of battling sexism. Many remembered all too vividly a time when erotic power was all that women had – and it was rarely enough to circumvent abuse and exploitation. While women today still experience sexism, we do so in markedly different ways. Many of us are empowered enough to combine our erotic power wth resources that were unimaginable to our mothers – money, education, talent, drive, ambition, confi dence and the freedom to just “go for ours.”

We have the luxury of choosing both our battles and our artillery. We know that sometimes winning requires utilising whatever confrontational measures are necessary. We’re not afraid of lawsuits, boycotts, organised protests, or giving a deserving offender a good cussing out. But we also recognise that there are times when winning requires a lighter touch. And sometimes a short skirt and a bat of the eyes is infi nitely more effective.