“For My Love” by Bethany Dillon

Masculinity is defined as being independent, aggressive, self-control, and achievement.
Femininity is defined as nurturing, relational and caring for others.
After the fall, the curser that was placed on humankind was that the women would desire her husband and he would have power over her.
Early gender roles had the man as the hunter and the woman as the gatherer who stayed home with the children while the man was out hunting.
As children grow up, they begin to learn the appropriate behavior for their gender and act in such manners.

BETHANY DILLON
"For My Love"
Walk towards me
I want to hear
The heavens singing over you
When you breathe
And look at me
I want to be captured by you
Gaze into my eyes
And let me know you’d fight
Thousands, for my love
Slip your hand in mine
Ask me to dance with you tonight
Just ask me for my love
I want to hide
What’s deep in my eyes
I’m scared to be known by you
But when I turn my head
And see you there
I want to be pursued
Gaze into my eyes
And let me know you’d fight
Thousands, for my love
Slip your hand in mine
Ask me to dance with you tonight
Just ask me for my love
A dream I won’t wake from
A story that will never end
The ground your feet walk on
Let me be there, let me be there
Gaze into my eyes
Let me know you’d fight
Thousands, for my love
Slip your hand in mine
Ask me to dance with you tonight
Just ask me for my love


This Bethany Dillon song refers to the way girls desire for boys to ask them for their love. She refers to an old gender role of the hunter when she says that she wants to be “captured” by the boy. She also refers to this when she says she wants to be pursued. Both of these phrases equate masculinity with something that is aggressive and attempting to accomplish a goal. As a girl herself, Bethany is desiring a relationship with the boy. This shows the feminine need for connection and relationships, and the curse that women will desire their husbands. She also desires the boy to fight for her love, another reference to the old hunter role or men and their aggressiveness.

Bethany also says “just ask me for my love,” meaning that the girl desires the boy, but she must follow the gender role of a girl and wait for the boy to ask her to dance or to ask her to be in love. The girl is supposed to wait for the boy to initiate things or she is being too forward. This role is one that most children learn from birth. It may be starting to fade, but it is still prevalent, especially in some places, like much of the church community.

In the United States, little girls are taught from an early age that they have to wait for their prince to come rescue them. Disney movies enhance this myth so that every little girl knows that one day her very own prince will come to take her away to the castle. This song is a girl waiting for her prince to come ask her to dance and fight all the other princes for her love. This myth can be encouraging to the not-so-pretty little girls in junior high when they wonder why they are not loved as much as the other girls, but what happens when they realize that their prince might never come?