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The more genderdized and patriarchal a culture is, the more it is addicted to romance.
The sentence you read above is from a book called 'In defense of witches' – a book that focuses on sexism spanning centuries.
That quote is one of my favorite for multiple reasons, which I will explain below.
From the moment a girl is born, she is taught both consciously and not, that her future value will be measured by a presence of a man in her life. As soon as we learn to understand language and to speak, we are told about marriage, romance and Prince Charmings. It's sown in our minds, that our primary aim in life should be finding a male 'soul-mate' who we can look after and live happily ever after with.
We are taught to want love bombing, hot and cold treatments and 'challenges' on the way, because is it even love, if we get it so easily?
The problem is, women are taught to dream of romance, not love.
We are taught to pay attention to the anxious butterflies in our stomachs, that we to this day confuse with love! We are told, that abuse is romantic: 'If he pulls your hair/hurts/calls you names, he likes you'. We are programmed to value the bare minimum and settle for 'romantic' gestures, like paying for lunch or buying flowers once a year.
Fairytales and movies whisper to us: 'You must do everything in your power to make a prince chose you'. Our whole existence revolves around being chosen by a man. Families keep reminding you about settling down quicker. Mothers will ask you when you plan on giving birth.
Romantic love is a trap. It's a cage where we are expected to emotionally slave away.
Because now you have the prince, right? You have a debt to repay. He choose you, so now you must keep on proving your worth. Again and again.
Our belief in this 'romantic love' keeps us in abusive relationships:
'My love can change him'
'How can I leave him, he did so much for me'
'He loves me, he just doesn't know how to show it'
'I think a child might fix our marriage'
Romance is centred around violence, ownership, and women’s ongoing objectification.
And if you think of leaving, being alone and without a man — you are broken. You are incomplete. You have no worth as a woman.
Do you know why women have three types of honorifics and men — only one? Miss, Ms and Mrs as opposed to simply Mr. You know the answer to 'why'. Let that sink in.
Our worth is not defined by a man in our life or by marriage, although the patriarchy is doing everything possible to make us believe that.
The concept of romantic love is exhausting, unrealistic and manipulative. It's controlling and it enslaves.
Romance is a dead. Or has been for a long, long while. Take it away and throw it in the trash. Personally, I don't need it anymore.
Love was invented by broke men so they could have free sex
Yes! I like that FDS preaches high standards. It's important to remember that high standards extend beyond gestures of romance like buying dinner.
Gestures of romance are really the bare minimum. You should keep in mind what love really means. You should expect your partner to love, honor, and cherish you. Lots of LVMs can pretend to be HVMs by doing romantic gestures. True love is proven over time as consistent and dependable.
Women and girls erroneously think that the love they feel in their hearts towards their boyfriends or husbands is what the males feel inside of their hearts. And it's just not true. Men commit, because they're afraid some other man will get you and not him. They don't commit out of love. They commit out of competition, convenience, and timing. Men marry the girl who's there when they're ready to settle down and not the woman they love. They fake entire relationships for decades if they want to. Women are wired to be nurturing and to love, and it's been used against us for centuries by males to get whatever they want out of us. Many girls are now starting to do as they please and aren't loving these males, and they hate us for it. But it's a natural rxn to the psychopathy of males. Just the fact that most of them watch porn and think it's okay to use Women like sperm toilets shows you their true depth of emotion.
Oof, yes. A feeling I have known all too well for far too long.
Thank god for FDS and like-minded women! Helps me see that men had the right idea on this, just switched the genders. MEN are the ones that should keep on proving their worth, again and again. Most of them don't prove anything at all, ever. Parasites, the lot of them.
Life is great leveled-up.
The older you get the more you see the truth in this. Financial stability and housing security should and do matter more than romance —every damn time. Some of us just aren’t going to experience romantic love from men. Instead, we’ll experience men pretending to love us while they expect sex, housing, food, chores, free childcare, maid service, etc.
As a woman who enjoys romance in fiction, I believe the problem comes down to the fact that we're so brainwashed into believing that the things that happen in media are real. In movies or books, a man buying you flowers after treating you badly or begging you to stay when you finally break up with him is romantic. We can enjoy romance in media, we can gush over fictional men and root for characters to have their happy ending but when we start to think of reality as if it's fiction, we always get burned.
That's the thing that pisses me off the most: the way men act in media is not romantic in real life and in real life romance is usually a way to overcompensate for something else. We aren't taught that true love goes beyond flowers and chocolates, and that a relationship with a man is not a life goal women should aspire to. Some of us even resent the fantasies we were sold as real when we were little girls; finding a soulmate and having a white wedding before living happily ever after. It's only natural to feel scammed because well, we aren't told that this is just a fantasy. Reality is not like that, relationships with men aren't like that, men don't act like Prince Charming and real life is not a romcom.
It's funny I came across this post because this is exactly what I was thinking about the other day; that the kind of love that's portrayed in the media/pop culture isn't real AT ALL. I commented on a YouTube video how women are socialized to centralize their entire identity on scoring a man and if we don't then we'll be alone and miserable.
Yup yup yup. I’m bisexual and have never met a decent man my age. i’m about to only ever consider dating women and ignore mens existence. sounds so peaceful actually
I always fall in love with the idea of a wonderful man who loves and respects you unconditionally and he’s so good to you that you love and respect him unconditionally too. Unfortunately due to romantic movies like the Addams family and Twilight I believe that if a man doesn’t love you he wouldn’t say it and would not be with you. I know now that most men don’t love women, they love using women. They like the idea that you put up with them, treat them like forever children on your expense. Such as giving them green cards, turn a blind eye and give them second chances they don’t deserve. I will not listen to pickmes who claim that you need to work hard to keep a man. If my respect and have the relationship between us valued is not enough to make You stay, then goodbye.
I can vouch for it!! As an Indian who loves cinema it is pretty evident that 'love' is fetishised a lot in Bollywood movies and songs but its a culture where women are literally killed if they do 'love marriages'
yeah i used to feel bad about myself for not getting picked but idc anymore. also so many women have emotional issues caused by men. i used to as well. there’s more to life than relationships