Full Frontal Feminism_ A Young Women's Guide to Why Feminism Matters - Jessica Valenti [43]
Even the most feminist of us (ahem) can get carried away. After my long-term college relationship ended (hi, Mike!), I was eager to get into the dating world. I went on a bit of a trampage (sorry, Mike). I was doing a bunch of dating—and damn, I was crazy about it. Even though I was preparing to enter grad school and had a ton of shit on my plate, my dating life took precedence over everything. I remember spending hours analyzing emails from guys with my girlfriends. What did it mean that he said we were on an “upswing”? Why would he only call post-midnight (duh)? What, for the love of god, should I wear!? I got my work done, but I would have ditched it if “he” called. It was a sorry state of affairs. I later realized that if I’d spent half the energy on my career and school stuff as I did on my relationships, I’d probably be the fucking president by now. Or at least on my second book.
A whopping $72 billion per year is spent on weddings.
Imagine if, for every panic attack over a date outfit or unreturned phone call, we instead stressed about our professional accomplishments or our personal development. Sounds silly, but it could make a huge difference. In a way, rejecting normative romantic expectations—even through simple acts like these—is revolutionary.
And while I’ll probably continue to be a bit of a fool when it comes to my crushes, I won’t make the mistake of prioritizing them at the expense of, dare I say, more important pursuits.
Again, don’t get all pissy and assume I’m bashing those of you who are in love with love. I understand that feeling—believe me. But you have to admit, we’re spending a hell of a lot of time focusing on other people when we could be mixing shit up.
Forever Boy Crazy
The romance industry is everywhere: Valentine’s Day, dating (dating shows are enough on their own), magazines telling you how to land, keep, please your man. And no doubt, a lot of this stuff is massively fun. I’ll admit it: I had a brief addiction to the reality show Blind Date. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not completely . . . vapid. Amazingly so, actually. Those shows play on the assumption that landing a man is all women care about. And I’d like to think that’s a bunch of hooey.
If only pop culture agreed with me. I mean, dear lord, have you seen The Bachelor?! To me, that reality show epitomizes the false assumption that the only thing on gals’ minds is marriage. To a rich hottie, preferably. If you haven’t seen the show, or any of its various knockoffs, here’s the quick summary: A group of young, beautiful women (like, twenty of them!) compete over one rich, hot guy. The ultimate goal is to get him to propose to you at the end of the show. Much airtime is given to showing the women fighting over the bachelor, fawning over all of the expensive dates and exotic locales, and eventually displaying their “true colors.” You know, the kind that reveals that they’re—gasp!—not just there for love.
Outside of all of the women’s gross displays of desperation, “gold-digging,” and downright nastiness to each other (which seem awfully contrived), the weirdest thing is that only the bachelor gets to do the rejecting—the assumption being that all the women involved would naturally want him; that not one of them would find him maybe a little annoying or maybe just not the guy for them. Again, forget chemistry and personality. He’s rich and cute, so all women must want him. The underlying message is that while he cares about “true love,” the women involved couldn’t give a shit about what really matters—they just want to get married to anyone, so long as he’s got cash and looks.
Sure, they had The Bachelorette, but let’s be honest—it wasn’t the same. And she wasn’t rich—just hot. The men weren’t portrayed as desperate goons catfighting for a woman’s attention. Unlike the women on The Bachelor, they weren’t positioned as morally vacuous and stupid. Apparently, it’s just women