Being in love and a good feminist

Introducing political discourses into my personal life has always been a challenge. I wouldn’t say that I’ve “taken it too far,” but I have definitely tried to live by a guidebook instead of letting my convictions be just one aspect of my decision-making. My difficulty in living naturally but with purpose really is a shame, as I’ve always aspired to be committed to my beliefs but still retain the discrepancies and nuances that make us human.

A few months ago, I watched a roundtable discussion featuring Andrea Dworkin on the After Dark late-night talk show. During the conversation, she briefly discussed the sexism in Shakespeare’s works. She confessed that Shakespeare distressed her. The Taming of the Shrew was a great and terrible play and she hated how it made her laugh. I remember admiring how honest Dworkin was with the contradictions between her tastes and her feminism. Unless our current state of affairs is someone’s utopia, the conflict between the personal and the political are unavoidable. Yet I seldom see anyone point out this obvious truth.

Dworkin’s confession made me reflect on the abundance of contradictions in my own life. For instance, as much as I was always fascinated by romance, it has also always irritated me a bit. I have never been convinced by the dead dogma declaring that romance is a necessity in the fabricated idea of femininity. I was never presented with a logical explanation of why men, women’s supposed polar opposite, would complete women. I’ve learned to move past seeing the polarity in gender, but when I was young(er) and trying to find some sort of truth in false ideas, I had yet to find a satisfactory explanation for the pressing need for romantic companionship. It was like how water diluted juice or how heat melted ice. I understood why opposites could complement each other but nothing in my worldview indicated why this union was an absolute necessity. To clarify, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with heterosexual relationships at all. I wanted one! But I just never got on board with one universal justification for why women needed men. Which is fine. There are many things I didn’t understand growing up and was content with not knowing. But not understanding something and having it pushed on you will inevitably cause you to resent it!

I am now about to reach my two year anniversary with my boyfriend and I love him and I am still critical of heterosexual relationships. I love our relationship. I don’t love parts of the social aspect of our relationship. I love the story of how we got close and I love how much we get along. I don’t love it when I am congratulated for finding a good guy like it’s an achievement that I’ve reached after years of arduous effort. I don’t love the fact that some of my expectations for our relationship are still rooted in expectations that are not my own. But ones that are so socially imposed that it feels unnatural, almost sinful, to go against.

In my world, my convictions and my relationship don’t only co-exist but they also interact with one another. I like to pick apart some of my actions and examine them up close. I try to ask myself whether these means are truly my way of showing love or an unintentional fall into the ready-made roles women are expected to fulfil. I thought I enjoyed acts of service, but I think a part of me just felt the need to do things I thought he wouldn’t or would forget to do. I’d find myself wanting to remind him of things like deadlines or tasks or to simply alleviate him from all the little stresses of everyday life. Of course it makes sense to want to help your partner, but this didn’t stem from the same desire to help my friends and family. The satisfaction I’d receive from certain acts of service didn’t come from the fact that I made someone I love feel appreciated, but instead, from successfully completing a task that was expected of me. It resembled the satisfaction you felt in elementary school after getting your times tables right or memorizing a poem by heart. You strived for the praise that came with receiving a good grade and not your actual accomplishment.

I felt as if there was a third party in our relationship. An ancient mediator only visible to me who was guiding me towards the “natural” way of things. Avoid being too desperate but also be present. Be malleable and understandable. Don’t be too loud and avoid becoming a nuisance to his life. I didn’t believe any of this but I don’t think this mattered. Like I never believed there was a sound explanation for the role women occupied in society, I didn’t believe in squeezing myself into the mold of a “good girlfriend.” Resistance doesn’t require you to have ever actually believed in any of the false ideas you’re being pressured to follow. It requires an acute understanding and rejection of these fabricated ideas in your everyday life.

My distaste for all expectations for my relationship became apparent to me whenever I was in social settings. I was proud of my relationship, but I started to regret informing people about it. I did not want to hear about being an intuitive or sweet girlfriend. I did not want to be told he was good for me. I was intensely aware of the overlap between the ways I show love and the expectations for women. And so naturally, overtime most assumptions about my relationship began to bother me. It would irritate me whenever we were referred to as a duo, when people would ask me about his whereabouts, when people would assume that I was supposed to be able to decipher his actions… None of this was harmful, of course. It’s the reaction you can expect after spending so much time with another person. We were attached at the hip, and it made complete sense that people would treat us as such. But like I said, when the necessity of romantic companionship has been such a defining part of your upbringing, an importance that you’ve never been able to wrap your head around, it’s understandable why you’d be so adamant in ensuring that this narrative isn’t pushed onto you. It didn’t really matter if anyone’s comments were actually attempting to reinforce gender roles or not. I was overtly critical of what the expectations people had about my relationship suggested and nothing could curb my suspicions.

While I know my feminism and my relationship could cooperate instead of coming into conflict with each other, it really did feel as if my work was always counteracted! It was a challenge making sure that I didn’t slip into the misogynistic mold of expectations while also ensuring that my rejection of patriarchal standards didn’t lead me to reject my boyfriend altogether. It felt shameful trying to extract some relevance in my own relationship while belonging to a larger political project. Sexual violence, bride kidnappings, homelessness, and dowry systems are all pressing feminist issues, and I’m writing a think piece on trying to be a good feminist while having a boyfriend!

I don’t think a romantic relationship with a man is necessary for anyone to gain feminist consciousness. It wasn’t for me. But it has made me more aware of the ease in which I can fall into contrived roles. I think it was easier for me to stand on my feminism with no conflict of interest. It’s not as if not being romantically involved with a man automatically absolves you from dealing with misogyny firsthand. That is unavoidable. However it was definitely easier to stand strong and be clear about my convictions without any personal implications.

I hesitated writing this essay because I worried that it would seem like an insult to my relationship. I hesitated even confessing that because I worried that it would seem like a failure in my feminism. Yet, these worries stemmed from how my feminism and my relationship would be perceived by others and not from any real conflict between the two. Like I previously mentioned, my relationship and my feminism are not at odds with one another. I’ve learned to enjoy being challenged. Introducing a political discourse to my relationship has allowed me to ensure that the love I give is the kind of love I want to give and not something that has been predetermined for me. It has given me a deeper compassion for the women who struggle to break free from the mold of societal expectations in fear of social or, more worse, violent retribution.

I thought I was still trying to understand how I can be staunch in my political convictions and still be myself but I think I have that mostly figured out. There will inevitably be an overlap with my actions and gender roles and while I still do want to make an effort to understand them, I can’t dedicate my life to theorizing my decisions when there are more tangible issues at hand. The problem doesn’t lie in a lack of steadfastness but in trying to have others understand how my beliefs work together. I am committed but I don’t want to be dogmatic. I am willing to hear others out but I don’t want to be tolerant. I don’t want to be seen as many things really but I am learning that I cannot control how I will be seen and it’s not actually relevant to my goals. I don’t want to have to convince anyone to like me or to believe in my intentions. I only hope to be as transparent as I can be and have that speak for itself. I’m learning to let go of decorum.