A few weeks ago I wrote down my reflections on quarantine, love, and patriarchy. Many asked: But what do love and patriarchy have to do with one another? Below, I try to answer part of this question.
The origin of our conditionings largely comes from the narratives we are exposed to: these exist in conversations, tweets, media, stories etc, and they affect the way individuals, and society, behaves. They are a form of power that can unite movements, but they can also divide and keep hierarchies in place. For this reason, I believe one of the most important things we can do as individuals who strive for change is to become aware of narratives and how they can condition us.
I don’t claim this article will show the complete picture, but perhaps sharing what I have noticed in my experiences might be an initiation to further digging into your own conditionings for you.
Deconstructing and rebuilding Love
In a recent event on Romantic love, Belen Saralegui, who has been doing extended research on the topic and is currently working on a documentary about love and feminism, promoted me to reflect on the following questions: Who taught you about love? How much does Love under a patriarchal society have to do with politics and economics? Why does love hurt, and should it? These are all valid questions we should all be asking.
I want to start with an important clarification, I am not referring to love as an abstract concept, but as the mode of romantic love - or romanticism- in our particular context: a patriarchal society.
Saralegui explained that she believes it is a cultural practice that has a lot to do with politics and economics. So let’s explore further:
Think of marriage; seen in many countries as the “seal” of Love, even legally-speaking. The wedding business makes billions a year despite it being an institution that in most countries excludes non-heterosexual couples and still makes many women financially dependent on who they marry. This alone should raise some questions, all I ask is that you dig deeper.
You may have noticed, Madam Deputy Speaker, that today every national newspaper is carrying a delightful picture of yesterday’s royal wedding. I hope that you have also seen a wonderful British film called ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’, which is a considerable box office hit — one of the most successful British films ever made. It is playing to marvellous business throughout this country and on five continents. (Mr Gyles Brandreth, Third Reading of the 1994 Marriage Bill, House of Commons, 15 July 1994) from Consumerism, Romance and the Wedding Experience
Conversations and studies on the connection between patriarchy and love have many facets that go from criticising the narrative of the Disney story -love is when a girl becomes a woman, love is sealed in marriage, women are saved from their dormant existence by men - to more in-depth discourse on romantic consumerism, or noticing the link between feminism and monogamy.
A paper from Chapham University about monogamy under feminist lens discusses that “from a phenomenological perspective, sociocultural values dictate that women, unlike men, are prescribed to be dependent upon monogamy in order to define their selfhood; and indeed, research has provided evidence in support of this idea”
So, how do deconstruct what we know about love, and rebuild? We can start from the 10 myths of Romantic Love, then listen to theories and stories, question our knowledge, and then reconstruct our own decisions.
I started doing this, and here are some reflections.
Conditioning 1: Love = one type of relationship
The other day I was asked by my friend how I was doing on the “love front”. Without questioning it, my mind immediately went to my relationships with men (I am heterosexual).
“Well, not much really right now” I replied.
Then, Eureka! What am I talking about? I am full of love, I might not have a stable partner at this moment but my friends, my family, the many strangers that show interest in my writing, all fill my heart with love. My conditioned mind completely disregarded them.
Carol Herrera Gomez, author and expert in the subject, says that we need a radical change in the way we relate ourselves with people, animals and nature, and even with countries and regions. To start, we must associate love with all loving relationships, and not create a hierarchy of relationships. This narrative can be dangerous and create complete dependency on a partner to be your everything. What if, as a friend said, we “eroticised” friendship? What if love did not only come from one person?
If we really think about it, most lasting relationships are similar; they require nurturing, facing obstacles, and they evolve with time. The patriarchal narrative understands erotic love to be based on a “sadomasochist” level. Mary Daly, feminist theologist and academic, wrote in the 70s that “a male-defined erotic love involves loss of identity and is inherently transitory- it involves hierarchies, ranking roles, like the military” she argued. I want us to take what Daly said but replace the words “male-defined” with “masculine” or “patriarchal”. To do this, it is important for us to accept the duality of our existence as human beings, and acknowledge that both masculine and feminine are present in us.
This has helped me understand feminist criticism of the patriarchy as a criticism of the domination of masculine, and not as being against men as individuals.
Conditioning 2: Love hurts
The narrative of suffering in love brings violence to the picture.
I’m going to try to dissect a bit here: we have essentially been exposed to love as either a fairy tale or as a painstaking suffering journey towards an ideal.
When love gets “complicated” many give up and chase the sparkle in their eyes elsewhere. At the same time, others stay in toxic relationships, accepting mistreatment and emotional manipulation, and worse. We have exchanged the acceptance of change and evolution in love for a masochistic fascination for suffering. The two could not be farther away from each other.
The origin of our conditionings largely comes from the narratives we are exposed to: these exist in conversations, tweets, media, stories etc, and they affect the way individuals, and society, behaves.
Herrera is right in saying that “As humans, we love romantic challenges, clandestine loves, impossible relations, lost causes, strong emotions, exceptional cases”. Examples are everywhere, from Romeo and Juliet to Bonnie and Clyde to the lyrics of so many songs, words of infamous love letters, and movie scenes.
I will not take films and music out of their context to make my point, but I do want you to stop and think for a second how many pop songs you have heard where a person that was once loved is insulted. How many times have women been portrayed as b****s, and men as a****s?
Love is pain, it hurts, and before the happy ending, there is a lot of suffering on both sides. But the question to ask is: should there be?
Putting violence, conquest and suffering into the equation inevitably constructs a narrative in our subconscious that could have a direct correlation on the rampant sexual and domestic violence. I mean, why is it that in so many famous kissing scenes the woman is pinned to the wall?
Love based on a relationship of power is not equal by default. The way the media has portrayed - and continues to portray- femicide should be criminalised for perpetuating these narratives. “He killed her out of jealousy”, “She threw acid at him out of jealousy” are some examples of newspaper titles reporting acid attacks or femicide.
Calling femicide a passion crime completely changes the way it is absorbed into our brain. As an experiment, try reading the words separately; you might notice the difference right away.
Patriarchal romanticism is violent and unequal. We are taught to give everything up for the “one” and grow up with the idea that desperation means the love is stronger when it triumphs. Against all odds! And so, many search for this type of love, and some settle for violence, emotional manipulation, and toxic relationships.
I urge you to notice the words used around love that are violent or negative, some examples are “intoxicating”, “love hurts”, or “conquest”. These create narratives that are dangerous and must be observed and deconstructed.
Conditioning 3: undefined until loved in return
Another common narrative perpetuated by the patriarchy is that of waiting for love. In the Disney fairy tales, the girl is often turned into a woman by a heroic gesture of a prince charming. From a young age, my generation has been exposed to the narrative that without another we are incomplete.
A conscious relationship is beautiful when our existence doesn’t depend on it. Exposed to these narratives we are taught to believe that love completes us, and not complements us.
Conditioning 4: love is unconditional
I spent most my life thinking of love as blind or unconditional, so imagine the shock when I became aware of the toxicity of this narrative. Unconditional love is a romantic illusion that may lead some to lower their self-worth and accept things that they shouldn’t. Love is not unconditional when it comes to violence, it is not unconditional when it comes to psychological and emotional torture, it is not unconditional when it comes to repetitive disrespect. Love is always conditional, in every single relationship.
Narratives of patriarchal love are racist, heteronormative and dangerous and they must be deconstructed and rebuilt. The narratives are multifaceted and often complex, but I believe starting small is good enough. There are many more studies and narratives that I can talk about, but I would rather initiate a reflection and dialogue which I hope will take you to new places.
I personally love Love, I just think we have been doing it wrong. But I also believe we can, through questioning, researching and dialogue, collectively rethink of a love that carries no prejudice or power hierarchies. That we can strip ourselves of our conditionings and make space for a more real form of love.
