A Romantic Partner Is Not Meant to Be Won and Will Power Is Not Love by B. Cooper
(Link): A Romantic Partner Is Not Meant to Be Won and Will Power Is Not Love by B. Cooper
Excerpts:
[Cardi B. is a woman rap singer whose estranged husband, named “Offset,” approached her while she was performing on stage to force a reconciliation with her]
… Stalking behaviors and emotional boundary–breaching have been normalized as romance and desire through popular-culture written and produced by a system controlled by men.
Patriarchy works by making women think that the man who will override her will is the one who loves her most.
And it works by making men mistake ego and showmanship for vulnerability and accountability.
For instance, “the cue card guy” in Love Actually shows up on his best friend’s doorstep to profess his love for his best friend’s wife, and we are asked to sympathize with his plight.
Love Jones, an iconic rom-com from my generation, is the story about a man who steals the address of a love interest from her check at the record store where he works as a cashier and pops up at her house to ask her out on a date.
Today, he would go to jail.
But men and women alike are taught to think of his actions as pursuit of a love interest, despite her almost sure discomfort with a male stranger showing up at her door. We have been conditioned to think that this aggressive approach is hopelessly romantic, vulnerable even.
In the real world, women are frequently killed for rejecting men’s advances and declarations of desire, whether they come (Link): upon first meeting, or after a relationship has (Link): reached a breaking point.
…That Offset [the jilted husband] wasn’t violent with Cardi [the woman rap singer] isn’t the point. He wasn’t invited, and he wasn’t wanted, and Cardi’s choices and desires weren’t respected.
“No one put any conditions on what Offset must do in order to win back Cardi’s affections,” Threadcraft said. “Instead everyone put all the conditions on her, insisting that she should take him back, despite his behavior. Male will matters more to people than feminine will. His desires in that moment mattered more while her desires were treated as just being in the way.”
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