Is your boyfriend making you less woke?

Will there ever be a time when a woman breaks away from a relationship and isn’t bombarded by a storm of embarrassment? I am in no means an Etsy witch that holds all the secrets to love, nor are the few men I’ve dated some conglomerate of hyper-conservative individuals that morphed me into an ignorant woman. However, I experienced the following predicament to a fairly acute degree. In high school as I’ve begun to navigate romance, it is safe to say that I’ve truly become enlightened to the various ethical ambiguities that I swept under the rug. I’ve found that the headline above acknowledges a universal truth in young women: we have become accustomed to overlook moral and political issues that arise in conversations within heteronormative relationships. 

Beginning to date a man leads to an abrupt exposure to male perspective that simply wasn't as present before. With that comes an influx of subtle misogynistic terminology being baked into your everyday life. Specifically in commentary– the unnoticed judgment of other women, especially of my own friends, along with remarks reducing women to their appearance. These seem, not necessarily minor, but not worth an uneasy confrontation. In a perfect world, would I prefer my friends to not be referred to as rude or bitchy? Well, of course, but whether or not it is worth a confrontation with someone that I, ultimately, also care about is a debate that typically equates to dismissing the issue at hand. These quick bursts of morally conflicting commentary tend to arise in one-on-one circumstances, accentuating not only the uncomfortable pause when navigating how to respond, but the increasing pressure to comply. The thought– or to be more accurate, fantasy– that the awkwardness of the moment is an isolated experience emerges soon after. The gears of dismissal are already turning. Before you know it, these subtle jabs against women get lost amidst the mundanities of everyday conversations, you are significantly less combative, worse, you become indifferent to the magnitude each statement holds. These are the subtle expenses that come with being in a relationship… right?

The mental excuses steadily accumulate as the relationship goes on and everything is fine until the awkward observations start to spread into other areas, ones that are less internalized and more apparent. Fundamental issues such as politics begin to brew and whilst you’d normally debate or disagree, the same hesitation seizes each opportunity to refute. When you do speak up, it tends to be through a softer lens, so to say. Rather than directly holding them accountable on comments that you disagree with wholeheartedly, it comes out in a disjointed argument that is more on par with teaching. Women instinctively take the route of persuasion, opting to absorb a role that was never intended to be ours. Or, the remark is so outlandish that you are simply stunned and unsure of how to respond to the gravity of the situation. By the time the cognitive processing finishes, the opportunity to address it has expired. While this makes you feel inherently guilty, this is not as secluded of an experience than you may assume. According to the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) Public Affairs department at the University of Chicago, young men are almost twice more likely than young women to excuse using discriminatory language as long as it is apparent that they are “just kidding”. 

Women are expected to know better, to maintain their own self-respect and be able to identify when they are being mistreated or when they should speak out against the one they love. Yet we are conditioned to excuse small but patterned behavior perpetrated by men simply because we’re in romantic relationships with them. ‘Endurance’, women are taught, is a sign of success in a relationship. No matter how unhappy someone is or how upsetting a particular situation makes someone, hitting the one year, two year mark in a young relationship is on par with an academic achievement for a woman, rewarded and reinforced by congratulatory friends and family. The emphasis on the connection and foundation a relationship provides to young women makes engaging in combative conversations all the more challenging. Social pressures linger at the forefront each time a remark is made, adding a heavy emotional layer towards the uncomfortable conversations. The concept of breaking up a foundation you spend substantial time building is socially frowned upon because it underscores that you are unable to successfully secure love, lacking in the qualities required to maintain long term relationships. 

Finally stepping away, even if it means confronting the pressures and heartache, eventually leads to the long-awaited awakening. You’ll soon be able to reassess the past muddled memories of all the times you drove the conversation in the opposite direction despite your better judgment. The embarrassment blisters, as all you can seem to wonder is why and how you let yourself stay silent for so long. You fault yourself and so does everyone else. Almost every recent piece of media revolving around straight relationships has been inherently negative. Vogue's infamous “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” or New York Times “The Trouble With Wanting Men”, they both, regardless of the actual content of the articles, market themselves to the guilty consumer, the one, the woman, who has been in that mental space prior. This is even apparent in my own headline, it implies our lack of recognition, our inability to fully assess our relationships– we place the responsibility and our personal grievances concerning two-sided relationships onto ourselves. 

There’s likely a handful of you reading who believe you’re capable of spotting the signs early on. I too faced this assumption. As someone who prides themselves on stubborn ethics, I never once believed I would fall victim to compliance, let alone cognitive dissonance. Yet here we are! While I’ve only come to experience this a few times, there is no doubt in my mind that I will continue to survey this tricky reality in every other heteronormative relationship I engage in. It’s not wrong to fall in love and no person on this planet is intrinsically perfect. However, I hope that this article will serve not only myself, but you, in detecting the sexism that is laced between love, and aiding in the ability to perceive prejudice in spite of the passion.