One thing that I’ve come to realize is that the patriarchy is rooted in everything we experience. But one thing people don’t necessarily recognize is the extremely sexist and patriarchal system that “straightness” is formed around. Jane Ward, a professor of gender and sexuality studies at the University of California, Riverside, is the author of “The Tragedy of Heterosexuality,” an LGBTQ+ perspective on cis-straight relationships and why they are in danger. She provides a perfectly formed critique of heterosexual culture and how it is destroying women.
Ward opens her book by stating that queer people are afraid for their straight peers. According to her, the nuclear straight relationship is one marked by an extreme distaste for the opposite gender. Men have been raised to have an underlying disgust for women, whether it be for their higher emotional intellect or natural appearances. Men then found ways to cope with being with women, so bodily, behavioral, and sexual expectations are forced onto womenthem by their male partners. This causes intimate partner violence, and on a less extreme level, relationship dissatisfaction.
Men seem to be focused on one thing as displayed by the media: sex. But hetero sex has never actually been wanted by most men. In times before colonialism, several societies located in places such as the Middle East had sex-separated groups. These groups would have women-loving-women, or WLW, and men-loving-men relationships, which were satisfactory to them emotionally, physically, and sexually. The groups would seldom come together for the purposes of reproduction and keeping their lineages alive.
What changed? White colonial societies developed the heterosexual ruling system so men could have power, which led to the formation of similar patriarchal systems across the world. It became the norm despite it being abnormal. This new system was rooted in hatred for women. It drove men to seek out the “hottest woman” defined by a narrow set of criteria (hairless, scented, dieted, young) only to impress their male counterparts and gain the sexual approval of their male counterparts. Ward even suggests that men have “countless missed opportunities” to actually like women, as their hetero-masculinity is characterized by a weaker and more conditional desire for women.
Heterosexual relationships have brought myself and other women a lack of emotional and sexual fulfillment, fear of rape, coercion, abuse, and more, which has all led to confusion on how love could be like this. The people in our lives justify men’s actions by telling us we “just haven’t found the right man,” but men just cannot understand how to please women and were only brought up to please themselves. They were brought up to normalize gender roles, eroticize them and even violently act on them, believing this to be a “normal” relationship.
As a bisexual woman, it took me years to recognize the reason why there is a difference between dating men and women. Men have never understood misogyny and it’s time that they understand it all stems from their unhealthy straight relationships, their inner homophobia, and their toxic homoeroticism. Women who are still attracted to men cannot just ignore this for their wellbeing, otherwise, many more women would choose to be in a WLW relationship for the safety and respect it provides. It’s time to change the narrative on how we discuss hetero relationships, to help all hetero people change. Women need help, men need to be made aware of toxic hetero-masculinity and heterosexuality is in danger.