How would you describe your ideal love relationship? Is it one where you love with such intensity that it hurts? Where jealousy is a sign of fear of losing you? Where there is a happily ever after? We have been told many love stories, many tales of princesses and princes. These narratives create expectations in us about what to expect and the place we occupy in an emotional relationship. Eva''s podcast, "Love or something else? The truth behind romantic love" the episode talks about the deceptions that sustain the myth of romantic love and how they end up enslaving us. Romantic love teaches us how to love in a relationship; it is disseminated socially and normalized through the media. It is also an obstacle to eradicating gender violence. The myth of romantic love is sustained by an entire social structure that, through gender stereotypes, teaches men and women to love differently.
Love conquers all
We grow up learning that love can overcome everything, and consequently, out of love we endure everything. We romanticize male chauvinism and violence, we give 100% in our relationships, and we tend to forget about ourselves in the process.
The love you feel for your friends, your sisters or your mother can motivate you to continue fighting against gender violence. Yes, love is ultimately revolutionary. Despite this, romantic love, historically, has tied women in unequal positions vis-à-vis their partners, and has been placed as the basis that perpetuates violence against women.
The aspirations with which we arrive at a love relationship sometimes dissolve over time, sometimes sooner than later. Surely you have heard or lived stories in which the first month''s everything goes well, but then the blackmail, jealousy, and fights begin. There are many stories of women who claimed to be happy in their courtship, but after getting married, everything becomes an ordeal.
Despite the multiple problems experienced in relationships, many women prefer to believe that one-day violence will stop. They will end suffering because love can do everything; that''s right, like the princess stories in which the beast turns into a prince upon realizing that there is love.
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Love is the most important
Of course, we all like the feeling of being in love, the butterflies in our stomach, the excitement of first dates, gifts, first kisses, and nervousness, but when does all that magic end? According to the National Survey on Dating Violence (ENVIM), 76% of adolescent girls between 15 and 17 have suffered psychological violence, 17% sexual violence, and 15% physical violence. According to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), women who have faced abuse by their husbands or boyfriend throughout the relationship (19.1 million), in 64.0% of the cases, it was treated as severe or very severe.
Despite the violence suffered by so many women, there is the idea that love is the most important thing. That enduring violence is the right thing to do, because "it will change," "I cannot leave my children without their father," "love and family is the most important thing, even if it hurts." Thus, the belief that love is the most crucial thing ends up sustaining the violence experienced in dating and at home.
Jealousy as a sign of true love
Social educator Marina Marroquí said, in a BBVA talk transmitted for El Podcast de Eva, that "romantic love is the most powerful tool to subdue, especially in a society where, legally, you are nobody''s." On the other hand, the idea of romantic love is based on conquest and ownership that enslaves us; condemns us to suffer.
The property logic of romantic love is closely linked to gender stereotypes and how society teaches us to understand romantic love differently. Women are taught to Self-sacrifice and obedient, dedicated to others instead of to oneself. We must be in search of the perfect husband, be pretty, and help attend the home''s needs. On the other hand, men are educated to be leaders, pursue their goals, and conquer the world. While men are taught to be independent, women are taught to be dependent on men.
While men go out to achieve their goals, women remain excited in the hope or search of that love predestined for them, another great lie of romantic love.
Also, under the logic of ownership of romantic love, men come to think of themselves as the owners of their partner, an issue that triggers jealousy, vigilance, and violence. Jealousy often comes disguised as "I get jealous because I love you, and I only want you with me,"; an alarming phrase, and yet normalized.
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Love Hurts
The myth of romantic love states that when we love intensely, when "really" love, it hurts. It is enough to remember the phrase of José José songs "to love is to suffer, to want is to enjoy" to realize how normalized this lie about love is.
Breaking the myth that love means suffering is essential to ensuring that women live a life free of violence. Demolishing the ideas that justify suffering is the first step in fighting gender-based violence. Do not believe the story that loving means being in constant suffering; Love is not sadness; it is not violence; it is not pain. If you feel that when you love you are suffering, you should rethink the idea you have about it and remember that the most important love is the love you have for yourself. The love that would not allow you to suffer.
Traducción. Valentina K. Yanes