I just found this cool TED Talk on amatonormativity on Youtube!
The speaker, Riya Bolander, is greyromatic on talks about amatonormativity as a social norm in in general as well the way amatonormativity affected them growing up as an arospec person. They also give a few examples of how to combat it.
It is really well done. I think this will be my new reference when I have to introduce someone to the concept of amatonormativity.
Addressing the social expectation for romantic love | Riya Bolander | TEDx Talks
A transcript of the video is under the cut because it's very long. I've taken this transcript from youtube and made my own edits to it, as the original (apparently autogenerated) transcript has zero punctuation and got some words wrong. I'm sorry for any mistakes I made or if I missed anything when editing.
Transcript
Hello everyone! I'm so glad that you are all here. Today I'm hoping to teach you all a new word - amatonormativity. This is a bit of a mouthful, so I'm going to break it down so that it makes more sense. " Amato" comes from the Latin root "amare" which means to love. In a modern context, this almost exclusively means to love in a romantic sense. "Normativity" comes from the English "normative". Normativity is a philosophical concept that society designates some ideas traits and actions as acceptable, designating everything else as unacceptable. Some social norms are good. For example, we should follow the rules of the road to avoid traffic accidents. Others can be harmful. They can enforce conformity in areas where diversity should actually be valued or cause people to repress parts of their identity which can result in emotional harm. Based on this brief definition, we can see that amatonormativity means the normative expectation of romantic love. To put that in words that actually mean something for us as people, this means three things: One - everyone is expected to desire romantic relationship. Two - these romantic relationships are expected to be prioritised above everything else and three - we're are told that we can't be happy without a romantic relationship. You may have heard the word heteronormativity which is the expectation that everyone should fulfill heterosexual gender roles. It's clear how this could affect LGBTQ+ individuals because simply by virtue of their identity, they can't fulfill heterosexual gender goals but it also negatively affects all of us because almost no one can perform gender to the extent expected by society. Amatonormativity is similar. It's easy to see how it could negatively affect an aromantic person who isn't interested in a romantic relationship. But it also hurts all of us and all of our relationships.
I have always been frustrated with the concept of romance above everything else so I was super excited when I first found the term amatonormativity and I hope I'll be able to share some of that excitement with you through this talk. I'm going to go over a little bit of the academic background, some of my personal background, how it's harmful to everyone and, finally, and most importantly, some steps we can take to mitigate these harms.
Amatonormativity as a pervasive and harmful cultural ideal was first developed by philosopher Elizabeth Brake in her 2012 book "Minimizing Marriage". In this book, she questions why the government is involved in relationships at all, when even expansions of marriage rights such as same-sex marriage still leave entire groups out in the cold. People who aren't interested in long-term romantic relationships, polyamorous people, even people who simply prioritise their friendships. All of these groups are excluded from the hundreds of governmental privileges associated with marriage, such as tax deductions, spousal leave, and legal decision-making abilities in medical scenarios or end of life.
Unsurprisingly this concept was a big hit with aspec communities. Aspec refers to individuals on the asexual and aromantic spectrums. For those of you who are unfamiliar: An asexual person experiences little to no sexual attraction while an aromantic person experiences little to no romantic attraction, and there are a wide range of aspec identities beyond these that experience attractions significantly less or significantly differently than an allosexual or alloromantic person who experience those attractions at a "standard" level. The aspec community is especially fond of amatonormativity as a concept because it gives them a word to describe their experiences that come from living in an amatonormative world. Aspec people are vulnerable to feeling like there's something wrong with them because they aren't experiencing something that society tells them they need to be. They're vulnerable to feeling invalidated because society tells them that that's not how people are, so obviously, you must be making it up. It's also very isolating to exist as an aspec person in a world that tells you your life should revolve around romantic relationships.
I first came across the term amatonormativity in online aspec spaces such as Tik Tok where I had a brief stint as a content creator. As I mentioned before, I was thrilled when I found the word because Ihad spent the first two decades of my life being constantly confused and frustrated about the omnipresence of romance in everything. Today, I am in a romantic relationship but for majority of my life, I had never experienced a crush on anyone and I constantly felt isolated from my peers and the world in general due to being grayromantic. This goes back pretty much as far as I can remember. In elementary school, I didn't understand why people were constantly bugging me about who I had a crush on, to the point that I ended up picking someone at random just so that I could fit in. To make matters worse, he found out and came up to me and rejected me, even though I wasn't actually interested. In middle school, I was frustrated when instead of the genuinely fun and engaging conversations my friends used to have, the only thing they seem to want to talk about was who was interested in who or who was dating who or this new relationship drama at our school. In high school, I started to get scared. I had never had a crush on anyone. Maybe there was something wrong with me. Maybe I was broken and my life was going to be miserable and empty and lack meaning because I didn't have a significant other and I didn't plan on getting one. As I mentioned before, today, I am in a romantic relationship but after that realisation in high school, I was able to find a way to make my life fulfilling and joyful with or without a romantic partner.
My story is just one example of how a model amatonormativity can be harmful for aspec people. But it is just as bad for everyone else, regardless of your orientation or your relationship status. When you're single, you're bombarded with amatonormative messages: You're family member asking when you're finally going to find someone, seemingly every form of media telling you you have to find the one or you'll never fully experience life, your friend dismissing plans with you because something came up with their significant other and they're obviously more important than you. Even simply being forced to justify why you're single can be exhausting. It can also lead to self-esteem issues because the way it's set up society says that if you're not dating someone, there must be something wrong with you. The problems don't go away if you do get into a relationship, they just change. Have you ever known someone who's dating someone they don't even really like because they're convinced that dating anyone is better than being single? Have you ever stayed or seen someone stay in a less than happy relationship for the same reason? Maybe you've lowered your standards to below where you actually want them to be just so that you can find someone. I've noticed all of these in my social circle and it's upsetting every time because I know that my friends deserve better. Although amatonormativity is not the sole cause of these kinds of issues because emotions are complicated and messy, it's definitely a strong contributor. And the problems don't stop if you get into a healthy and happy relationship.
There's one particular myth of amatonormativity that especially bothers me, which is the idea of the other half or your soulmate. There's a couple of main problems with this. The first is that it implies that as a singular individual you're not complete or whole. This can cause issues such as self-esteem problems struggles with identity and even unhealthy relationship dynamics such as codependence or being overly reliant on your partner because you don't know what you would be without them. The other problem that this causes is in the story of the one or your other half. We're told that they'll automatically be able to fulfill all of our social needs and we don't even need to tell them what they need to do because if they're really the right one, they'll know. Even with my background knowledge and amatonormativity, I experienced some of this in my own relationship. I was frequently worried that maybe, I wasn't actually supposed to be dating my partner because it felt like there were things missing. So I decided to write down everything I thought was missing and then, I looked at the list and I realised that everything on that list was either one - something that I could definitely get fulfilled elsewhere in my social circle or two - something that I needed to tell my partner about if I wanted it to happen. Humans are social beings and we need more than just one individual to support us. You may may have heard the idiom "It takes a village to raise a child". I'm a firm believer that you should keep that village strong even when you're an adult.
Amatonormativity also tends to damage our non-romantic relationships because it encourages us to prioritise romance over everything creating an unnecessary hierarchy. This can lead to us having a hard time finding time to spend with friends because we're convinced we need to spend most of it with our significant other or ignoring other people in our lives because we are so focused on making sure that our relationship is perfect. Love is also been monopolised by romantic partnerships. For most people, it's uncomfortable to tell their friends how much they care about them because that level of affection even if you care about your friend just as much as your partner, that level of affection has been reserved for romantic relationships.
Clearly, amatonormativity has a lot of negative effects. So we should do what we can to try and help mitigate these effects. Don't worry, you don't have to do anything crazy. I'm not going to ask you to break up with your partner or to protest the institution of marriage. Everything that I'll suggest is something that will benefit you and those around you. One of the most fulfilling ways you can combat amatonormativity is to put more effort into your non-romantic relationships such as friendships, family, community and even - or maybe especially - yourself. This can look like dedicating time to spend with these groups or letting people in these groups know that they're important to you and they're a valuable part of your life. You can also look at yourself. Be a little interspective. Think of your dreams and goals and aspirations and hopefully, you'll notice that you care about more than just your romantic pursuits. In thinking about these dreams and aspirations, you'll also be able to see what really matters to you and build a life that is fulfilling and joyful, whether or not you're able to find someone. Not only does this help you because you'll be living a happier life, it also helps other people who will see that you can be happy without a partner. This is beneficial even in relationships because knowing who you are and what you want out of life makes tough conversations a lot easier. Conversations about what you want from the future or something that you think needs to change will be significantly easier once you have a firm ground to stand on.
Finally, one more easy thing you can do to combat amatonormativity is to simply be aware of it. This may seem really easy but it's actually the most most important step because awareness is a precedent that is necessary for change. This awareness also has to be coupled with avoiding a perpetuating amount of amatonormativity yourself. For example, you don't need to ask your single friend when they're finally going to find a partner and you don't need to bother your younger family member about whether that person they're hanging out with is their significant other. It's unlikely that any of us will be perfect at this right away but it's still worth a shot because dismantling amatonormativity helps all of us and all of our relationships, including romantic couplings.
Thank you so much for listening and I hope that you learned something.
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