Something I think about a lot is that statistically, overwhelmingly, across cultures, the most dangerous person in a woman's life is her romantic partner or potential romantic partner. The entire process of courtship, romance, love, relationship and family is fraught with high possibility of violence, assault and death. Women make up an overwhelming majority of acid attack victims, rape victims and domestic violence victims.
Yet, they also make up an overwhelming majority of the consumers of the romance genre, across mediums.
Yet, today we're having serious conversations in mainstream media and spaces about how harmful it is for women to distance themselves from men, to choose to be alone, to reject male companionship. How its women responsible for the epidemic of mens loneliness.
I dont think there's anything women want more than to live in a world where they feel safe around men. Where the world of the romance genre is real - where men are basically good, decent and safe to be around. Where our partners, even if they hurt us, can and will evolve to be better one day. Truly better.
Statistically, it doesn't work like that in the real world. Abusers don't reform. Rapists rarely repent. Everyone hates a female victim who speaks out. From a very young age, women have to accept we live in a world of predators, and we have to protect ourselves because no one else will, and thats just how it is. The fact that we don't feel safe- the fact that we aren't safe- is not the fault of women. The male loneliness epidemic is caused by men.
It is a result of a sick, twisted system that builds off off the normalization of women's pain and their continous, uncomplaining acceptance of the same. If the system breaks down because women choose to be happy and free, then it isn't and wasnt worth saving in the first place. If men's happiness can ONLY be achieved by women's sacrifice and pain - then I don't care about it.
But its not be me setting up this zero sum game. Its the patriarchy that profits from the narrative that its women's happiness vs mens happiness and the two cannot co-exist in one society. The way to evolve is to be able to face the facts. Men hurt women. It isn't natural and normal. Its an epidemic of violence. It has to stop.
