For The Love Of Women

I've asked before and maybe you didn't see it, or if you think this is repetitive/a stupid question, please tell me so I won't add to your inbox. I understand that marriage is a patriarchal institution and partaking in hetero marriage especially is not a feminist act, but is it an anti-feminist act? Also, do you have any suggestions for further reading about feminist perspectives of heterosexuality? I can't find many myself (maybe I'm just not looking in the right places?). Thank you!

The following was written by feminist Michele Braa-Heidner.: If heterosexuality was expressed in a non patriarchal, male dominated scenario, heterosexuality may have merit, but as it stands, existing within the confines of patriarchy, we must question it completely. Why do women want to be with men knowing what we know about men? Knowing that all men disrespect and hate women most of the time? Seeing the devastating results of male violence against women historically and currently? Seeing men dominate, oppress, violate and murder women? We must ask ourselves is our heterosexuality healthy or is it an adapted survival behavior in response to male violence against females? Since we don’t have any frame of reference for healthy heterosexuality where women and men are both respected free and equal human beings, we cannot say with any conviction that patriarchal heterosexuality is normal, healthy or natural. Since we don’t have any frame of reference of a type of heterosexuality that exists without the component of male violence against women, we cannot come to the conclusion that patriarchal heterosexuality is normal, healthy or natural.

When women against all logic and evidence, continue to have relationships with men, regardless of how they treat us, we must conclude that there is another mechanism in play here. When we begin to question heterosexuality, I mean really question it and dismantle it within the patriarchal confines, we expose the insanity of women “choosing” to be with men on male merit alone because the hard truth of the matter is that men don’t deserve women on merit alone. Consequently, this insane need for women to be with men begins to reveal itself as a symptom or reaction to the conditions of female enslavement and victimization. A means for surviving male violence. This becomes even more evident when you read the symptoms of oppressive/dominant relationships and how the behaviors of subservience are exactly the same behaviors as femininity. That even men display “feminine” behaviors when they are being dominated. What if women have adapted to male domination and violence by “sleeping with the enemy”? By getting close to their captors in an effort to be able to control their environment or to curtail male violence? We need to start asking ourselves these questions so that we can begin to analyze our relationships with men if we ever want to have healthy ones or further, decide not to.

If we do this, analyze our desire to be with men, we may find that there is no good reason. That our relationships are not based on reciprocal respect, but instead based on our own terror. Our individual man could be to us, a life preserver amongst a sea of potential male predators. We may find that on the surface we kid ourselves into believing that we need them or want them but underneath this surface level, we see that this is just a band-aide covering up our terror from the inherent memory, cell memory, of our violent enslavement at the hands of men. There is ample evidence that connects feminine behaviors especially in our relationships with men that mimic the behaviors of victims of Stockholm’s Syndrome.

Another factor involved here is that most male violence against women including rape is done by the men that women know or have relationships with, not by strangers. The nuclear family is the playground for male violence due to the isolation of women under the roof and control of individual men. We are constantly inundated with threats of violence from male strangers, but the truth is this compared to non stranger male violence is rare. I believe the reason for this that patriarchy has a stake in keeping women terrified of the strange man out there, outside our safe homes, because this terror keeps women in their place, within the confines of the nuclear family, the individual man and of patriarchy on a societal level. Women then cling to their “men” in an effort to stay safe from the strange violent males–out there. Women stay in abusive relationships because they have Stockholm’s syndrome, not because they are stupid or because they like it. She is merely trying to survive violence in the best way she knows how.

Women learn to see themselves as inferior and men superior because they must put themselves in their captors shoes to be able to feel safer to be able to figure out when an if he will be violent and try to curtail his violence. This is why women tend to dislike themselves and other women because they are seeing themselves through the dominant male eyes. Women then see themselves and other women as weak, stupid, petty and deserving of male punishment, yet another reason why women tend to like men over women. And this is also why women tend to compete with other women when it comes to male attention. Patriarchy teaches women this lie, that men are important and women are not; therefore, to be important, women must be with men thereby getting attention or importance through osmosis. All of these factors play into what we know as “heterosexuality” and all of these factors also play into the reasons for why we think heterosexuality is necessary. If we take these factors and or reasons out of the equation, would we be heterosexual? Would women want to be with men?