Entromantisiert euch!

The Fairy Tale of Great Love

Few things are romanticized as much as romantic love. Love has been passionately sung about in songs for centuries, celebrated in literature, and glorified in films even in its most toxic forms. Despite its volatility and often relatively short duration, we have made romantic love a central societal organizational model. Romantic love is what has been hammered into our brains from a young age as an essential component of happiness and fulfillment in life. Yet its reality is anything but romantic – especially for women.

Hardly anything deserves this romanticization less! Heteroromantic relationships create a framework in which women take on two-thirds of unpaid work, earn less, and fall into dependency. In contrast, unmarried women without children are the happiest and healthiest demographic group. They have a higher life expectancy than married women, while married men live longer than unmarried ones. Romantic relationships with men harm women: health-wise, emotionally, and economically.

A provocative manifesto from a feminist perspective. In this outstanding essay, Beatrice Frasl addresses these injustices and advocates for a change in thinking. Because romantic love is a patriarchal indoctrination campaign whose narrative has prevailed for centuries. How wonderful it is that we don’t need it. That we can independently decide what love means to us.