My dearest women, my fellow co-conspirators,
I want to propose something radical this Sunday morning. I want to stretch the boundaries of our imagination and offer an alternative way of doing things. As you reach for your coffee, lean back among the pillows, or find a few moments respite from the children and the chores, allow me to put something to you.
What if, all the women, collectively decided to stop posting online about their romantic relationships? What if we refused to give our romantic relationships the spotlight society dictated they should have? What if we shifted the focus onto something far more important; you.
Let me, explain…
This world is built for men. This world, still, in the year 2023, deems marriage and motherhood the true measure of success for a woman. Social media has only amplified this. No matter the creative endeavors, business accomplishments, or personal wins for women, it isn’t until she’s marched down an aisle and has pushed another human out of her body that she’s deemed truly victorious.
I searched ‘woman’ in the thesaurus, and this is what it gave me:
Daughter, girl, mother, wife, aunt, gentlewoman, girlfriend, grandmother, matron, niece, spouse, mr/miss/mrs.
Ten out of those twelve words are about caring for other people, presumably a man, and being defined by a man. I searched ‘queen’ in the thesaurus and got ‘wife of a king’ as a suggestion. When I searched ‘king,’ ‘husband of a queen’ was nowhere to be found.
In short, the world understands a woman based on the man that stands next to her.
Which sounds archaic and old-fashioned but believe me, we’re still there. The stay-at-home girlfriend is a trend on TikTok, bringing subservience, financial dependence, and identifying yourself through a man to the heart of our modern world. The hashtag has 200 million views and has been used 165 million times.
Which is not to say that you can’t be a stay-at-home mother. Or get married. Or fall in love. Create families. Do the things that bring you joy. (I refuse to co-sign stay-at-home girlfriends, however, and while I like to take an absolutely non-judgemental approach to my fellow women, those twenty-six-year-olds who are actively signing up to be ‘stay-at-home girlfriends’ are idiots, which they will learn in due course). But what if we did all those things and kept it off the internet?
Because my theory, and I truly believe this, is that we continue to perpetuate a narrative that deems marriage and babies to be the greatest, and most worthy, things to celebrate. If I was to post a picture of me in a wedding dress on my Instagram right now, it would get the highest engagement of anything I’d ever posted in my life. If I was to introduce a man onto my Instagram and start a couples page, or at the very least start talking about my relationship, it would get the highest engagement of anything I’d ever posted.
I know great women who achieve wonderful things, but they don’t post as much about it as they did about their wedding days. I know women who fight for women’s rights every single day, yet they still post reels and reams about their partner, which, continues to get more engagement than their incredible activism.
If you were to look at society, and social media, you would be forgiven for thinking that the only things that matter are wedding days, pregnancy reveal photographs and birth pictures. Woman, married, mother, dead cannot be the only trajectory for us. There has to be more.
But how can we feasibly teach girls that there is more when these are the only things that we truly celebrate? What if girls looked online and the women they followed posted about work. About travel and countries visited. About promotions and new cars they bought themselves. About girls trips and business start-ups. About hobbies and pastimes. Can you imagine what the world might look like then? What those girls would aspire to?
I was once working with a woman who I knew fairly well. She started a media company and is very successful, and like me, has a very visible and personal profile online. We were getting ready in the green room to go on stage and deliver a panel when someone mentioned her husband while she was out of the room, and I was shocked to learn not only that she was married, but she had been for five years. As we were walking off stage at the end of the event, I asked her why she never mentioned she was married and had been married for so long. She looked at me and said something I have never forgotten;
‘men get enough air time, my husband doesn’t need more on my platform.’
I have lived and died by those words ever since. Men do get enough airtime, in every facet of our lives. Which is why you will never see me talk, post or discuss my relationship online. Because it’s not the most important thing in my life. Because I am the greatest love of my life. Because my purpose and ambition is greater than a relationship. And most importantly because I never want another woman or girl to look at me online and think that because I have a successful career AND a boyfriend/husband/baby, now, and only now, am I truly successful. I want them to one day be surprised that there was ever a relationship at all. I want to offer a version of life that is defined outside the realms of the man who may or may not be standing next to me. What a life that would be eh?!
The best is yet to come. The best is yet to come. Say it with me, the best is yet to come.
Excellent Sunday Cervix Salma. I went to a friend's wedding last weekend, but she's also recently got a promotion. I made the point of giving her a card congratulating her on the promotion when we went for a pre wedding meal. Obviously the couple still had a card on the day too, but I couldn't let her not celebrate the promotion too. Xxx
I spent my whole life subscribing to ticking the boxes. Then when it all blew up in my face, I saw clearly that none of it made me happy. So now I try to live my life on my terms and not make decisions because of what society expects of me. And hopefully setting the same example for my two daughters.