British Vogue recently published an article sharing how untrendy having a boyfriend is. Single women are cheering, but women in relationships are denying that they are embarrassed by their boyfriends. The discourse revolved around an untrendy partner centered on hating women who are "male-centered" and "not" feminists. This divide is another reason romance is declining and is affecting the dating climate.
Nearly 17.5% of college students are in long-distance relationships, and 50% have used dating apps. Now, most are swapping modern dating for a single life.
Falling in love comes rapidly and quickly, but not always in a fairytale way. Now, dating apps and long-distance have become the modern dragons, the overwhelming challenges that need slaying, causing people to give up on finding real, authentic romance.
If a knight is on their way with the bare minimum flowers to save a love from hook-up culture, then romance isn’t dead. Though lately, it feels like wanting romance is embarrassing and fictional. It’s scary to want true love as a woman, but it’s scarier to be deemed male-centered in today’s climate for doing so.
In past decades, women were expected to be married and be homemakers. Since women gained the rights to own property, vote and work, they have been expected to live up to a set of expectations. In an ongoing fashion, it determines whether or not they are feminist and empowering or catering to a male or boyfriend-obsessed audience.
Women want to be seen as independent, owning their sexuality and able to determine something as sexist or misogynistic. If you show off your boyfriend, you are deemed male-centered. You can’t pass the Bechdel test, you’re in Boyfriendland and you should be dealing with heterofatalism like every other single woman. There have been many terms to describe the pressure of dating, one of which is being referred to as “uncool,” yet most people want a relationship. This leads to a messy dating climate and shorter-lived relationships, as people seek empowerment through being single.
The dating climate is becoming a battle between single and coupled women, both wanting to feel better about their situation. Single women wield the most power by controlling the narrative of what it means to be a single woman. Jealousy can cause single women to resent those in relationships and fuel the frustration in their search for love. Heterofatalism is when women find dating exhausting, men disappointing and that relationships are doomed to fail.
When dealing with the gamble of dating, single women feel less than when it comes to seeing couples. However, being single is empowering to many women, with trends of solo dates, ways to spend more time with female friends and now many single women loving the headline of the Vogue article. Single women are excited to be the trend for once, but they are the reason for the article.
Sabrina Carpenter has received a lot of debate over whether she is empowering women or sexualizing herself for a male audience. After her latest album, it’s clear her lyrics are tongue-in-cheek, and she is not catering to men whatsoever.
Debating on whether women are doing something “correctly” is nothing new. Whether a woman is relatable in a feminist sense or relatable because she is male-centered. After critics labeled Carpenter as anti-feminist, she said there is much more to her art than what is being said. She also mentioned the space she is creating art in is in a world where people like to pick women apart.
In the Vogue article, women were interviewed, sharing why they turn to soft-launching or keep their relationship completely private. Similarly, women are feeling the same critical eye in their relationships as Carpenter does with her art.
In a TikTok video from the author of the Vogue article, Chante Joseph, she shares it’s not just the title but the idea that women feel ashamed if they have to remove social media posts after a relationship has ended. Joseph discusses how women are fearful of jealousy from viewers of their posts or the idea of people seeing them go through stages of their love life.
Joseph mentioned in her video that she wanted to explore how untrendy relationships have become. “There was this idea of a relationship just by default, being something that rendered you quite uncool,” she said.
The Vogue article brought up very strong thoughts within me. I think the dating climate is insane right now, and the Vogue article strengthens this opinion for me. Oh well, through the dating climate and feminism discourse, you’ll still get a fairytale ending that isn’t embarrassing.
Cassidy McClurg is a freshman student studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note the opinions expressed in this column do not represent those of The Post. Want to talk to Cassidy about their column? Email cm303824@ohio.edu
