Your Boyfriend is a Nazi, Not an Innocent Victim of the World.
By Ana Lazarut
When I was younger, I always hoped that I would find a man to marry who was kind and funny and everything else you’d want in a partner, things that I am too lazy to list right now (I’m sure you can imagine up a few things yourself). He was going to see me as a person and recognise my intrinsic human value and respect that.
I wish I knew then that that is an extremely radical desire to have.
At 14, I’d sit with my friends, and we’d share stories of the absurd things our much older boyfriends were doing, and we’d all laugh knowingly and say, “That’s boys for you! They’re just so immature!” There’d be this community spirit created from the fact that we, as the ‘women’, had to accept their disturbing behaviour just as their mother would. Because that is what girls do.
Then at 17, it was a similar story of me and my friends still having conversations about our a-little-less older boyfriends and how “he never listens to me when I talk to him! And I always have to remind him of his mother’s birthday! And when there’s a party I need to ask his mother for the time since he’s just SO disorganised!”. By this point we were, for the most part, fed up.
But when we’d look to older women in our lives for help, it was much of the same story – That’s what boys are like! You need to teach him these things; it’s not his fault he grew up that way!
And this has unfortunately seeped into every aspect of my life when it comes to men. And I see it on T.V. and I see it in celebrity relationships and the books I read. And I see it in my own home.
As much as I hate to admit my guilt in doing this, I think many young women can relate to this socialisation we have been forced into, where our boyfriends and boy friends will say mildly homophobic or racist things, and you will roll your eyes and ‘educate them’ because “they just don’t know better”.
And everyone nods their head and praises you and says, ‘that’s so good of you to do. That poor man has never experienced the world like you have. You’re doing a good thing.’
Look at Taylor Swift and Matty Healy’s relationship! The heat was on her, not him at all, to the point that an open letter demanded she break up with him because of his controversial comments.
I am not saying that she should get no criticism, but no one is asking the why as to how this has happened or questioning how the burden is still on her.
Because we all know someone who is doing the same as Swift, or even Jenna Ortega and her alleged Nazi boyfriend. And if you don’t, then you are her. Maybe not on Ortega’s scale, but that is the pipeline we are headed down if we treat men like lily-of-the-valleys and teach young girls to teach men how to behave.
