Females Love

This is my entry for aromagni.tumblr.com/post/611540309244018688/carnival-of-aros-call-for-submissions-march using the prompt: How does your experience of gender intersect with romance and/or amatonormativity?
I always seem to end up talking about amatonormativity...


Females Love

My gender matches my biology. Because I had no conflict or dysphoria I just accepted it when I was young and grew with it. I take it for granted most of the time. Specifically: ‘my gender’ is barely ever in the forefront of my mind as it is so fused with my own sense of self.

However there have been many moments where I was forced to feel less than female. From about the age of 8 love changes its meaning from describing family connections to budding romantic hopes. The experience of growing up as a girl is like swimming in a river, where all the solid ground is ‘love’. People start expecting you to show interest, and assume it is a forgone conclusion that you will eventually find yourself washed ashore into first love. Loving family is taken for granted as everyone, parents, teachers, friends, all start anticipating that you will begin making tentative steps in making romantic connections.

Love becomes a constant presence bordering life. Love is the topic of many conversations. Girls pester each other with questions about romantic interest. Parents begin setting out rules of engagement to control the access boys have to their daughters. Celebrity crushes become a way of judging and sorting classmates. The popular media; books, shows, music, movies, is generally centred on love, and popular media is the centre of at least half of all the conversations.   

Sure there are those that reject certain mainstream influences, like me, but there was no escaping the flow of my cohort or the expectation of my own inevitable falling in love. As more and more girls around me fulfilled those expectations I was left more isolated. Love is what girls seemed to do, so what are you if you don’t fall in love? Not a girl? Not growing up as you should? Not human?

Media had told me over and over again that romantic love is intrinsic to the female experience. Yes, it is all terribly binary, girls love and boys fight….though the binary assumption after puberty for boys becomes a different four letter F-word. That was just the environment I was raised in. Feminism and strong female role models were present, women can do the same jobs as men for the same wage, women don’t need to become baby machines, women don’t have to cook. All good stuff, but underlying gender and human stereotypes were not contradicted, they weren't even thought of. Girls love, it is just what happens after you hit puberty. First the growing pains that keep you from sleeping, you grow an inches in your sleep. Then your chest swells and you start wearing training bras, preparing you for the torture device underwire bras. Then the period arrives with very little warning, expected yet unexpected. Then boom! First love. Okay, maybe not immediately but definitely within 10 years. Definitely.  

It seemed all the adults in my live automatically assumed love would be part of my teenage years so there was a watchful anticipation in the background of most conversation and interaction. It was continuous and unpleasant. My lack of interest in love connection singled me out amongst my friends. It made me feel sub-optimal. I wasn't fulfilling one of the core essentials of being of the female gender. I was a failing, I was less than truly female.

The many uses of the word ‘love’ helped confuse matters. I love that show. I love that band. I love that actor. Love your body. Love your neighbour. I love what you are wearing. I love your hair. I love you.

There was a disconnect somewhere for me and the (only partially effective) outlet I found was being a tomboy. I rejected femininity even though that is what I am most comfortable with just because the feminine package seemed to be soaked with love. Tomboyishness did not last long. I always felt too female to be constrained in those clothes and I didn't fit in with the other tomboys. So I didn't fit with the girly girls, I didn't fit with the tomboys, and as the years rolled by and the cliques were all corrupted by dating couples I was left further and further outside my own understanding of what it is to be female.

I've lied to make my history fit more along the lines of a standard female experience. I've been given reassurances about dating. I am older now and the expectant eyes have gotten bored, and after finding out about aromanticism I am much more comfortable in my own skin. Before aromanticism no one had ever said it is okay not to date. No one ever said it is okay to remain single. No one ever told me friends are enough for some people. No one ever said that romance is not intrinsic to the female gender.

Well, it is okay not to date. It is okay to remain single. Friends can be enough. I am female. I am aromantic. Aromantic women are legitimately female.