Decentralising Men: The Complexities of Love, Feminism & Independence

We’re sitting on the sofa as the rain hammers down outside.

My friend has come to see me from Bristol and we’re nursing our heads from the night before. She smiles at me through the steam of her tea and muses “Sometimes, I think it’s easier for lesbians.”

She’s been with her girlfriend for over three years and as we chatted she admitted that men, especially straight men, are completely absent from her life: she isn’t friends with any straight men and no one she knows is dating a straight man.

After spending a weekend with me for my birthday, she was surprised at how much my school friends talked about men - about male friends that are making unwanted advances, about the men we were dating (or no longer dating) and how casual sexism plays a part in daily life. 

Laughing it off, she told me that she had never been more glad that she wasn’t going to fall in love with a man. I just smiled - I hadn’t heard this perspective before. Her conversations with her friends, particularly female friends, are not centred around frustrations with men. Anything but - for someone who has three sisters and an absent father, men just aren’t a talking point in her life. And that sounds like freedom to me - I want to taste it too. 

I was surprised that I felt jealous of someone in a gay relationship. Objectively we don’t live in a world where it’s easier to be gay, but I was so taken by this absence of men, and how little impact they have on her life. 

And yet there are wonderful men in my life whom I love deeply. My father for example, who joined a wild swimming group in his mid-fifties, who sends me quotes from James Baldwin, Kurt Vonnegut and Sarah Kay with phrases like, “because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried”.

This is a man who loathes football and cries at every musical we’ve been to, sometimes because it’s emotional, sometimes simply for the joy of being there. This is someone who I disagree with frequently, but I respect them nonetheless. I still want men in my life; I want to love them and celebrate life with them. 

And how do you decentralise men in a relationship? How do you keep that feminist fire burning when you sometimes have to make sacrifices for a man? I am constantly anxious that by loving a man I’m not loving women enough. It feels like a betrayal sometimes, to give my heart to someone whose gender has hurt me, and hurt people I love. 

But my relationship has brought me light that I never thought possible: this is someone who can’t wait to whip out a dad dance move on the dancefloor, who is intelligent and kind, who has such an infectious love of life it takes my breath away. This is a man who has loved me, cared for me and taught me more about mental health than I thought possible. I can’t have a complete absence of men in my life, and more to the point I don’t want to.

It’s a hard thought to swallow that I love men as individuals, but I am disappointed by men as a gender.

It’s difficult to know that I love men, but I am disgusted by them too. My feminism makes my relationship with my relationship difficult. 

I tilt my head at my friend: “How do you do it?” I ask. She laughs at me “What, be gay?”. “No!” I say in response, “remove the hold that men have on your life?”. She looks at me, tinged with sadness, “It’s easier when it’s not your choice.”

She tells me of the nerves she has about travelling to countries where she and her girlfriend can’t hold hands in public when they can’t kiss in public, and the catcalls they receive when walking down the street together. 

A lot of what I see online is empowering and celebratory content about decentralising men. And while I think centring yourself, rather than men or your relationship, should be a goal, I don’t think enough is said about what an uncomfortable process this can be. For gay women, they are free from romantic relationships with men, but they are still subject to homophobic slurs.

Queerness can be freedom, decentring men can be empowering, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a struggle. We should centre ourselves, not in a narcissistic way, but in a way that means independence is freedom.

For so long heterosexual women have defined their worth by that of a man, or by being in a relationship with a man. For so long women have had no choice but to place men at the centre. That untangling is not easy, but it is so worth it. 

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Relatively new to London, Charlotte Dixon spends all her spare time (and money) on theatre shows, books and art exhibitions. She loves glitter socks, Beyonce, books with no plot, theatre that makes you tingle and ice cream. She enjoys writing about female friendships, relationships and all things arty farty. You can read her blog and hear about her new favourite spots in London, the best places to boogie and the best new books to read.