An example: Priya, 28, often finds herself drained by men who are fragile, lost, or emotionally unavailable. Every heartbreak, every unspoken expectation, leaves her carrying emotional labor she didn’t sign up for. #Patriarchy conditioned her to believe that her guy would be the knight who would have it all together when they would marry.
Aisha, 30, bisexual, grew up immersed in queer culture. From early on, she witnessed relationships that didn’t follow straight norms, fluidity, emotional accountability, and boundaries were atleast brought up.
This exposure gave her an innate understanding: men often also need emotional, financial and logistical help, and emotional labor is a shared skill, not a one-sided duty.
Watching Priya struggle, Aisha recognized the patterns immediately. She saw the grief before Priya did, understood the systemic imbalance, and could navigate men’s fragility without internalizing it herself.
I think exposure to queer culture can help understand how diverse people really are. Queer culture equips emotional literacy and diversity. Straight women are unfortunately only now seeing how it is has been, and are experiencing a collective grieving of their own.
Straight women are experiencing collective grief since relational patterns have remained unexamined.
Bi women with early exposure to queer relational norms often spot these patterns sooner.
We can all learn from each other’s diverse messy relationship experiences.
