Sexism And The Brangelina Debate

All I’m seeing at the moment are photo’s of a couple of actors splashed around all over the shop. My main reaction is “meh” because I don’t actually care that much, though I’m sure my Nanna will have around four hours worth of conversation primed around the matter.

The only thing that’s jumped out at me though, was a snarky Daily Heil headline, by one of their nasty piece of work word-vomiters (they aren’t journalists). Essentially it said that the divorce was Angelina’s fault, because she was too high achieving. That she could have kept Brad’s eye if she had stayed at home more.

Erm…really?

This is a woman who was at the top of her game when they met. Oscar winning, beautiful, rich. She’s no different now. Why would these parts of a person you fell in love with suddenly make you fall out of love with them?

It’s difficult to talk about this particular situation, because unless you are the couple in question, it’s all hearsay and “friends” and “sources close to” and essentially made up bullshit to sell rags to the ever starving masses, desperate for gossip. But it’s useful to uncover a particularly insidious, nasty strain of sexism. One that is vicious on both sides of the equation.

By saying that a partnership won’t work if a woman is more successful than her male partner, you are saying two things; firstly, that a woman should be submissive, and in the background, and secondly that men are incapable of pride in their partners. That they have such fragile, woman crushing ego’s that they just can’t cope unless they are the “best” in the relationship. Bringing home the bacon.

What a crock of shit. Men, are you really that pathetic? Are you really going to dump your wife because she got promoted? Are you fuck. You’re going to brag about how awesome she is down the pub, just like your wife would if it was the other way around.

The pressure on men to feel like this – and on women to feel they should step back from success to “preserve” their relationships – comes entirely from stupid, poisonous articles like this. It feeds peoples doubts about their worth. Woman are afraid their relationships will fail, and men are afraid their relationships will fail. For what? A bit of money in the bank that supports you equally? There’s never going to be true equality in a relationship if you judge it on what each earns, or the success each has – but that’s not what a relationship is, is it? Your relationship isn’t your jobs, it’s the support you give each other to succeed in them. It’s the pride you feel in each others achievements.

I couldn’t – wouldn’t – say why this particular high profile relationship has failed, but I very much doubt the patriarchy had anything to do with it.