The Rom Com Resistance

Throughout my childhood, and beyond it, I learned from the people around me and from the media I consumed that a man and a woman falling in love constituted a happy ending. Falling in reciprocal love with a wonderful man was the absolute best thing that could happen to a woman. The "man + woman = happy ending" message was absolutely everywhere: in books, in movies, in commercials, on billboards. It was baked into the culture of my synagogue and Jewish summer camp, so much so that there was a dedicated wall in the cafeteria on which they hung plaques honoring heterosexual-presenting couples who met at camp and later got married.

As an adolescent and young adult who was never much interested in boys or romance, and who instead enjoyed having friends and hobbies, I always felt like my life had yet to truly begin. I felt shame and embarrassment, but even more so, I felt like I was living in a transitional moment between the innocence and triviality of childhood and the intensity and meaningfulness of adulthood. I wish I could have realized that I was living just as much of a life as all of the people around me who were going off at night and kissing in the bushes, or whatever it was that they did. Thinking about the messages I received from those around me along with the media that I consumed at the time, it makes sense that I felt the way I did. But if I had been able to access some of the media that is available today, I just might have realized the value of my romance-free existence. It thrills me to my core that pop culture is beginning to resist the rom com and its ideology.

My relationship with men: a story of rage, empathy, and hope

I am angry at men, and I've been this way long before the #MeToo movement, which has made me feel validated and vindicated and all the more angry. Sometimes I feel white hot rage toward them, and sometimes I feel more of a passive impatience. I just don't want to deal with them.

My anger stems from things like looking at the list of Oscar nominations for Best Director and realizing, year after year, that there is not a single woman on it. It stems from having been required to read Shakespeare and Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Eliot throughout my schooling but not even knowing what feminism was until I was well into my twenties. My anger stems from being told since childhood that I should be attracted to men. At age 26, I was finally able to proclaim that I am not. My anger stems from all the times men touched me without my consent.

In the #MeToo era, and in the age of Trumpism, so many women and nonbinary people are right here with me. We. Are. Pissed. And it shows. I've been noticing this especially in my reading. I read almost exclusively female and nonbinary authors, and I've observed that horrible, odious men keep on showing up, wreaking havoc on the characters' lives (and, in one case, centuries of women's lives), and fueling my misandry.

Lolly Willowes: My New Favorite Spinster Witch

**Disclaimer: This novel was written in 1926, and it's been sufficiently spoiled by many others who have discussed it. Regardless, I should warn you of the many spoilers in this post.**

I've had Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner, published in 1926, on my to-read list for three years now. Here's the oversimplified premise: An unmarried woman sells her soul to the devil. That was all I needed to know, and I was sold. I have trouble motivating myself to slog through classics, but this one sounded worth it; if Satan himself is a character in the novel, it's probably worth the trouble. I was also drawn to the novel because I love a spinster witch. I wish I could now provide you with a brief history of the spinster witch character in fiction, but I don't know enough, and a quick Google search landed me nowhere, aside from this t-shirt. What I know for sure is that witches/occultists and spinsters noticeably overlap with one another, both in fiction and nonfiction, and I also know for sure that I feel deeply connected to the spinster witch construct. I do find it a bit troubling, because I know that it is sometimes used to stigmatize unmarried women, but it is empowering when claimed or reclaimed or just framed in a positive light. (I should also mention that it's funny. I, a self-identified spinster and a single woman, am tempted to tell every person who asks me if I have a partner that I am in a committed relationship with Satan.)