On Oct. 29th, British Vogue published an article that posed a bold and attention-grabbing new question: Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now? The text highlights the changes that author Chanté Joseph has observed in social media culture, building around the interesting claim that having a boyfriend is now “fundamentally uncool.” But why? While the story has received a lot of media attention for its bold headline, we must acknowledge the underlying social changes that have made boyfriends “embarrassing.”
In the article, Joseph illustrates how having a boyfriend on social media can make a woman less interesting. “There’s nothing I hate more than following someone for fun, only for their content to become “my boyfriendified suddenly.” Whether viewers become bored or jealous, they simply don’t want to see boyfriend-related content.
In years prior, women would post their partners often; having a boyfriend was previously considered an achievement. While Joseph only discusses this sentiment as a part of 21st-century social media, this male-centric mindset is not just a modern phenomenon; it can be traced back to the beginning of Western society. For centuries, and before any sort of feminist movement, women in society had always been told that the only thing they needed in life was a man. The ideal life for a woman was to find a good husband at a young age, get married, have lots of children and then happily care for her children and husband for the rest of her days. Her entire life was to be centered around her husband and family without an identity of her own. Joseph indirectly describes this narrative as a part of “a centuries-old heterosexual fairytale that never really benefited women to begin with.”
But now these societal pressures that have plagued women for centuries are what’s driving these subtle changes. The media landscape is changing, and Chanté Joseph’s article highlights the great lengths that many women will now go to obscure their boyfriends and avoid appearing too boyfriend-obsessed online. In other words, women are doing everything they can to contradict the age-old narrative.
According to the article, women will often “soft launch” their significant others instead of flaunting them. “Far from fully hard-launching romantic partners, straight women are opting for subtler signs—a hand on a steering wheel, clinking glasses at dinner, or the back of someone’s head.” By using such tactics, women can inform their followers of their relationship status while still keeping the focus on themselves. Because once a man is introduced onto their Instagram page, their online identity can be lost.
In this era of progressive feminism, having a boyfriend in itself isn’t really what’s embarrassing. Women are just afraid of losing their independent image and sense of womanhood. Posting a boyfriend and making their Instagram page centered around a relationship makes a woman less interesting as an individual; she might begin to exist only within her relationship and when connected to her man. By refraining from posting their partners, women are able to stay in tune with their identities as women. Essentially, women are motivated to keep their men out of their profile so that their own voices can be heard more clearly.
Furthermore, single women are perceived as having more freedom; they are the embodiment of progressive feminism. Female followers like to see strong, independent women, and having a boyfriend can contradict that.
However, the reality might just be that lonely people can’t relate to those in loving relationships. Women could be losing followers once they hard launch a relationship because people become envious of their connection, and aren’t interested in celebrating someone else’s happiness when they don’t have much of their own. Single people need other single people to relate to, so they create a backlash against boyfriends. Single women want to look up to other strong and independent women, not their relationships.
So why is having a boyfriend embarrassing now? Really, it’s not. In contradiction to Joseph’s claim, women still do post their boyfriends and receive support. Loving relationships are still envied by all. But womanhood has changed in the eyes of many. The model woman is no longer only a devoted partner to her man. To the younger generations on the internet, the new “it” girl is strong, confident and self-sufficient, with or without a man. Instead of spending their lives waiting for a relationship, women are learning to prioritize themselves and their own development without men.
Having a boyfriend isn’t embarrassing now; it’s just not quite as necessary.
