Romance/amatonormativity in school programs

[Guest Aro]

I've been posting a lot recently, but, In France, tomorrow is back to school day for some departments, so I think it's the right time to introduce this topic here.

Amatonormativity is everywhere, even at schools. For those who aren't French, school programs about French language and literature are focused on 4 main aspects, including "penser l'amour," or "reflecting about love" (romantically) in English, in secondary school. Before coming in as quoiromantic, I was disturbed by it and analyzed everyone's thoughts on it to properly answer the questions and get good results, but now that I know I am arospec, I can point out the amatonormative problems of this. There is this widespread assumption that being a teenager and not having a girlfriend/boyfriend is an alerting clue that something bad is going on with the teen's family/social life/mental health, just taking a look at movies about teenagers' issues is enough to acknowledge this. Depressed teens are often pictured as lonely and "loveless". In order to both fit in societal injunctions and keep myself away from the unwanted attention often got by not having a crush/boyfriend/girlfriend, I pretended to be like every of my classmates for a while, but that's really draining. I'm honestly impatient to graduate from high school and pursue scientific studies in a college, because this is exhausting. Does anyone else relate ?

[Neon]

59 minutes ago, Guest Aro said:

not having a girlfriend/boyfriend is an alerting clue that something bad is going on with the teen's family/social life/mental health

I didn't know quite what was strange to me about those situations until approximately 10 seconds ago, thank you for giving me the words to phrase this.

[nonmerci]

Oh yeah, I forget about that part of the program. If I remember, "penser l'amour" is the theme for the poetry part of the program, and the reason must be because historically, poetry ended up to mean, sorry I don't know the English term, but "poésie lyrique" that is all about expressing feelings. And for some reason, "expressing feelings" became in 80% of the case "expressing (romantic) love".

(I don't know what my litterature teacher thought about all the simplifications I just made lol).

 

And it continues to be everywhere cause the logic behind it were probably "love is a theme that speaks to everyone so we'll give it to the kids". They fail.

 

Also I always find it ironic that elitists look down on romantic books, but the theme of 90% of the classic books are all about romance (maybe not necessary romance as a genre, but still about romantic love). Probably the reasons why all the French litterature I read was so boring (except Les Liaisons Dangereuses, but that just may be because the main characters are the villains, and we all know villains are the best characters).

 

It eventually get better in high school (at least love is not written in the programs, and in terminale you won't have litterature at all if you don't take the option).

Edited March 5, 2023 by nonmerci

[Themathlover]

Thanks for responding (Yep, that was me, my computer bugged). It's really annoying to put up with this as an aro-spec girl !

[Holmbo]

Aha! So french do love romance like we always say!

Just kidding, that must be very annoying. I imagine many people must feel bad about this even if they're allo. What if you don't want a romantic relationship or you do want it but you don't feel anyone would consider you.

[Atypique]

On 2/26/2023 at 10:35 PM, nonmerci said:

the reason must be because historically, poetry ended up to mean, sorry I don't know the English term, but "poésie lyrique" that is all about expressing feelings. And for some reason, "expressing feelings" because in 80% of the case "expressing (romantic) love".

Oooh you're totally right I didn't remember there was romance until you explained that. I know I studied "amour courtois" and I was quite surprised that their main thing was knights flirting with married ladies 

On 2/26/2023 at 10:35 PM, nonmerci said:

(except Les Liaisons Dangereuses, but that just may be because the main characters are the villains, and we all know villains are the best characters).

That's actually such a great book. The main character is incredible. She's actually a lot more talented and good than the man, who is just a asshole. I loved how she just took everything society wanted her to do, (including amatonormativity) and just said "nevermind I'll just fake it"

On 2/26/2023 at 8:51 PM, Guest Aro said:

There is this widespread assumption that being a teenager and not having a girlfriend/boyfriend is an alerting clue that something bad is going on with the teen's family/social life/mental health

I don't think there are so many lessons about love at school (however I half of my lessons are math classes and of course we don't talk about that) but I also what you mean here. 

I don't know plenty of people that are dating but I did have this conversation with a friend recently: I have a great relationship with someone, we're always connected and it's really special and great. My other friend asked me if I could imagine myself dating them, and they never understood what I meant when I said that a relationship that is great as friendship doesn't have to become something romantic 

[roboticanary]

On 2/26/2023 at 9:35 PM, nonmerci said:

And for some reason, "expressing feelings" because in 80% of the case "expressing (romantic) love"

Im just imagining all these kids writing love poems and one kid just decides to write about existential dread.

half the poem is screaming.

 

Anyway. thank goodness for me the uk is a bit better on this. although to be fair some of that is because our best poets wrote about having a really shit time in ww1.

[nonmerci]

On 3/4/2023 at 1:46 PM, roboticanary said:

Im just imagining all these kids writing love poems and one kid just decides to write about existential dread.

half the poem is screaming.

I don't remember writing romantic poems at school, usually we just study them. I don't know if it is the same in all the schools, but I think that most of teachers understand that it would make us uncomfortable.

 

On 3/4/2023 at 1:46 PM, roboticanary said:

Anyway. thank goodness for me the uk is a bit better on this. although to be fair some of that is because our best poets wrote about having a really shit time in ww1.

We had writing on other subjects, but for some reason, we don't study them in school.

I mean to be fair, I think the poems that everyone studies at least once are not the romantic ones. I think we all do "Le Dormeur du Val" about a dead soldier, "Demain dès l'aube" from the Victor Hugo's book dedicated to his dead daughter, and of course the ones from La Fontaine that are critics of society. So all the famous ones are not romantic, but we still has a lot that are studied in school. Like for some reasons, if we study Baudelaire, we will study the "romantic ones", not the ones he wrote about Paris, for instance (put romantic between "" cause I'm not sure that comparing your loved one to a decomposing animal corpse is romantic, but well, Baudelaire).

 

(Yeah I mistook this thread for "we ask you to talk about French litterature" thread)

On 3/4/2023 at 8:56 AM, Atypique said:

I loved how she just took everything society wanted her to do, (including amatonormativity) and just said "nevermind I'll just fake it"

An icon.

On 3/4/2023 at 8:56 AM, Atypique said:

I know I studied "amour courtois" and I was quite surprised that their main thing was knights flirting with married ladies 

The fact that this an accurate description of medieval litterature is so funny to me. Maybe this is why France has the reputation to be ok with adultery.

Edited March 5, 2023 by nonmerci