Love Can Still Liberate
Just because love is compromised by patriarchal society doesn’t mean it has lost its ability to transform us and, through us, the world we build.
Research increasingly shows that romantic love — far from being a mere vehicle of patriarchy — can also serve as a site of resistance. (Andrej Ivanov / AFP via Getty Images)
A couple of weeks ago, one of us (Evelina) attended a seminar with the feminist legal scholar Annica Rudman. Rudman, who has lived and worked in South Africa for the past two decades, spoke about a landmark case: Mary Sunday v. Federal Republic of Nigeria. Sunday lived in a region notorious for entrenched patriarchy and epidemic levels of domestic violence against women. For years, she was in a relationship with a police officer who routinely brutalized her. One evening, dissatisfied with the stew she had cooked for him, he hurled both the pot and the stove at her. Sunday was left severely burned and lost both her ears. Her fight for justice stretched on for years as courts refused to intervene, insisting that domestic violence fell outside the state’s responsibility.
Stories like these can make us want — however unreasonably — to gather all our female friends and children and retreat to a male-free island, a kind of Herland somewhere far away. Sunday’s fiancé is, of course, personally responsible for his violence. But his actions were enabled and excused by both his community and the state. And while patriarchal structures and norms are stronger in some parts of the world than others, the home remains the most dangerous place for women in much of the world. Even in Sweden — where we live and where such an act would almost certainly lead to prosecution — intimate partner violence is widespread. In fact, despite Sweden’s reputation as one of the most gender equal countries in the world, European Union–wide studies indicate that levels of violence against women are higher than in many other European nations. That says something about the persistence and ubiquity of men’s domestic violence against women.
The Power of Love
Beyond the fact that men are far more likely to severely harm their female partners than the reverse, women continue to shoulder a disproportionate burden of domestic labor — both the visible work of household chores and the invisible labor of emotional care. This labor is too often framed, and undertaken, as love. And in love, as the feminist political thinker Anna Jónasdóttir notes, men can exploit women’s capacity to give love, converting it into power over them.
It’s therefore hardly surprising that some women approach heterosexual love with skepticism. Nor is it surprising that feminists have long questioned the value of the heterosexual couple form — most recently the feminist family abolitionists — asking what, if anything, it actually offers women. But to dismiss heterosexual intimacy outright is to confuse the form with the problem. Misogyny, and the broader structures of men’s domination over women, are not undone by rejecting the heterosexual couple.
Research increasingly shows that romantic love — far from being a mere vehicle of patriarchy — can also serve as a site of resistance. It has the potential to disrupt entrenched male homosocial bonds, challenge rigid gender roles, and foster a genuine ethic of mutual care. Rather than rejecting intimacy between men and women or viewing it solely through the lens of patriarchal domination, the Left should interrogate how love itself might operate as a liberatory force. This opens the door to a political project that engages, rather than suppresses or negates, the desires and attachments that shape most people’s lives.
Intimacy and Autonomy
In her article “Romantic Love is an Under-Rated Driver of Gender Equality,” Alice Evans argues that when love is mutual and egalitarian, it can become a powerful tool for undermining patriarchal domination. In societies structured around male authority, she argues, romantic love provides a rare space where women’s autonomy can push back against male power through shared responsibility and genuine respect. Drawing on historical examples like Antoine Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry, and his wife Marie-Anne Lavoisier, Evans shows that partnerships based on collaboration rather than hierarchy can break the mold of traditional gender roles.
She also critiques cultural norms, from filial piety to entrenched social expectations, that continue to constrain women’s freedom and clash with egalitarian love. While romantic love alone cannot dismantle patriarchy, Evans insists it is a crucial lever in shifting power dynamics within intimate relationships. Love, she concludes, should be embraced not as mere sentiment but as revolutionary practice — requiring both partners to challenge oppressive norms and cultivate genuine care and equality at home.
Our research project on experiences of involuntary celibacy and singlehood point to a similar dynamic. It examines the reality of involuntary celibacy and singlehood in Sweden, probing how ideas about gender, sex, love, and vulnerability shape how people understand their romantic and sexual lives. Combining studies of online forums, interviews, and survey data, it investigates both the notorious incel community — known for cultivating misogyny and pro-violence attitudes — and the broader, everyday experiences of involuntary celibacy and singlehood among men and women in the wider population.
Alienation Breeds Chauvinism
In incel forums, men increasingly adopt anti-feminist worldviews. Isolation and exclusion from romantic or sexual relationships feed hostility toward women, hardening into a toxic sense of grievance. Yet as Matteo Botto and Lucas Gottzén show in their research on former incels, stepping outside the online bubble — actually meeting and dating women — can dismantle this ideology. Exposure to real relationships often reveals the gulf between the incelosphere’s narratives and the reality of women’s lives, challenging the distorted, resentful worldview that these forums cultivate. The lesson is clear: anti-feminism thrives not merely in malice but in gendered isolation.
Our survey supports this finding. Involuntary singlehood is here associated with lower support for gender equality and higher acceptance of partner violence, and some single men express angry or anti-feminist sentiments in open survey responses. In contrast, many partnered men describe how being in a relationship has made them understand women’s perspectives and the value of gender equality. As one man puts it, “I love my wife and want her to be as happy as I am.”
Women often tell a different story. Many recount experiences of violence, control, and inequality within relationships, with some saying they would rather be single than in a relationship that doesn’t work for them. As one woman wrote: “Having to be your partner’s mother, therapist and assistant is not sustainable.” For women, relationships are often where inequality and gender norms come into stark relief — but also where their understanding of men’s perspectives and challenges has grown and where gender equality, mutual support, and love can thrive.
So, what to make of this? Heterosexual love often reflects and reinforces violence, exploitation, and unequal care. However, it also holds the potential for transformation. When love becomes a mutual, liberating project rather than a tool for control, it can challenge patriarchal dynamics. Intimacy, while risky, can confront one another with our full humanity and push a renegotiation of power and responsibility. The goal isn’t to abolish or romanticize the couple, but to reimagine it as a space where our intimate desires support not domination or depletion but freedom and equality.