Oh my god, we’re back again!
Welcome welcome welcome to the new season of Will You Accept this Rant?!…okay and welcome to the new season of the Bachelorette! For those of you who joined us during Peter Weber’s season approximately one million years ago, you know what we’re here to do. If you’ve stumbled across us for the first time, we’re here to hold up a magnifying glass to America’s twisted view of relationships, as seen in the wild world of Bachelor Nation.
If you want to rant right along with us, you can chat with us live on Facebook (LINK here), follow us on Twitter (LINK here) or check out our recap videos on Youtube!
We ranted last season (check our posts starting HERE!) about consent, toxic “passion” in relationships, gaslighting, and more. It was a wild ride. Not only did Peter not end up with his final choice, but he didn’t end up with his F2…or F3. Peter is currently (as of 10/16/20 at 11:32 am) dating his F5 Kelley!
Peter’s drama pales in comparison to the outright abuse we saw come out of Bachelor Nation this summer. We have to get serious for a second. Cassie, the “winner” of Colton Underwood’s season (Jan-Mar 2019) filed a restraining order against Colton due to allegations of abusive behavior including stalking. Abuse is always wrong, it is always concerning, but it is especially concerning when you see how much that exact same behavior was romanticized on his season of the show. Cassie tried to leave Colton’s season. She tried to tell him that she didn’t feel as strongly for him as he did for her. She tried to tell him no. And he. didn’t. listen. The Bachelor told us this was because he was so in love with her. He couldn’t let her go. He was rewarded by the show and by America for ignoring Cassie’s agency. He was “the most romantic bachelor yet.” Is it any surprise that when she tried to end their relationship, he “jumped the fence” again?
This is why we have to hold individuals and our society accountable for attitudes and platitudes about romance that can lead to abusive behavior. We’re indoctrinated with this crap. We’re baptized by fire (or by Hallmark movies) into the notion that fighting for someone after they’ve rejected you is romantic, not stalking. That fighting is passion, not problematic. That love MUST last forever, no matter how much it hurts. We all deserve better. That’s why we’re doing this. RANT ONE OVER.
Time to rant about Clare.
Check out our video (don’t worry…we’ll shamelessly plug it again. Click here!) for our full thoughts on the episode, Clare, and the drama that is coming, but since we’ve already spent so much time and internet space ranting, let’s cut straight to a few more rants.
RANT #1: Quit joking about things that aren’t funny. We’re looking at you, Straight Jacket Guy. And honestly, we’re also looking at you Clare from 2014 in a fake pregnant belly. The “Pretending to be Pregnant on April 1” and joking about how the pandemic is driving you “crazy” are tired, played out, and hurtful. We joke about things we don’t take seriously. For the person who is struggling with infertility or who has lost a child, a fake pregnancy for laughs can feel incredibly harmful. For someone who is struggling to find adequate, affordable mental healthcare or for someone who finds their mental illness being used as an excuse for abuse, “crazy jokes” are anything but funny.
We see this all the time in our line of work with rape “jokes” and misogynist “jokes”. Laughing at this type of humor tells survivors of sexual assault (or people with infertility problems, or people with mental health struggles, etc etc etc) that our trauma is laughable, that our pain really doesn’t matter, that what happened to us is no big deal. You’re also sending a message to abusers that what they’ve done really doesn’t matter, it’s not “that bad”. So they keep doing it. Rape humor means we give permission to rapists to continue thinking that they haven’t done anything wrong.
You may not mean to offend or to harm, but if someone is being hurt, can’t we all agree to knock it off? If you are actually funny, I guarantee you’ll come up with other, better jokes.
RANT #2 (oh buddy…yeah, we’re not done yet.)
Men with daughters. That’s it. That’s the rant.
Just kidding. Men who assume that having a daughter automatically gives them a Feminist Badge on their Boy Scout Sash. If you have to say “well, what if someone talked like that to your daughter?” or “well, what if this happened to your sister?”, you don’t really care about women. You care about YOUR women. We need more than that. We need feminists, we need anti-racists, we need activists who are concerned about making the world a better place for everyone because they are HUMAN, not just because they have a connection to you. If you’ve had the luxury of not knowing what it feels like to walk through the world as a woman or anyone who is not a cis-gendered man, listen to us when we tell you what we need.
Don’t just say (looking at you Yosef) that you wouldn’t do anything inappropriate because you have a daughter. Unless we have a whole secret Orphan-Black style network of clones out there, every single person who has committed sexual assault or abuse has been connected at one time or another to a woman. That doesn’t give you a free pass. You STILL have to work to undo bias, power, and inequity. We all do.
Rant. Over. (jk…it’s never over.)
We gave out our rose this week to all the incredible guys who were thoughtful about asking for consent before they hugged, kissed, or touched our Bachelorette! Wait…I’m getting an update. We gave out our rose this week to the ONE guy who asked for consent before touching our Bachelorette. Thanks Zach! I’m not sure which Zach it is, but whoever you are, here’s a rose for you!
It’s good to be back Bachelor lovers! We’re excited to rant all season with you and we’d love to hear YOUR rants (or thoughts) on this season’s premier! Drop them in the comments, head over to our Facebook, leave us a message on Youtube, or Tweet at us!
We’ll see you next week!
