By Roberta Nin Feliz
Nowadays, I witness many young women being encouraged to be “riders.” The definition of a rider is someone, but in this case a girl, who sticks to her partner through hardships and problems that could break a relationship apart. Whether it may be jail or him cheating, a woman is supposed to be loyal to her man and “ride out.” A lot of this encouragement is through social media, where there are posts saying “women should be riders,” among other things. Additionally, a lot of this encouragement is seen in reality TV shows like Love and Hip Hop, a VH1 series documenting the lives of hip hop moguls.
Knowing that someone is going to be there for you through all of your struggles is not only reassuring but comforting. The idea of being with someone forever and sticking with that person through life’s various obstacles dates back to ages older than our grandparents. Back in the 1940s, when my grandparents got together, relationships were innocent and pure and often people got married before they even had sex. But times have changed and so have relationships.
Relationships are no longer the cliché of going to the movies and being kissed on the cheek at the end of a date. Now, kids are much more intimate with each other and behave as if they were married. The main problem I see behind encouraging young women to be “riders” is that it makes them think that it’s okay for a boy to treat them badly.
On social media, I see girls post statuses about how their boyfriends treat them improperly and how many times they’ve cheated, but they stay with the guy because he “loves” them. They tend to have this idea that because a boy will say he loves them that all of his actions should be forgiven eventually. That shouldn’t be the case because at the end of the day, when a boy is trifling, he’s just trifling!
There’s no law or obligation that entitles a trifling boy to a girl that puts up with all of his nonsense. In the process of her “riding out”, all the girl does is hurt herself more. Half of these relationships are unlikely to last, so girls go through all of those things in vain. Besides the fact that there will be lessons learned, there will also be the beginning of bad habits.
Because they’re so used to putting up with nonsense and mistreatment, young women will start to believe that it’s normal to put up with nonsense from young men. Honestly, before a young woman can be a girlfriend, she has to be a person first. As a person, you shouldn’t predispose yourself to mistreatment from anyone.
Encouraging young women to be “riders,” is just a trap to get women to be subservient to men. It implicitly suggests an ideal that women should conform to, in which they’re dependable women that remain with their men no matter what the men do. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. However, if one day a woman decides to do so then she should do it when she’s older and more mature, not when she’s young and dealing with an immature boy.
You can argue that when it comes to love and relationships, there is a certain level of pain that is experienced. Nothing worth having ever comes easy and when you love someone you’re supposed to fight for them even if it means sacrificing some things on the way. However, relationships in which women are supposed to be riders usually consist of women being cheated on, lied to and abused. That is very different from a relationship in which there’s true love.
“But he loves me.” No girl, love isn’t supposed to hurt– it’s supposed to be beautiful. Love is respectful and nourishing. In cases where love hurts you, something isn’t right. If we adore the ones who ignore us, and ignore the ones who adore us, I’d say we’re all loving wrong.
Instead of encouraging young women to be riders, we should encourage them to be independent and aware of their worth. If anything, young women should be riding out for their books. I’m sure our grandparents look at our generation and are surprised by what they see. We’re only kids who barely have it together; we could wait a couple of years before we decide to “ride” out.