Following the success of her last book, In Defense of Witches, in 2022, French feminist figure Mona Chollet is once again tackling the contemporary woman's experience in her latest book, Reinventing Love: How the Patriarchy Sabotages Heterosexual Relations.
In offering a template for heterosexual women navigating romantic love, Reinventing Love explores everything from common divisions between men and women, to how internalized misogyny can lead to self-sabotage, to the most violent extremes that can emerge under the guise of passion. In an age in which women are expecting more—and a world that is not changing fast enough—Reinventing Love validates the desire for heterosexual love, as well as the fears and concerns that can accompany such a quest.
In my conversation with Mona Chollet, we explored the inspiration behind this topic, its pushback, and just how much—in her perspective—has changed for women.
Ariana Turner
You mention early in the book that you have been fortunate enough to have relatively "serene relations" with men, and have never become entangled in a toxic relationship yourself. What then inspired you to tackle this particular topic as a follow-up to In Defense of Witches?
Mona Chollet
My goal was to write about very different situations, from the slightest misunderstandings between women and men to the most violent and toxic relationships. I've been lucky enough to experience only the former, but they were frustrating enough, and caused the failure of a relationship I really cared about. So I tried to turn my pain and my disappointment into something useful, for me and, hopefully, for my readers. (And this relationship is now back on tracks actually!)
I also realized that I grew up believing that men and women were equal in a love story, which was obviously a very naive point of view—but I grew up in the eighties and feminist analysis was very rare back then. It was important for me to overcome this illusion. We shouldn't be paranoid, of course, but I think it's really dangerous to enter a relationship believing what pop culture and romcoms taught us about heterosexual love.
Ariana Turner
In what ways did the research, writing, and discovery of Reinventing Love parallel your process with In Defense of Witches? In what ways did it diverge?
Mona Chollet
I always proceed the same way: my starting point is my own life, my concerns of the moment, and I try so share them with my readers. I take them by the hand through the whole process: the books I read, what my friends tell me, the lessons I find in movies or TV shows...It's never about solving anything (it's impossible probably!), but I find great comfort in just exploring an issue in depth. It makes my mind much clearer and I feel stronger afterwards.
Ariana Turner
You have cultivated a career as an acclaimed feminist figure and writer. Looking back on your early life, what would you describe as a seminal moment in your path towards feminism?
Mona Chollet
As I said, I grew up in a time when there was this very wide illusion that feminism wasn't necessary anymore, that equality had been achieved. In France, at the beginning of the 2000s, we were told that sexism was an issue only for Muslim women, and that white women were perfectly fine. Long before #MeToo, at the beginning of the 2010s I would say, women took over social media and were able to testify about the reality of their daily lives, and it changed everything. We also had a few scandals that revealed the deep sexism in French society, in the media, the political class, the cultural world, etc.
As for me, since I was a teenager, I've always had a fascination for women's magazines. I found in them very good pieces about topics that the mainstream press ignored (I still do), but I was always shocked by the body shaming and the insidious sexism. And nobody had addressed these issues in France (in the US there was Naomi Wolf's book The Beauty Myth), so I made it the subject of my first feminist book, Beauté Fatale, in 2012.
Ariana Turner
As you undertook the research for this book, did your understanding of the topic evolve? Did anything surprise you?
Mona Chollet
The book was not very well received by a few French feminists, who said I was sending women back to their aggressors and that I sustained their illusions that a healthy relationship with men was possible. This book appeared as "less radical" than In Defense of Witches because I was not condemning heterosexuality as a whole. But the experience of writing this book made me even more convinced that there is so much more to say about heterosexuality than just "get out of it". So many women still want to have sexual and romantic relationships with men, they will not change their minds about it, and I felt that as a feminist I could help by searching for tools to make these relationships safer and more satisfying. I think we need a kind of feminism that struggles for minorities and also a kind that struggles for the majority.
Ariana Turner
Your book focuses heavily on the long-term stasis of patriarchy around the world, and its continued impacts on heterosexual relationships. Are there any ways that you have found—either through research or through your own life—that the patriarchy and heterosexual relationships have changed (for better or for worse) over time?
Mona Chollet
It's hard to have a global point of view, but I'm impressed by the strength of the young feminists I meet. They're not intimidated easily, they don't care about this blackmail I was talking about. I realize by comparison that I'm much more anxious to appear as a "good woman", nice and lovable. They are much more independent; they're not ready to accept anything just in order to be in a relationship, as so many women of my generation were taught to. I admire that very much and I think they might be able to force men to change and to adapt. Being able to dictate your conditions because you're not afraid of being alone is the greatest strength of all.
NONFICTION
Reinventing Love: How the Patriarchy Sabotages Heterosexual Relations
By Mona Chollet
St. Martin's Press
Published July 2, 2024
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