We continue our series of Aspec Voices. Once again, we are focusing on the struggles and issues of specific parts of the aro community.
Aromantic women, women-aligned, and feminine-aligned people are usually the majority demographic in aro spaces, but the interaction of what it’s like to be both a woman and aro is often overlooked. Thank you to all who volunteered their time and shared their experiences.
Introductions
Alyssa G – I’m aromantic and asexual.
Angela B. – Female, Aromantic, Asexual.
Andy – I’m a sapphic aroace and I’m also currently going through the gender crisisTM but I think demigirl (75% girl, 25% agender… ish) would fit me nicely 🙂
Audrey – Cis woman, asexual, demiromantic
Carys – Aroace woman
Droppy – NB and both aromantic and asexual
Emi – Cis-Woman, Asexual and Aromantic IG: oya_emii
Erika – Cis woman, oriented aroace
Lenore – I’m genderqueer. I usually prefer to just use the term aromantic but technically I’m romance repulsed
Mari – Greyromantic asexual, agender, she/her pronouns, AFAB, “woman” as a political body
Mawadda – I’m aromantic, asexual, and a demigirl.
Passant – I’m aromantic and asexual and my pronouns are she/her.
Ryan – Cis woman, asexual, greyromantic
Stella – Cis woman, aromantic and asexual
Tori R. – Cis gal, she/her, aroace. I also feel gender non-conforming, cutegender, puppiekin, and catgirl
Interview Questions
How does your gender intersect with your orientation?
AG: As an aro woman, I unintentionally defy many of the preconceived notions of women being inherently romantic beings.
Carys: I think that as a woman, coming to terms with being aro/ace opened my eyes to just how much misogyny affects you subconsciously. Realising especially I was not attracted to men really made me question why I thought I was for so long. And coming out is liberating in the way it frees you from the male gaze you are unknowingly pandering to.
Droppy: It effected it mostly like my sexual orientation did, in my opinion.
Erika: It is my little pet theory that, generally speaking, it is harder for men to be asexual but harder for women to be aromantic. I have very complicated feelings about femininity and womanhood, and they largely originate from the fact that femininity is so heavily interwoven with a woman’s supposed role as wife and mother.
Lenore: My gender identity and my aromanticism don’t really have anything to do with each other but I do feel a big disconnect from gender in the same way i feel a big disconnect from romantic attraction.
Mari: I am agender but socialized as a woman. Women are expected to be super romantic, so my aromanticism is perceived as weird or wrong.
Also, growing up I always struggled understanding fellow women’s love for romance (both applied to themselves and in general), at the time I could not understand if it came from within or from society expectations.
Mawadda: People assume that women want romantic relationships or desire a romantic connection with someone. That’s not true for me since I’m aromantic.
Passant: Similar to my experience as an asexual woman, being an aromantic woman means that there are many societal expectations I simply will never meet. Growing up with media, stories, and different forms of representation in which women are portrayed as always on the hunt for “the one” man that they will fall in love with and will solve all their problems and lead them to their “happily ever after”, I never understood that trope, even during my early childhood years. I always saw this as how it works in the fictional world, but not in real life. Yet, it hit me at some point that this is, indeed, true for many women in real life as well, and that there were such expectations from me too. It’s always a challenge to accept that you’re very much going against society’s idea of who you are/should be, and as an aromantic woman, this was something I had to come to terms with.
Stella: I feel I’m often “not like most girls” for never thinking about boys, not wanting to date, and not imaging marriage as part of my happily ever after. Girls often talk about “dream weddings” – my dream wedding is no wedding!
TR: The Little Women movie. I would like friendly men to not have hidden motives. Last year, I appealed to someone looking for a buff Christian wife. His loss.
How is your experience in aro communities impacted by your gender?
AB: I do feel it’s more accepted for women to be aromantic than men, so I am fortunate in that regard.
AG: Women make up a large portion of the aro communities that I am a part of. Because of this overlap, it is easy to relate to many of the experiences other aros in the community have.
Carys: I’ve not yet been too involved with ace/aro communities other than a few Facebook groups, I would like to be more involved. I feel like I hear more female voices in this community than any other gender identity, women are well represented in the aspec community in my opinion.
Droppy: I feel that my experience in aro communities is too narrow to have a clear opinion of it, since my only interactions with aro people have been in ace meetings (aka aroace people). I haven’t had the opportunity to interact with alloaro peeps, so my answer to this question is mostly the same as that of the ace part.
Mari: At the beginning, I mostly knew aro women, so I’ve always felt included in the aro community.
Luckily, now I personally know a more diverse sample of aromantic people .
Mawadda: I see many people with my gender in the aromantic community.
Passant: I actually believe my experience in both ace and aro communities isn’t much impacted by my gender. I find the communities very welcoming and don’t necessarily differentiate between genders, at least not in my experience, and that’s just one of the many reasons I love the ace and aro communities so much!
Stella: While men are perceived as “sexual”, women are often perceived as “romantic”. Consequently, being an aromantic woman makes me feel even more like a misfit, and when I feel that way, I hide myself more, even within my own community.
TR: I don’t know, but I feel like I’m always learning about definitions of lesbianism.
How is your experience with other women impacted by your orientation?
AB: I think because I am aromantic, I have deeper platonic love for my best friends (who are female.)
AG: Some women I know are very concerned with who they are romantically interested in, or they bemoan their lack of romance, and I can’t relate. However, I am also very interested in crush drama, so I would say my aromanticism allows me to talk about the drama without getting too embroiled in it myself.
Andy: Being sapphic (tertiary attraction) I find it very hard to navigate the dating world while also being aromantic. I’ve had plenty of not-so-pleasant experiences in this area and just, generally not having a good time with it. Romance and the myriad of expectations that society places on it is exhausting. I literally lost a best friend because I liked her and almost lost another one because I didn’t like her back, like… what? -.- how do I win??? Anyhow, yes, it’s very hard, and I don’t know if this happens to other aromantic people, but I don’t get it when people say it hurts if their crush doesn’t like them back… I’m so confused honestly,,, that has become my permanent state of being lol
Carys: With so much importance put on relationships in society, especially for women, I found when other young members of my family for example announce they have a partner I feel like “oh no that makes me look like even more of a failure” because in society being in a relationship is a sign of success especially for women. There tends to be so many conversations about dating, which I can find intriguing but if I don’t know them that well, can find uncomfortable.
Emi: I can’t relate when other women talk about their romantic feelings for someone. This feeling has followed me as far back as far as middle school, when the girls in my class started dating and talking about their crushes.
Erika: My orientation certainly created a slight disconnect between me and other girls, even before I had the vocabulary to explain why. Most of my peers became very interested in relationships in a way that I just could not relate to.
Lenore: Being in high school, I feel like a lot of the women, or really anyone, that I speak to seem to talk about their crushes and s/o’s a LOT and sometimes it makes me feel disconnected from the conversation.
Mari: Other aro women: they get me, except in the very rare case in which I feel romantic attraction. In this case I prefer to open up to alloromantic women for support. It’s not perfect with both groups. Greyromantic women get me the most.
Alloromantic women: if I’m out to them and they listen to me, I feel accepted, even if for them it is hard to grasp how my experience feel. If I’m not out, many women acquaintances feel free to judge me, and often. Both for my lifestyle (I’m perpetually single) and my reaction to romantic stories, that ranges from “aww” to “ewww” to “laughing out loud because that was so ridiculous!”. It seems like only “aww” reaction is expected from me.
Passant: Even though I don’t often use the label oriented aroace, I definitely do experience very strong tertiary attraction towards other women. I feel attached to particular women friends in my life on deeper levels than allos would be to their friends. It’s a different experience, I would say, another type of feeling.
Ryan: In my experience, not at all. My orientation isn’t something that gets brought up too often (as it doesn’t normally come up naturally in conversation.) I know that even a while ago when a female friend of mine asked me if I had any crushes (as she was at the time crushing hard on someone – who she is now currently dating! – and wanted to find someone who could relate to her in that way,) at the time I simply said no (this was a few months before I decided to label myself as arospec) and then we talked about something else.
Stella: I often feel left out in large circles of women, as oftentimes they incessantly discuss their boyfriends. Most women I know also centre marriage as a major goal of their life, which I find extremely impossible to relate to personally.
TR: Not being sure where the line is between platonic and romantic, or how to navigate it. Once as a college freshman, a gal told me “thanks, babe,” and I blushed. As a junior, another gal outside of my classes would randomly bless me with her presence and seemed quite interested in me, to the point of something of a Starbucks date where she told me not to worry because I’d find a boyfriend one day, which felt weirdly disappointing. I know platonic/romantic is what’s agreed to be, but I had no way of verifying who thought what. I romanticized our relationship, but didn’t view it /as/ romantic. I liked being desired, and wouldn’t mind being her girlfriend if it meant that got to continue, or if the label allowed me to express more physical affection, which is very important to me. Still, there’s a sense that friendships are valued less than couples. Straight women are very hard to read.
Do you want to share any other identities that may intersect with or impact the way that your gender identity/presentation intersects with your orientation? (EG: race, other queer identity, age, ability, etc)
AB: I’ve started to consider myself queer as I become more comfortable with my aromanticism. I am not straight; I don’t experience any attraction towards any gender. So, I feel I don’t fit the heteronormative mold.
AG: Because I am a teenager, I am expected to desperately want a romantic partner and be actively looking for someone to date, which I don’t relate to. This idea is exacerbated by the fact that I am a girl.
Andy: I have ADHD (self diagnosed but i’m almost 100% sure tho) and hyperfocus tends to be a thing that messes a lot with my relationships and general questioning of my aro identity. When I get squishes I tend to hyperfocus on them… a lot, which makes me go through the rabbithole of “wow this feeling is so strong, is it romantic?” but upon the realization that they are just purely platonic/aesthetic feelings I always go back to the conclusion of “strong attraction doesn’t equal romantic attraction”.
Erika: My age makes things easier for me (I am currently 24 years old). I had access to resources that helped me discover my identity at a relatively young age, and have thus been very fortunate. I will sometimes read accounts from older aces and aros talking about how they spent years, even decades, feeling like there was something deeply wrong with them.
Lenore: I’m an aroallo lesbian and i often struggle with feeling like im fulfilling the “predatory lesbians” stereotype by only being sexually attracted to women (not including tertiary attraction.)
Mari: Sexual orientation: asexual. Alloromantic allosexual people think all aromantic people are asexual, so I try to change this faulty view they have with activism.
In the asexual community, sometime I feel like they prefer spotlighting alloromantic asexuals so they can say “we also can love romantically!”. As if we aromantic asexual are not ok. This makes me feel exluded by some asexual people. Luckyly, there are aro-inclusive asexual spaces where I fit in.
Gender identity: agender. I think aromanticism, asexuality and agender may be related in my case? Like, I’m not attracted romantically or sexually to gender and I also don’t feel gender. It’s like in my case they are a bundle.
Age: 31. I’m expected to actively be looking for a husband right now. I have much more interesting things to do, honestly.
Country I live in: Italy. Italy is still very patriarchal and sees me, a strong independent single woman, as if I were a dangerous problem. They try to have me conform by constantly judging me and showing in media people like me in a bad light. I know they’re the ones who stereotype people like me, but the stress they cause me is HUGE.
Relationship style: I’m a Relationship Anarchist. I think this label makes many aromantic people comfortable. But of course a non monogamous single woman is judged in a very bad way, morally. They never ask what it means to me. They assume things, or dismiss my coming out.
Body weight: since I’m an overweight woman, most people think I’m not to be loved romantically anyway, so they both tell me I’m unlovable and that I should find a husband! Great! Win/win amirite? 😀
Mawadda: I’m autistic, mixed-race, and Muslim.
TR: The awwtysm definitely informs the above.
Upon realizing that you were aro, did you question or change your gender identity or presentation?
AG: By the time I realized I was aro, I had already been involved in the queer community for some time, having already realized I was ace. I didn’t question my gender identity much, but I did change my presentation by cutting my hair very short. This made me feel more comfortable with myself but didn’t reveal any new facets of my gender.
Carys: I have remained identifying as a cis woman, I actually feel I have become somewhat more hyperfemine in my fashion however.
Erika: I have questioned my gender identity since coming to terms with my orientation. I sometimes wonder if I might actually be agender. But currently, I am still identifying as a cis woman.
Mari: First I realized I was asexual and not fully aromantic. Then I realized I was greyro. After that I had the mental space to question my gender identity, or, actually, to look more into it. I already knew I was nonbinary, but it was still a vague feeling and it was not yet very clear to me where I fell on the gender spectrum. Since I don’t feel too much dysphoria (body and pronouns), it was more important to work on the ace and aro identities first.
I did not change my presentation, except for buying more aro merch to wear. 🙂
Passant: Upon realizing I was aroace and getting more active in the communities, I came across more people of different gender identities and heard more about them in general, which prompted me to start looking into different gender identities to see if I would resonate with anything, but I didn’t relate much, and found myself very comfortable as a ciswoman.
Ryan: It’s funny you ask me this, because I’ve seen a lot of TikToks that talked on people being like “ok, I feel that I got my sexual/romantic orientations down pat….but gender?” I remember for a brief time (and by brief I mean literally five minutes) thinking “should I be questioning my gender now?” rather being motivated by an actual desire of mine to question. It’s a wonderful thing when people being more honest with themselves about their romantic/sexual orientations inspires them to bravely pursue a similar honesty pertaining their gender and the discoveries that can come from that. However, my brief questioning didn’t lead me to an answer that I didn’t already know for myself.I knew for myself that I definitely do not identify as a man, and questioned whether enby might be a good fit, but I ultimately decided that, nope, woman is the label that fits best for me pertaining to my gender. As for gender presentation, I didn’t change that at all nor did I ever question for a second changing it, as that’s something that I am currently very happy with and brings me a lot of joy :D.
Stella: I’ve always loved “girly” things like dressing up. However, I was always scared it’d be perceived as trying to attract a partner. Coming out as aroace allowed me to be MORE “girly”, as I felt confident dressing up for ME.
How could aro communities better support you?
Carys: Not to do with gender but I think that I would like to find a community of specifically aro/ace people. Although I love being a part of the aspec, sometimes Facebook groups have a lot of people talking about dating or relationships as they identify on parts of the aspec that still feel some extent of either romantic or sexual attraction, which is wonderful, but as an aro/ace it still makes me feel like a bit of an outsider and would like to connect with people who have a more similar experience to me.
Droppy: I think the aro community has a lot to do when it comes to visibility. There are still people who think it is some sort of subset of asexuality (or don’t know it exists at all), and most of the times the aro community gets a place in the spotlight is in coalition with asexuality.
Mari: Since many aro women are single and living alone, maybe with a lower pay than aromantic men because of society biases, aro communities could create safe spaces where we can get to know each other (any gender). Some of us really would like to know more aro people we can spend time with and support each other.
Mawadda: Recognize that aromanticism isn’t an exclusively white experience. Anyone can be aromantic. I’m a POC and I’m aromantic.
Stella: To support me with relation to aspec womanhood, I believe aro communities should have more conversations about what aspec womanhood looks like. There’s often conversation about being aro and cis/trans, but rarely about being aro and a particular gender itself.
TR: We should have a secret Valentine exchange and send each other cute things to share the immaculate aesthetics of Valentine’s Day!!
What do you wish aro people knew about you or other aro women?
AB: If the aromantic label resonates with anyone for any reason, they are allowed to use it, regardless of past romantic experiences.
Andy: WE ARE NOT BROKEN! Aro people aren’t broken; we are not incomplete, we are not cold, we are not deprived from love nor incapable of feeling it. Its okay to be aro <3
Carys: I’ve heard so many aro/ace women and lesbians talk about how long it took then to fully realise their identity because of how much women are condintioned to hold men above ourselves and that our main purpose in life should be finding a husband and I wish that the ace and aro communities knew how angry that can make those of us who experience that and honestly wish that women who are attracted to men could experience it as well because you have no idea how much internalised misogny you have until you realise you are not attracted to men even if you think you’ve acknowledged it.
Mari: Due to intersection of gender and queerness, aro women often are paid less than aro men. I can sustain myself because I’m good at a job where 90% of workers are male and I get paid “like a man” (more or less). Not all aromantic women are so lucky and may be forced to live with their parents, for example.
Some aro women DO love living with their parents, so don’t judge them as not independent women. They chose as independent women to live where they are living.
Stella: About me: the idea of marriage and romantic partnership repulses me, but I still often dream of adopting a child. I strongly wish aro groups would advocate more ways to make it easier for single aro women to be mothers.
TR: How confusing it gets with neurodivergence, or hurtful with RSD. I need solidarity to learn from others and my own experiences and understand myself better. Also, can we PLEASE literally just combine the top half of the ace flag with the bottom half of the aro flag to make the aroace flag instead of using completely unrelated colors impossible to memorize?!
What do you wish allo people knew about you or other aro women?
AB: We are not broken or cold-hearted. We aren’t psychopaths or sociopaths devoid of knowing how to love at all. We aren’t missing out on anything crucial to being alive. Please don’t feel sad for us or pity us. This is a part of who we are.
AG: I wish allo people knew that aro women exist and that we are wonderfully amazing and valid!
Andy: I’ll reiterate a point I made before: “strong attraction doesn’t equal romantic attraction”. This is something I’ve seen a lot of people struggle with (including myself) and I would love it if more people were aware of it. It would help so much with the stigma, expectations and also with figuring out your identity. Even allo people would benefit from this! I’ve had people pester me about a crush because “omg so doesn’t that mean you aren’t aromantic anymore?” no it doesn’t. I know that the way I talk about them would very easily make someone assume it’s romantic but it’s not, and even if it’s not always meant with bad intentions, it still feels sucky to be misunderstood so often.
Audrey: It’s possible to find someone aesthetically pleasing without wanting to date them. We aren’t emotionless robots; we just aren’t attracted to anyone in that way.
Carys: I wish more allos understood that sexual and romantic attraction are not something that everyone experiences and to not assume that everyone wants to be in a relationship. Being asked about my love life by colleagues, family etc. always makes me feel uncomfortable because if I’m not out to them they always view being single as something to be sad about.
Droppy: That being aromantic is not “not having feelings” or “not loving anyone”. I also wish they knew how amatonormativity can particularly harm us and our mental health. Society constantly showers you with messages about how having a romantic partner is the end goal of your life, and how some day you will push your friendships/non-romantic relationships to the side to focus on you and your partner. Nothing wrong with that, really! But it has been the source of many mental health related struggles for me, and it hits me more often than not. It kinda makes you feel like an outsider that will never lead a happy life, and it’s unfair.
Emi: Although we might not feel romantic attraction, that doesn’t mean we’re incapable of love. We still feel a deep platonic love for our friends and family, and some of us are even interested in platonic marriage or having queer-platonic partners.
Lenore: Honestly I just wish they’d try to understand more. I’ve met a lot of alloro’s who are great aro allies, but a lot of them don’t understand that aromanticism is different depending on the person. While research can be very helpful, if you have a question about a family member’s/friend’s aromanticism it’s always better to ask them personally.
Mari: I’m not an “ugly and unpleasant spinster” (as they imagine one). I’m a cool person! I have an interesting life! Wanna hear about it? 🙂
Also, all spinsters are cool. Media just gave us a bad image. Please, allo writers, stop writing us spinsters as if we were sad or evil. Love the cool evil spinster, though, like Disney’s Maleficent or Yzma. 😎
Mawadda: I wish they first of all understood what aromanticism is and recognized it as a real and valid orientation. I also wish they would accept the fact that many of us don’t want to date.
Stella: Aro women don’t owe you romantic attraction. We’re not cold and uncaring for not feeling it. It’s not our job to be “nice” and reciprocate. And not all women – aro or otherwise – see marriage as their happily ever after.
TR: Every human person is far more than this segment of our lives. Our friendship is valuable. We don’t have to prove anything.