We need a village, but we dream of a man.

Sandra Bullock movies wouldn't exist if we had community.

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"Do you believe in love at first sight? Nah, I betcha don't... Or have you ever, like, seen somebody, and you knew that, if only that person really knew you, they would realize that you were the one that they wanted to grow old with? Have you ever fallen in love with someone you haven't even talked to? Have you ever been so alone you spend the night confusing a man in a coma?" - Lucy Eleanor Moderatz. While You Were Sleeping.

When I was a teenager, While You Were Sleeping was my favorite movie.¹

I would watch Sandra Bullock alone in her little Chicago apartment dipping her Oreos into her cat’s milk, dreaming of her crush and hard relate.

I’ve always been a dreamer.

But when I became a teenager, all my dreams were vortexed into one singular dream: the “a boy likes me” dream.

All my dreams for my future—financial, religious, familial, communal— hinged on this one lynchpin of being desired and selected by a man. So very much hung on it.

All I had to do was find a man and then ask him if he would please meet every human need I have ever had: the need to be seen, heard, loved, to belong, to be physically touched, financially secure, socially respected, sexually satisfied, to be safe, and to be cared for across my life span.

We live in such an individualistic society, it’s no surprise really why so many parents desire so strongly to see their children settle down and get married—it’s the primary path our society provides us to “be ok,” to not be alone.

It’s only been so recently that I’ve realized the cost, both individually and collectively, of trying to squeeze all of our vast, complex, diverse needs for human connection into this teensy tinesy box labeled “long-term heterosexual romantic partnership.”

Poor cupid is tired of having to hold up all our needs.

Today we’ll examine what could happen if we grew up dreaming of community rather than romance.

We’re going to use two different tools to do this:

1. Other cultures that are better at community than ours. And

2. Romantic comedies starring Sandra Bullock.

We’ll be talking about some Indigenous societies that are less individualistic and patriarchal than ours, not to overly romanticize them or to present them as utopias, but to expand our imaginations by providing examples that a different way of living is possible.

These Sandra Bullock movies all look to romantic love to solve all her problems. But community would solve her problems even better. Yet community is never looked to as the solution. A man always is.

Imagine:

What if Lucy Eleanor Moderatz grew up among the Bakayan people?

While You Were Sleeping

Remember Lucy? She’s the lonely lady eating Oreos as she hangs tinsel onto her lonely Christmas tree. Alone. She works every holiday at her lonely job because did we mention she is alone?

Lucy hyper fixates on a man she’s never met as the solution to her loneliness.

This is understandable. Lucy is an only child. Her mom died when she was young, her dad raised her alone. Then he died, leaving her all alone. Her only hope for family was to marry.

The movie is ostensibly about falling in love with a man, but really the actual solution to Lucy’s isolation isn’t the man himself, but his people- his parents, sister, godfather and grandmother.

The Bayakan People

I first heard of the Bayakan people of West Congo while researching this article about the isolation of motherhood. I found an NPR story called “Parents aren’t adapted to care for babies alone, new study suggests” which interviews an anthropologist who lived amongst the Bayaka.

The anthropologist took notes on a baby’s care throughout the day in a Bayakan village and noted that, “each day, each baby had 15-20 different caregivers.” Some watched or talked to the baby, but there were at least eight people other than the parents who fed, bathed and held each child each day.

It truly takes a village to raise a child, our society doesn’t provide one, but the Bayaka do.

source: NPR

If Lucy had grown up with the Bayakan people,

she would have been surrounded by 15 different caregivers each day other than her parents. Would she grow up to be living alone desperate for a man to marry her as her only road to belonging?

Certainly not.

The entire premise of the movie would collapse because she wouldn’t need a man to save her in order to have a village. Having a people wouldn’t be taken away with one person’s death. It wouldn’t need to be earned by being chosen for romance. Community would always be there regardless of relationship status.

What if Birdee Pruitt were raised with the Mosou people?

Hope Floats

In the movie, Hope Floats, Sandra Bullock’s character, Birdee Pruitt’s life implodes when her husband confesses to having an affair on a talk show. Overnight, Birdee is suddenly stripped of her status, wealth, home, future, friends, network, neighborhood, financial security, daily life and identity.

Her entire well-being was placed on the precarious altar of a man staying with her.

Though she really doesn’t want to, Birdee has no choice but to move from Chicago back to the small Texas town where she grew up. Here she faces public humiliation, gossip, judgment and single motherhood.

Her salvation comes… guess how?

Through another man saving her by choosing to be romantically involved with her.

The Mosou People

I first heard of the Mosou in Southwest China while reading the book The Patriarchs. The Mosou live in matrilineal complexes, meaning property and lineage is passed through the mother’s line. You live in the same household your whole life. When a girl becomes of age, she is given a room of her own to host lovers. Men stay in their mother’s and grandmother’s estate and help to raise their sisters’ children.

People can still get married, but they are “walking marriages”:

“…couples here don’t live together in a 24-hour-a-day, 7-days-a-week kind of married life. Husbands stay at their own villages and take care of their own immediate families during the day and come back in the evenings to their wives’ villages, where they stay with their wives’ families. They depart again the next morning back to their villages. We bring up the kids equally.” - Yang Da Wa Zhuoma, National Geographic

source: National Geographic

Regardless of whether or not Mosou women are monogamously partnered, their lives, status, reputations, finances and stability remain unchanged. (Can you imagine?)

If a Mosou relationship ends, nothing material collapses. Nothing in their child’s life collapses. Children remain in their mother’s household raised by the complex of extended kin regardless of the mother’s relationship status.

Meanwhile back in Texas, sheesh this scene where Birdee’s daughter begs her father not to leave them is heartbreaking.

If Birdee had been born Mosou…

her husband’s affair could never have had the power to detonate her entire existence and that of her daughter’s because their lives would never have been built on such a singular, brittle pillar as a man’s continued interest anyway.

If her partner chose not to be her partner anymore, she may be heartbroken sure, but nothing foundational in her life would change—not her home, status, wealth or network.

What if Sally Owens were born into the Lakota Tribe?

Practical Magic

Practical Magic follows the Owens family—a family of witches. Guess how much everyone in their town loves this family of powerful women?

The Owens women are feared, whispered about and blamed whenever something in town goes awry. These women aren’t seen as spiritual, they are seen as demonic. Their power isn’t appreciated, it’s feared and banished.

The movie follows two sisters—Sally and Gillian— and from the time they are old enough to dream, they dream of what? Living it up with their badass powerful aunts? Growing their craft to become more powerful, creative and magical?

No.

They dream of being chosen by a man of course.

Both Sally and Gillian grow up to shun and neglect their magical powers and seek romance.

It’s not their own power, but men that will be the savior of these poor lonely (magical) women.

The Lakota People

This video of a Lakota man describing how his people view women came across my algorithm and… made me cry. It was just so very, very, very different from the cultural heritage I was raised in.

“A braid is so significant to us as Lakota people because in our culture, women are the next best thing to God. And the reason why we understand that and believe in that way is because I’ve never seen a male of any species give birth. Only the females.

They have a great gift. And that is to give life.

And so we wear our hair in two separate braids as men to honor the women. Because if it weren’t for the women, we couldn’t be here as men.”

Women are respected and revered, not despite their power, but because of it.

Lakota theology centers on Wakan Tanka, often translated as “The Great Mystery” rather than a singular male god. Women’s ability to bring forth life places them in direct alignment with Wakan Tanka.

If Sally Owens had been born Lakota…

her power would not have marked her for exile. Her family would not have been isolated, and thus she would not be so reliant on romance for belonging.

Because she would not have been framed as dangerous, she would not have needed to be softened, redeemed or normalized by a man.

Within a culture that honors women as holy, Sally would not need romantic salvation.

What if Margaret Tate were born in the Blackfoot Tribe?

The Proposal

In The Proposal, Bullock’s Margaret Tate is one mighty #bossbabe. Obsessed with professional dominance, she earns her worth through her hustle.

But guess what? (You’ll never guess…)

She’s lonely!!

And guess what she needs to solve all her lonely, high-achieving problems? (You’ll never get it…)

A man!!

At first she thinks she doesn’t need a man because she’s got her job! But eventually she discovers that she does!! She does need a man!!!

The Blackfoot

We talked about the Blackfoot last week when we talked about Abraham Maslow and his solution of what everyone needs to be happy and fulfilled: self actualization. Only to spend a few months living with the Blackfoot in Canada and realize: “wait these people are wayyyyy happier than my people. Whoopsy, I forgot the most important ingredient in my theory: community.” (I’m paraphrasing)

Here is how the Esperanza Project put it:

“[Maslow] estimated that “80–90% of the Blackfoot tribe had a quality of self-esteem that was only found in 5–10% of his own population.”

“...he did not see the quest for dominance in Blackfoot society. Instead, he discovered astounding levels of cooperation, minimal inequality, restorative justice, full bellies, and high levels of life satisfaction.”

After his visit to the Blackfoot, Maslow wrote:

“self-actualization is not enough. Personal salvation and what is good for the person alone cannot be really understood in isolation. The good of other people must be invoked as well as the good for oneself. It is quite clear that purely inter-psychic individualist psychology without reference to other people and social conditions is not adequate.”

source: Gatherfor

If Margaret Tate had been raised Blackfoot…

what would she be compensating for? If her worth were inherent, would she need to prove herself by overworking? Would she need a man to complete her?

Would she ever have been so lonely to begin with?

Community is the opposite of patriarchy

That shiny, pretty pink fantasy of being swept off our feet and filled with love, acceptance, worth and belonging through romantic love is such a very alluring fantasy², and yet more often than not, it can’t deliver.

Romantic love is not the villain, we’ve simply asked far too much of it. We have asked romance to replace mothers, cousins, shared childrearing, elders, neighbors, ritual, shared labor, friends, community and shared meaning.

It can’t do it, it’s too much.

The fragility of a woman's life and stability depending on a man is not incidental, it's a design feature of the nuclear, patriarchal system.

Community is the opposite of patriarchy. It does not make you earn belonging through your attractiveness or caretaking. It does not isolate women into romantic dependency. It does not parade the isolated islands of nuclear families as the pinnacle of achievement and success.

I love how Lisa Sibbett from The Auntie Bulletin puts it:

“The basic logic of the nuclear family is that there’s something wrong with us. If we live alone or with family members or groups of friends, we are losers. So then the compulsory nuclear family sets ambitious, if not blatantly unrealistic, goals for what ‘good’ or ‘right’ look like.”

“The nuclear family is a failed experiment. We’ve tried it and it’s not serving us. It doesn’t work without lots and lots of help – paid, unpaid, or both…

The alternative, of course, is remembering how to build extended networks of kinship and community care.” - The Nuclear Family is a Failed Experiment.

We need a village, but we dream of a man.

What if Sandra Bullock didn’t dream of being held by a man when she ate her oreos? What if from the time she was little, she dreamed of being held by a whole community? What if instead of living alone with her cat on a 10th floor Chicago apartment, she was part of a stable multi-generational ecosystem?

What if instead of going to sleep each night fantasizing my crush would fall in love with me, I grew up fantasizing about loving and being loved by a whole neighborhood?

What if happily ever after wasn’t wedding bells, but a loving collective?

What if instead of dreaming of romance, we dreamed of community?

1. It’s still in my top 10.

2. It’s so alluring in fact that this fantasy funds many billion dollar industries.