So What Exactly Is A Female-Led Relationship?

After originating from the BDSM world, female-led relationships are taking over...

- Megan Wallace

Relationships can be hard, there is no denying it: whether it’s navigating the anxieties of a situationship, exploring our own attachment styles or wondering when is the right time to break up, dating can come with a lot of baggage. But for some women in heterosexual relationships, things are even more complicated due to the uneven power dynamics between men and women which linger to this day, impacting intimate romantic connections through things like weaponised incompetence, the romance gap or unequally distributed emotional labour. Is there an alternative? Well, some individuals think female-led relationships are the key.

Female-led relationships are a form of heterosexual dynamic which operates on the premise that, historically, men have been the dominant individuals in relationships. This means that, due to social privilege or convention, it may have been men who were expected to make the first move, make significant decisions such as where a couple lives, or be the ‘breadwinner’ in a marriage. Nowadays, relationships are a lot more equal, but there are still issues such as uneven financial privilege and gendered expectations which may disadvantage women.

With that in mind, female-led relationships seek to create an opposing model. Rather than aiming for equality between a male and female partner, they propose a situation where women take the role which has traditionally been occupied by men in intimate relationships.

There are varying degrees of femaleled relationship which consensually give different levels of power over to the woman: from total control to a subtler dominance. For some, the practice is linked to kink and power play dynamics in the BDSM community.