Julie of of This Time It’s Just Julie has a lovely insight about the foofaraw around the Twilight series. (Emphasis mine.)

[A] good friend of mine sent me this link about the teams. You know, Team Edward or Team Jacob. Most Twihards have picked a boy they’d prefer Bella to get with. So this article is about why Jacob is doomed to lose (“lose” because as we all know, love is a contest. It sort of is, I guess, though if it’s that much of a contest I can’t say it’s love…something else perhaps.)

He said it here.

If love is the kind of contest laid out in the Twilight series then it’s a contest lodged firmly in the socially constructed male worthiness trap where if women are allowed to chose a partner at all, their decision is supposed to be not just a judgment but a validation of of the “winner’s” overall quality or worth.

Because, really, if women don’t pick “winners” then, well, duh, they pick “losers” and wow do people come down hard on women who pick losers!

It’s paternalism in almost all the classic senses of the word, of course. Traditionally speaking women are expected to choose among suitors but never to initiate a relationship with someone she’s chosen in advance of their initiative. It’s paternalism in the sense that women are viewed primarily as rewards for men’s accomplishment (the “prize” the “winner” takes home with him.) It’s paternalism in that we expect women to share and even defer to qualities we recognize and approve of rather than, say, her personal sense of identification or compatibility. And it’s paternalism in the sense that anyone could opine that “she could do better” or “I don’t see what she sees in him,” as if our opinion ought to override hers. Oh yeah, and paternalism in the sense that she’s expected to rise above, say, personal horniness or loneliness or curiosity and choose rationally. And finally, paternalism in the sense she’s supposed to rise above her immediate circumstances and chose neither Edward nor Jason in favor of holding out (alone with her cats or vibrators or whatever) for even more suitable long-term husband material.

And yes, that would be true even in fictional situations like Twilight or True Blood where the choice seems to be between dead or animal partners.

And finally, by the way, it’s fine to suspect that a particular relationship isn’t going to turn out well for one or both of the parties involved — sometimes we don’t understand what people see in each other and sometimes we see it all to well. But that’s an assessment of a particular relationship, not color commentary on a competition between men.