Jozen Cummings and Performative Feminism

Like many people, before Gina Roco dropped her version of why she ended her planned wedding and engagement to the author of the blog Until I Get Married, I haven't heard of Jozen Cummings. Most people who knew of them, are shocked to hear the reason behind the erupt end of their relationship. From the outside, it seemed healthy and loving, with him consistently shouting out Gina as his beloved girlfriend. From his social media to panels he was a part of, Jozen let the world know that he proudly claimed her as his partner. He even developed a reputation for being a genuine man, giving other bachelors advice on how to avoid giving in to toxic masculinity. So why were we all blindsided to find out that he betrayed Gina by having unprotected sex with another woman?

I want to emphasize that I'm not too familiar with Cummings. This isn't about him personally. He's just the most current public example of a specific type of man that many women have and will have to deal with: the "feminist/woke/good" guy. As women who date has experienced, there's a type of guy who proudly puts on his dating/social media profiles that he is feminist/woke. He inserts how much he thinks women and minorities deserve equal treatment and rights in the section about personality. He calls himself a nice guy unironically. As soon as you get to know who he really is, it turns out he is just as misogynistic as any other man, except he took the time to craft a persona to hide it really well. These guys are performative feminists.

For hypocrites like Jozen Cummings, it's possible that they consider women in general to be human beings who deserve respect but they still fail to treat each individual woman (especially their dating partners) decently. Cummings, like most "nice" guys, think that being aware of how shitty they treat their lovers negates the damage they cause. He even wrote a post about Beyonce's album Lemonade, detailing how much pain men, fathers and lovers alike, cause women! How can you listen to the pain and the depth of emotion Lemonade captures and turn around to unleash that level of hurt onto your girlfriend? Hypocrites tend to project how they want to be perceived by recognizing their faults but completely fail to be accountable. They conveniently forget to do the work to actually change their behavior. Nothing but deeply held misogyny can explain that level of callousness.

"Good" guys, even the feminist ones, will use women. Roco detailed in her own post about how Cummings used her to craft his public image of being a decent man ready to settle down. The same woman who stayed with him during his times of financial stress, sickness, and lack of success. I cringe to imagine the amount of emotional labor that Roco did for such a man who failed to consider her feelings 130 days before their wedding! He wrote in another post that it took him so long to propose because it took him four years to "mature" enough to want to be her permanent partner. Guys, in general, will always use their potential as an asset in dating, asserting themselves like a piece of real estate that will increase in value over time. It's a trap! Believe people when they show you who they are, especially men. Scrolling through some of Cummings' blog, there are clear signs of soft misogyny. A lesson that many pick me's learn too late is that you are not special to a man who hates women. You're his current toy for him to use as he wishes. After a while, he'll find someone else to use. Like Roco described, the red flags were always there. Men, in spite or despite their actual fondness for their partners, take advantage of their privilege to use women.

Men who loudly proclaim themselves as "feminist/woke/one of the good ones" are usually manipulative. One, it's a huge cop-out. To be a man in a misogynist society is to have privilege over women. That privilege doesn't disappear just because you acknowledge it. It takes consistent work and using the power you have to uplift those that your demographic oppresses. For instance, I'm a cishet woman. It'll never be good enough for me to tell the trans community that I'm their ally, I have to do the work to protect them and advocate for them in spaces they cannot reach. That includes making the spaces I occupy trans-friendly and inclusive for them. Being a "feminist" man is so much more than not overpouring or spiking a woman's alcoholic drink. It's making sure that the women in your life are treated with the dignity they are typically denied. Two, if it's who they are, they will illustrate it naturally. I consider myself smart and well read. Anyone who has spent a few moments talking to me about more than the weather has picked up on that. People who want to tell you who they tend to have an ulterior motive, which brings me to number three: it's a manipulation tactic. Trustworthy people do not plead with you to trust them. In fact, they understand the nature of trust; it is time-consuming and personal. Truly trustworthy people understand that trust is withheld as a measure of self-defense. Anyone asking you to let down your guard before you are willing is trying to get something out of you. At the very least, they are highly inconsiderate of how you feel and at the most, they never cared to begin with.

I wish Gina Roco a very thorough recovery. Many women, including myself, have been through similar situations where we were too damn good for a "good" guy. I hope she gets to rediscover who she is, heal from the trauma he inflicted on her and her well being. I personally thank her for opening up to the world about such a toxic experience. The best thing that can come from this is that we all take a step back and use what Roco went through as an example. Men are capable of being good, decent people but too many have been socialized to treat women poorly. One particularly nasty method of doing so is being the "nice" guy, where entitlement manifests into misogyny in their personal lives. That is not allyship nor is it moral. Soft misogynists like Cummings need to be held accountable if they truly wish to make the world around them a better place.