Les colles, ça peut vite être démoralisant si les sujets ne sont pas amusants ! Pour compenser les sujets purement politiques ou économiques que tu as certainement déjà rencontrés en colle cette année, Major-Prépa te propose un sujet plus léger : l’amour !
Ce sujet est plutôt culturel et tout à fait susceptible de tomber aux oraux des concours : en effet, aucun thème n’est à écarter. Tu trouveras dans cet article le sujet, une analyse et un corrigé qui te donnera un exemple de ce qui est attendu de toi en colle ! Bon courage !
Le sujet
Is it wrong to date multiple people at once?
Thanks to more relaxed attitudes toward sex and sexuality, “hook-up culture” – casual sex without emotional intimacy – has become more common among teens and young adults.
This cultural shift reflects a change in priorities, as young people nowadays get married and “settle down” later in life than previous generations. The rise of sexual freedom in the U.S. has liberated us from outdated ideals of love. It has encouraged people to settle down when they are ready, rather than conforming to traditional societal expectations.
The increased portrayal of sex in the media has also normalized hookup culture. According to one study, 60-80% of college students have reported having had some sort of hookup experience. These statistics might be attributed to the fact that sexual expression has been monetized through music videos, movies and dating apps.
Popular culture has had a tremendous impact on reshaping our collective attitudes towards dating and sex. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The popularity of apps like Tinder, Hinge, Bumble and Grindr have reimagined what dating looks like. Originally, dating apps were common among queer communities, but the rise of Tinder in 2012 helped bring dating apps to mainstream media.
The rise of dating apps has since helped to lessen the stigma associated with same-sex dating and non-heteronormative relationships, allowing LGBTQ people to express themselves in ways they couldn’t before. Part of the reason Tinder became so popular is that it helped fill a specific need — the options in the dating scene weren’t too vast, and Tinder helps match people who wouldn’t have otherwise crossed paths.
The concept of casually hooking up with someone has been around for a long time, but it feels like it gets more accepted in our society with time. Promiscuity and sleeping around can still have derogatory connotations, but these are social stereotypes that connect sex to guilt rather than equality.
Hookup culture destigmatizes the idea of sex, especially since chastity has historically been so closely tied to upholding religious beliefs and purity. By separating sex from the private sphere and tying it more to pleasure, it can liberate us from the regressive thinking of previous generations and allows us to pursue our sexual desires without fear of judgment.
Individuals are able to be more autonomous when they enter a long-term relationship because of this change in dating norms. Hookup culture has shifted the emphasis of a relationship to equal cooperation rather than conformity with social standards.
From my experience, it has also become more okay to not be in a relationship at all. While some people might choose to focus on themselves, others simply do not have the desire to be in a romantic or sexual relationship at all.
Overall, “hookup culture” has helped encourage people to talk more openly about sex and intimacy in a liberating way. Young folks especially feel more comfortable exploring their sexual interests, so by the time they decide to enter committed relationships, they confidently know what they want.
Xenia Gonikberg, The Statesman, March 21, 2021
Analyse du sujet
Présentation de l’article
Des expressions telles que « from my experience » révèlent que l’article présente l’opinion de l’auteur. Il faut donc le mentionner dès l’introduction.
En outre, cette opinion semble plutôt être de gauche (c’est-à-dire en faveur du pluralisme et de la diversité amoureuse et sexuelle), comme le confirme l’opinion politique du journal : The Statesman est en effet un journal de centre-gauche.
Enfin, la date de publication (mars 2021) a son importance ici : les États-Unis étaient plongés dans la crise sanitaire due à la Covid-19 à cette époque, et les relations, sociales ou amoureuses, étaient limitées.
Synthèse
Pour établir la synthèse du document, il faut commencer par identifier son thème principal. Ici, il s’agit de l’amour et plus précisément des rendez-vous amoureux (dates en anglais). Tu le sais certainement, les Américains ont une perception des rendez-vous galants complètement différente de ce que l’on connaît en Europe, comme l’illustrent d’ailleurs les propos de l’auteur.
Elle énumère plusieurs raisons expliquant pourquoi des relations temporaires, voire d’un soir, sont bénéfiques. Par exemple, cela permet aux Américains de bien choisir le partenaire avec qui ils vont passer leur vie puisqu’ils savent déjà ce qu’ils aiment et n’aiment pas chez leurs amants. En bref, c’est tout l’inverse des mariages arrangés que l’on trouve encore aujourd’hui en Inde, et cela va également à l’encontre de l’idéologie chrétienne selon laquelle deux amants n’ont pas le droit de consommer leur amour avant le mariage.
En outre, Xenia Gonikberg ajoute que ce mode de relations correspond mieux à notre société contemporaine : les étudiants terminent leur scolarité plus tard qu’avant et de plus en plus d’emplois demandent à ce que les travailleurs voyagent, ce qui explique pourquoi de moins en moins d’individus ont l’opportunité de construire une relation stable et une famille correspondant à l’idéal américain de la « nuclear family ».
Problématique
La synthèse nous amène à formuler une problématique en lien avec cette notion de « nuclear family ». On peut par exemple se demander si cet idéal est en train de disparaître (ce qui nous permettra de développer sur le concept de « nuclear family » et de montrer nos connaissances).
Si on veut avoir une perspective plus économique, on peut également rapprocher ce fait de société de la situation économique contemporaine, notamment la « gig economy » (qui se dit également « uberization »).
Plan de commentaire
Il est primordial de parler du concept de « nuclear family » pour répondre à notre problématique. Une première partie s’attachera ainsi à définir cette notion en précisant qu’historiquement, elle est apparue avec la Great Society de Johnson. Il s’agit d’une famille idéale, avec un père travailleur, une mère au foyer et un ou deux enfants.
Néanmoins, cet idéal ne correspond pas à la réalité, et il est intéressant de se demander s’il n’est pas un stéréotype archaïque. Les féministes telles que Betty Friedan se sont battues contre cette association de la sphère domestique à la femme tandis qu’aujourd’hui, le nombre de divorces, d’adoptions, de mariages homosexuels montre que le concept de « nuclear family » n’est plus d’actualité, ce qui explique pourquoi les rendez-vous amoureux ont, eux aussi, évolué.
Une deuxième partie peut donc s’intéresser à la « dating culture » américaine. Contrairement à ce que l’on connaît en Europe, un Américain peut « sortir avec » plusieurs personnes sans que cela ne crée de problèmes de jalousie tant c’est institutionnalisé. Les relations mettent en effet du temps à s’officialiser aux États-Unis. On peut également ajouter que le succès des applications telles que Tinder a joué un rôle important dans l’évolution des mœurs.
Certaines féministes considèrent d’ailleurs que Tinder est un outil de réification (ou objectification) de la femme : l’application réduit l’amour à une apparence physique, et la relation est souvent temporaire. Ce fonctionnement peut être, en troisième partie, comparé à celui de la « gig economy » : les travailleurs de la « gig economy » sont également sélectionnés pour des travaux temporaires et leur contrat de travail est souvent sans lendemain…
De là, tu peux essayer de pousser la réflexion et d’argumenter à propos de l’ubérisation de l’amour que sous-tend l’article que nous venons de commenter. N’oublie pas de rester nuancé et formule une ouverture à la fin de ton commentaire afin d’orienter les questions du jury !
Piste de corrigé
In 2020, 6.6 million people paid to have a premium access to Tinder, showing the scope of the “hook-up” culture described in the article. The latter is extracted from The Statesman, a newspaper whose center-left bias explains the opinion expressed in the text.
The article can be divided into two parts. First, Xenia Gonikberg justifies the importance of the “hook up” culture, thus normalizing it, and then, she offers several interpretations as for the origins of this culture.
Indeed, the author enumerates several reasons why casual, temporary relationships are beneficial to individuals. For instance, she explains that it allows people to engage in a stable couple as they already know what they like or dislike in terms of love relationships.
She also adds that society changed people’s ways of life: students end their studies later than before while some jobs require people to travel, which explains why less and less people can be in a relationship and build a nuclear family – that is, the perfect model for a family in America.
Therefore, is the concept of the nuclear family fading?
This analysis will be organized in three parts. A first part will assess if the concept of the nuclear family is a stereotype or a reality. A second part will focus on dating in America, and a last part will show that dating apps reveal a uberization of feelings and emotions.
1. The nuclear family: stereotype or reality?
Historically, nuclear families emerged with Johnson’s Great Society. They were composed of a couple of married parents and their children (the father worked while the mother stayed at home) and generally lived in the suburbs. The nuclear family was thus representative of conservatism and patriarchy, which is why feminists protested against the image of the stay-at-home mother.
However, one may notice that reaching this model is hard, and that it was more a virtual ideal than a reality. And because of modernity, this concept is all the more fading.
Nuclear families are less numerous today as divorce, adoption, and same-sex couples have been normalized. Moreover, the concept of the nuclear family is hardly compatible with the modern American dating culture.
2. Dating in America: cultural specificities
In Western countries, dating is a stage of a romantic relationship in which two individuals meet socially with the goal of evaluating if the other could be a potential partner in a future intimate relationship. However, conversely to what Europeans are used to, an American can date several people without being deemed as a cheater as the dating process is generally longer than in Europe. It takes several dates before becoming exclusive.
The dating system has moreover changed with the advent of applications such as Tinder. As subscribers choose their partners by swiping pictures, such apps tend to reify, or objectify, human beings while women often complain about sexual harassment on Tinder – a Pew Research Center study indeed found that 57% of American women had already received what they considered as an insulting and harassing picture on Tinder.
And the problem is that it is young people who receive and send such messages or pictures. Moreover, the same study showed that young women were more likely to be physically threatened on dating apps.
All of these are the reasons why Tinder released a “panic button” on the app. The aim was to allow women to denounce such behaviors… But is it really sufficient?
Such detrimental behaviors might be explained by the way the platform works: you select a partner just as if you were selecting a Deliveroo meal, which undermines the value of love and relationships and leads me to consider the uberization of love in our modern society.
3. Are love and marriage uberized?
The gig economy, also called uberization, is a free market system in which companies recruit independent workers for short-term commitments and temporary roles.
Dating apps are thus comparable with Uber: partners are selected for a casual, temporary encounter and the relationship may not last.
The uberization of love therefore makes dating less serious, more difficult and in some cases dangerous. On the other hand, it certainly contributes to the disappearance of the patriarchal concept of the nuclear family, but is it really for the better? Other forms of patriarchy and violence against women are progressively uncovered as illustrated by the #MeToo movement while men are more hesitant to enter a relationship for fear of not knowing how to behave in the era of the #MeToo movement. Love relationships thus seem to be more complex than before…
Voilà, tu en sais maintenant plus sur la « dating culture » américaine ! Si tu veux encore t’entraîner sur des sujets de colle, c’est par ici !
