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MAFS Australia is filled to the brim with shocks – it is, after all, a big reason why we love to tune in. And this season has been full of them. The moment when self-proclaimed warrior Ryan dropped Jacqui on the dance floor! When Eliot bailed on Lauren after (checks notes) three days! When Awhina inexplicably wrote "Stay!" When Paul agreed to go on that date! But somehow, no moment has been quite so controversial as when Lauren called out Clint for doing the dishes.
"I come home and instantly know something's not right," she said on the couch. "I had to divert my gaze away. I pretty much just shutdown...Clint was doing the dishes." Note: this is not actually a good thing in Lauren's world. It's a sign, she explained, that he wasn't enough of an alpha.
Even more interestingly? Lauren was not the only one in the group who expressed similar sentiments. Jacqui had early concerns about Ryan when he didn't "take the lead" by offering her his hand to walk her down the aisle or give her his coat when she was cold. (Ryan also bought his own arguably outdated ideas of manhood. He's got a sword, for crying out loud.) Sierah seemed completely turned off by Billy's vulnerability, and instead, gravitated towards Adrian.
For many people watching the show, this glimpse into the world of dating has been nothing short of bizarre. Since when have these ultra traditional, arguably, regressive ideas about relationship gender roles been so normalised? And, even more perplexingly, since when have women been the ones to perpetuate it?
Now, toxic masculinity is nothing new in the world of reality dating shows. We've had plenty of examples in MAFS Australia and MAFS UK alike. There was Brad in the UK version last year, who was accused of lovebombing Shona – their dynamic became so unhealthy, they were removed from the show. There was Jack on the last Aussie season, who infamously told another groom to “muzzle your woman” (which, admittedly, he later said he was “pretty ashamed” of).
One might imagine that a man who refused to do any dishes and the laundry, who expected his wife to do all of the housework, who never got too emotional, would fall into a similar category. However, it seems that this is exactly what Lauren was after. And she wouldn't call it "toxic" at all.
From the very beginning, Lauren made her ideas about the perfect guy pretty clear. She wanted someone who was a high-earner so that she could step back from her business and "serve" him – her words.
Jamie’s recent saga on MAFS Australia reminds us of the dangers of using our friends as our own personal army.
While it's easy to completely dismiss Lauren's fantasy of a 1950s-style set-up as inherently regressive, perhaps, it's more interesting to dig into why a more modern, equal arrangement is so unappealing to her.
"For me, the ideal relationship would be a man who is a leader in the relationship in terms of their household and expenses and things," she explains to us at GLAMOUR.
And where does this attraction to the quote-unquote alpha come from?
"My parents always had their own businesses, but my dad ran them, and I guess my mom just kind of worked along with him, so there was that," she says. "But also I always watched movies – I don't know what the equivalent is of when I was growing up – but, like, Downton Abbey. Movies and shows that are very old-worldy."
She goes on, "All of my friends are business owners and most of them earn more money than their husbands or their partners," she says. "And I feel like it doesn't really end well. I just don't think that dynamic is right."
At first, Lauren was paired with Elliot. While he was also drawn to the traditional gender roles prized by Lauren, their relationship disintegrated almost as soon as it began when Elliot took off after just a few days. She was given a second chance at love with Clint, a pro golfer.
Meanwhile, Elliot was brought back with newcomer Veronica. "I personally wouldn't survive in a household with traditional values," Veronica says to GLAMOUR. "[When I eventually saw the first episodes of the show], Elliot listed a bunch of things that he didn't want and I fit the description of everything that he listed. So, that was terrifying."
She adds, "When I watched that, I thought, 'Oh my God, maybe Elliot and Lauren would have been a fantastic couple, because he did lean towards those more traditional values. He would do things like praise me for keeping the apartment clean and for being super low-maintenance, but never asked me a personal question about my career, about my aspirations, about what's important to me."
Veronica was after a more equal, modern partnership. "If you're not with a supportive partner who values equality, values emotional support, values your freedom and and vice versa, your life will just be more difficult than it needs to be," she says.
Although she couldn't have been more different to Lauren in terms of her ideas about gender roles in a partnership, she and Elliot stuck it out for a few weeks before calling it quits.
As the season nears its end, we've got all the goss.
Meanwhile, Lauren and Clint also made it through a few weeks before all of his dish-washing and laundry-folding got the better of her – because while Clint ticked her boxes in terms of his income, she was also looking for some with, as she puts it "innate masculinity."
"Clint was a really lovely person… he's a great person to be friends with, but just that innately masculine sense was missing from him," he says.
She cites one example of a time when production had asked them to start filming early in the morning after a particularly late night. "I said to Clint, 'That's not okay – are you going to say anything about that?'" she recalls. "He was like, 'Oh no, it's fine. We'll be alright.' And I was like, 'No, it's your job to protect us… But he just wouldn't. He was just, like, go with the flow, everything's fine. So I felt that I was always the one being the man in the relationship."
She also couldn't get on board with his penchant for domesticity – and it wasn't just the infamous dish-doing.
"I'd be in the apartments working and he would be fluffing around, folding my G-strings into little triangles," she recalls. "I said to him, 'Haven't you got something better to do?' Because he was talking about all these other businesses that he wanted to start. And he was like, 'No.'"
Lauren's issues with Clint's domestic streak weren't exactly widely understood by the group. Jamie joked that Lauren should send him over to her apartment, while Jeff later confessed to his partner, Rhi, "He's trying to take care of her and she's complaining about it. I was gobsmacked by that."
Many viewers were also "gobsmacked." After all, Lauren's views on what "masculine" looks like can easily be seen as regressive. And, of course, telling a man he can't get involved with domestic work without becoming effeminate isn't exactly progressive.
But where does Lauren's obsession with this kind of alpha male masculinity stem from? My hunch is that it simply comes from wanting to feel secure and supported. After all, at another point in our conversation, she explains to me that her female friends who take a more modern approach to gender dynamics often find themselves saddled with "everything" – both the job and the domestic labour. It's a hangover from the days of "having-it-all feminism." Interestingly, 0% of Gen Z no longer believe that having it all is the goal of feminism. It makes sense that more and more women are trying to explore different approaches.
Indeed, there have been a number of recent social movements that have prized the traditional form of masculinity that Lauren is after. Just take the trad wife movement, in which women in heterosexual relationships have embraced the traditional gendered structure of the home.
What's interesting about most trad wives is that they often aren't actually financially dependent on their partners. While their homes may look an awful lot like an episode of Mad Men, these are women who choose to stay home, who prefer to take charge of the domestic duties, all while maintaining equality in a different way.
In other words, it's not quite as simple as "these women are rejecting feminism and reverting to an archaic patriarchal structure." For many, Lauren included, traditional gender roles are, at their core, about feeling safe, secure and supported. And free to embrace being domestic if (key caveat) you want to.
Lauren says she'd be happy to be in a "trad wife scenario" – but only if she could maintain her independence. "I think it's actually important to be able to contribute and to be able to support yourself and not to be reliant on someone, but it is nice to know that you don't have to do that," she says.
“Everybody is on their own journey, and even if someone is neurodivergent and doesn't know it, they might not be ready to hear it.”
And, Lauren notes, she does want a partner with emotional intelligence.
"Most of the men that I've dated who are really successful are not in the headspace of being emotionally intelligent and open about their thoughts and their feelings," she says. “There's only ever been one man that and actually was talking about him the other day. He is the best husband. He is a very high income earner, very emotionally intelligent, but he's really the only one that I've ever met. So, it is hard to find a balance. I guess that's probably why I went on the show as well… I was hoping that they would buy me a unicorn that I haven't been able to find myself.”
There, she and Veronica actually agree. "Emotional intelligence is the only thing I asked for," Veronica says. "They grilled me for so long, trying to get me to say something about his appearance, and I just wouldn't. I was like, 'I just want someone who's emotionally intelligent.'"
It is Veronica who sums it up best: "We're all so different, and yet we're all the same," she says. "We all fundamentally want the same things: we all want to belong to something. We all want to feel loved and appreciated. These are all universal things. And if, for some people, staying at home and raising a family is their purpose, I say, go for gold."
Lauren is auctioning her wedding dress for charity.
