Love Island Sets Women Up To Play The Nagging Girlfriend

Over the course of this week on Love Island, we have witnessed a very familiar (if we are long-term Love Island fans) set of events. The now routine 'headline challenge', which involved islanders finding out tabloid headlines about themselves, tore couples apart, or certainly encouraged them to feel a little suspicious of each other – and, as if on cue, the girls set about confronting their partners.

We saw the women once again manipulated into thinking their men had wronged them somehow and being forced into victimhood. It’s a classic LI production tactic and it’s why year on year Ofcom receives a rush of complaints regarding producers emotionally abusing female contestants in an attempt to create drama.

Last night, following on from the headline challenge, Finley Tapp and Paige Turley were senselessly thrown into an argument about whether Tapp’s ‘head had been turned’ in Casa Amor. Hint: it hadn’t. But, the headline choice in the challenge meant Turley was sent into a paranoid spiral given her well-documented trust issues. The underlying message of this unnecessary plot twist? Lol, aren’t women crazy, look at all these paranoid girlfriends kicking off at their fellas!

It’s the very basis of the Casa Amor twist too, the boys go off on a ‘lads holiday’ and we watch as the women fall apart longing for their lost loves. Not only does Casa Amor often result in the coupled-up women laying around in thralls of sadness wondering what their men are up to, it almost always sees them remain loyal without a hint of question.

Of course, they’ll also spend their days reassuring their fellow islanders – and the public – that they’re well aware their man could stray. They sit pretty, refusing attention and paying no mind to the new hot men while telling their friends ‘what man wouldn’t have their head turned with six new beautiful women?!’ It’s like they're so conscious of public opinion, they want to show that they're loyal while also reminding sending a message of ‘I’m not a mug – I know what men get up to when women aren’t around’.

It's a similar situation when it comes to sex conversations. Luke Trotman telling the boys about Siannise Fudge getting naked in the hideaway was one of the controversies of the headline challenge. Fudge was upset with Trotman for sharing her personal business but even fan-favourite Luke Mabbot downplayed it with a ‘boys will be boys’ explanation. Fudge’s reaction was clearly warranted, but many were hoping for a Maura Higgins-style ‘yes women like sex WHO CARES?’ speech.

In a climate of slut-shaming and online misogyny, you can’t blame Fudge for hoping her sex life wouldn’t be broadcast around the villa and, you know, the world – but it was still disappointing to see someone so secure in herself feel so conscious of what others might think of her.

Essentially, no matter how empowered the women are in the villa, the structure of the show means they’re almost always set up to seem like play the nagging girlfriend, the victim of their laddy boyfriend who is helpless in his fuckboy ways – notice how the phrase ‘head-turned’ takes all agency away from the man in question, implying his motor skills fall apart when a beautiful woman approaches as he falls victim to her prowess.

It’s not just the way Love Island is set up, of course – it’s also the culture in which we live, a culture that makes women constantly feel like they have to maintain a particular image to be dateable. But one thing is clear, producer intervention certainly don’t help.

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