#TheHotTake: Do you always have to defend your partner in public?

Listen as the urbanites debate whether or not you should defend your partner in public.

Sometime last year in the middle of one of his many rants, rapper Kanye West tweeted that he no longer has a manager because he can no longer be managed. The tweet has since become something of a pop-culture totem, inspiring many memes and copycats.

It seems, however, whatever Kanye used to pay his manager, he might have to start paying his wife Kim Kardashian.

The entrepreneur and reality TV star has spent the better part of the last eight months publicly defending Kanye West, clarifying his statements and playing the sweeper after his mess.

Honestly, it seems exhausting. In the latest episode of "What did Kanye say today", Mr. West was quoted as having made some remarks that seemingly allude to him being against the removal of R.Kelly's music.

Kanye is quoted as saying: “They just gonna pull up full documentaries on him [Kelly] Then they gonna come with the Michael [Jackson] documentary. We can all enjoy all their music all we want. I thought I wasn't going to go there today. If we're gonna tear down artists, let's go ahead and take [Leonardo] da Vinci out the Lourve while we're at it. Let's take down all the art."

Whilst Kanye has detailed nothing further about what he meant, Kim has instead taken the liberty of being his press secretary and tried to clarify in a series of tweets that are just as confusing as Kanye’s initial rant itself. 

Kim has been doing this for a while and understandably you can defend your partner maybe once or twice over a few innocuous things.

But having to constantly play guard when they start fires is part of a toxic pattern in relationships that insists on women always having their lives revolve around the emotional incompetence of their partners.

Men are essentially reduced to being infantile and women must do the work of mothering them and protecting them from the consequences of their words and actions.

Kim Kardashian is clearly playing into the good wife trope.

In this vein I’m reminded of someone like Hillary Clinton sticking up for husband Bill Clinton when everybody knew what he was up to with Monica.

It seems this instinct to always defend your partner in public is to avoid embarrassing them or showing other people that there are differences of opinion in your relationship.

This is weird to me because part of why you should be attracted to someone is that they don’t always see things the way you do.

You love someone because of the way they shape and alter your perspective, so differences of opinion can actually be healthy and rewarding in a relationship.

How many times must we see a woman next to a problematic man standing up for him just preserve his reputation by risking her own?

It’s dated and boring and sometimes it’s better to just not defend your partner rather than embarrassing yourself and being an accomplice to whatever they say, do or believe, because far too often when the roles are reversed, they won’t afford you the same luxury.