If you haven’t been under a rock lately, you’ve heard of Heated Rivalry. More specifically, you’ve heard of Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander. What started as a hockey romance turned into a cultural reset for a lot of women, because this LGBTQ+, fictional, enemies-to-lovers, secret-relationship slow burn didn’t just give us butterflies, it gave us gender envy.
Ilya and Shane’s relationship dynamic hits differently, in a way that many heterosexual romances simply don’t. There’s no performance of femininity, no invisible script that requires one of them to be softer, more accommodating, or less intimidating to preserve the other’s ego. Neither of them has to shrink themselves to make the relationship work. They exist as equals, and watching their romance unfold feels unfamiliar to women who navigate relationships shaped by unequal expectations.
For many women, especially those who date men, the show leaves behind an unexpected feeling: grief. Not grief for the characters, but grief for what feels impossible. Ilya and Shane exist in a world where masculinity is the default setting for both of them. They are allowed to be difficult, emotional, selfish, vulnerable and ambitious without those traits threatening their desirability or worth. They don’t have to soften themselves to be loved or manage another person’s feelings at the expense of their own.
Women, on the other hand, are socialized into relationships that often come with invisible labor. We are expected to be emotionally intelligent but not emotional, ambitious but not intimidating, independent but still nurturing. We are taught to balance strength with softness, confidence with likability, and autonomy with self-sacrifice. Love, for women, is often framed as something that requires adjustment. Compromise becomes synonymous with reduction.
And that’s where gender envy creeps in. It’s not necessarily the envy of being a man. It’s envy of the freedom men are allowed within relationships. It’s envy of existing without being constantly perceived, evaluated and molded by societal expectations. Don’t get me wrong, gay relationships still deal with power dynamics and societal pressures, but women have dealt with this structural inequality for generations in every corner of their life. In relationships between two men, intimacy isn’t filtered through the male gaze in the same way heterosexual relationships often are. Neither partner is reduced to an archetype. Neither exists primarily as a caregiver, emotional regulator, or supporting character.
Instead, they exist as two people choosing each other, not completing each other.
Watching Ilya and Shane forces many women to confront an uncomfortable truth: heterosexual relationships are still shaped by deeply ingrained gender roles, even when we think we’ve outgrown them. And while progress has been made, those expectations still quietly dictate who gets to take up space and who learns to minimize themselves.
The obsession with Ilya and Shane isn’t just about chemistry. It’s about possibility. It’s about seeing a version of love untouched by the expectations that have confined women for generations. It’s about imagining what it would feel like to exist in a relationship without performing, shrinking and negotiating your autonomy.
It’s not that women want to be men. It’s that women want to be free in the same ways men are allowed to be.
And once you see that freedom, especially in a love as tender, vulnerable and all-encompassing as Ilya’s and Shane’s, it’s impossible to unsee it.