In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Category: Marriage

The Thing About Edwards

I have a hard time getting worked up over other people’s infidelities, but I’m deeply disappointed by John Edwards’ very public admission not only that he had an affair, but goddammit, he did not father that baby. The release of the salacious details are obviously bad timing in an election year, damage the national Democratic reputation, and shit on the millions of voters that saw him as a beacon of hope against the hypocrisy and cynicism of Washington. I can’t believe the guy would make a run for the nomination with this kind of skeleton rattling around in his closet. Speaks to a massive ego, I guess. I’m curious to see how Obama will respond, or if he’ll respond at all, other than wiping Edwards’ name off the short list for Attorney General.

Meanwhile, McCain can’t respond officially without drawing further attention to his own marital sleaze.

But the thing that irks me, aside from the hollow “I apologize for my excessive narcissism” plea by Edwards, is that I’ve personally developed a lot of respect for Elizabeth Edwards, her outspoken persona and activism, and embrace of technology like blogging, who joins the likes of Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton on my political role model list, and I’m sick of seeing women in power get shit on not only by their adversaries and the media, but also by their husbands, who appear only to be as faithful as the next opportunity. The only bright spot on the media angle is that Elizabeth Edwards didn’t do the stand-by-your-man kabuki that so many other political wives have been made to endure, although Edwards himself takes credit for this. You never know what kind of arrangements or compromises the Edwardses have made over the course of their political and marital trajectories, and I don’t aim to speculate.

For what it’s worth, Elizabeth Edwards responds here.

UPDATE: Octogalore’s take here.

Opt Out, Push Out, and Pink Collar Paths

In ”The Other Home Equity Crisis”, Judity Warner claims there’s no real “Opt Out” trend, that instead:

“Women left the workforce when the cost of child care ate up their entire after-tax salaries, or when family-unfriendly workplaces pushed them out. Or when, like women without children or men with and without children, they were laid off in a bad economy.”

She quotes a congressional report that says:

“Women may be more susceptible to the impact of the business cycle than they were when they were more highly concentrated in a smaller number of non-cyclical occupations, like teaching and nursing”.

She also mentions that because women who leave jobs are viewed as deciding to be “moms” and men are viewed as “unemployed,” the latter are more likely to get benefits.

So what do we make of this?

Well, it’s critical for workplaces to become more family friendly. Single parents, poor parents, don’t have the option for one parent not to work. And for women and men to have equal access to unemployment benefits.

But it’s also critical for this “family friendly” path not to become a pink collar ghetto. I think the percentages of women and men who avail themselves of these options should ideally be more equal, to the extent we have power over that.

Read More…Read More…

Lauren Notofchef

It’s not often at work that something warms my cockles, but yesterday, when a foreign couple came into work to set up a new account, it was revealed that they have different surnames. “Even though we’re really married,” the wife explained. “I know that’s weird in your country.” The husband smiled apologetically.

“No, actually! I have a different last name from my husband, too.”

Most of the time I try not to get into politics at work, especially with the customers. I’ve been told some of the nastiest, racist, sexist, homophobic things I’ve ever heard in my life while helping out the regulars, and since I can’t stick up for myself and my beliefs I usually try to keep things airy. But this, this surname thing, something that always sets the femosphere aflutter — I was not going to let this woman think it was a sign of non-commitment in the US to keep your birth name when married, even if many mega-corps can’t manage to keep a handle on it.

They both looked a little surprised as I continued to enter their account information into the system. After a pause the wife asked tentatively, “Was that your choice?”

“Yup!” I confirmed.

And then she squeeeed! a little and clapped her hands. I squeeeed! a little too on the inside. Feminism in teaspoons.

Who’s a “real woman” anyway?

How many times have you heard some idiot say something like, “man, I hate American chicks, might as well go to Thailand/El Salvador/Moldova, that’s where the REAL WOMEN are at.”

Now, we all know what he probably means here – women who are at a similar economic level are not submissive enough, and women who are not are “easier” to deal with. There’s also the fact that a certain woman’s upbringing may make her more “susceptible” to what the man perceives to be submissive status, or else give the appearance of such status.

That’s all pretty much clear, or so I think. What isn’t often clear is the motivation of the “submissive foreign woman” in question. Based on my experience, scenarios vary wildly. A lot of women consider the arrangement a step up, and will tell you to fuck off if you try to lecture them on who to marry and how to carry themselves.

Were you born outside of Donetsk to an emotionally sadistic mother who cleaned hotel rooms and slept with guests for extra cash? Did you have an alcoholic stepfather who tried to bash your face in with a wrench after you refused to blow him? Did your mother then kick you out of the house for “trying to steal [her] man”? If not, you’re probably not going to have a whole lot of authority in the eyes of the eighteen-year-old who just wants a nice, stable life with some aging paramour in Milwaukee.

Maybe she’ll be happy with him. Maybe not. Maybe she’ll wait for him to die, inherit all his money, get a young boyfriend, and do her thing without ever revealing whether or not she’s happy. Hell, I don’t know. But what’s usually true about relationships that spark up in this manner is that both parties enter into them while pursuing a certain ideal, and their expectations are adjusted accordingly when reality hits.

Sometimes this is positive. Sometimes it’s deadly.

Read More…Read More…

How about this? Don’t change your name.

confusedwoman.jpg

I previously posted this last week on my blog and on BlogHer. I had initially intended it to be my first Feministe post, but I then I found the CNN.com article, and I had to express myself immediately. If you haven’t read it already, then it’s new to you. 🙂

“Name change tricky for working women” [I guess the change is simpler for the lazy bums who can’t find a job?], at CNN.com/living [where the Women’s issues are shoved] via AngryBlackBitch.

Well before her wedding, Lauren Abraham decided she would take her husband’s last name, Mahoney.

First, she became Lauren Abraham Mahoney, then Lauren Mahoney, confusing her co-workers at Home Depot headquarters in Atlanta. The tedious legal process of switching her name took about nine months to complete.

Finally, more than a year after her wedding, the 29-year-old e-mailed 160 friends and acquaintances to alert them to a new e-mail account and clarify her identity.

“As I was meeting people over the last year with my new name, and I gave them my e-mail address, it was my old name, which they didn’t know,” she said.

Changing one’s surname after marriage is still more common than not for women, often because they hope it will make for fewer complications in the long run, when they have children.

Except for the fact that 1 out of every 2 married couples will get divorced, and the husband, the wife and the kids might all end up with different names.

Read More…Read More…

Why this queer isn’t celebrating

I’ll admit it: I couldn’t help but get a bit happy when I heard that California was legalizing same-sex marriage. And today, when I heard about the first couples in line to enjoy their new rights, couples like Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin who got married again after their 2004 marriage was declared invalid, my heart was kinda warmed. After all, politics aside, it’s beautiful to see people celebrate and commemorate their love, out in the open, and with a long-awaited sense of equality and societal recognition. It’s hard for me not to get a little bit sentimental and proud in the most rainbow-flag-waving sense of the word.

But it didn’t take long for that warmth to turn chill and that pride to shrivel up completely when I read this article from the LA Times:

The gay and lesbian couples who packed a Hollywood auditorium last week had come seeking information about California’s new marriage policies. But they also got some unsolicited advice.

Be aware.

Images from gay weddings, said Lorri L. Jean, chief executive of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, could be used by opponents in a campaign designed to convince California voters that gays and lesbians should not have the right to marry. Those getting married, she cautioned, should never lose sight of what they might be supplying the other side.

Sitting close to his husband-to-be in the audience, hairstylist Kendall Hamilton nodded and said he knew just what she meant. No “guys showing up in gowns,” he said.

The article goes on to discuss how “proponents of same-sex marriage are now taking care to emphasize mainstream unions.”

Many of the … early weddings around the state were also of long-term couples who could have been selected by central casting to appear both nonthreatening and mainstream.

And as the SF Gate reports, even the gay-marriage-themed window displays are being engineered to be as normative as possible:

In window one: two men on a wedding cake, one in a $6,000 Brioni tuxedo, the other in a $4,000 Belvest tux.

In window two: two women, one in a black Roberto Cavalli skirt tuxedo ($3,655) and the other in a $1,900 Catherine Regehr white dress.

“Describe them as straightforward,” [San Francisco clothier Wilkes] Bashford said. “I definitely did not want them to be camp.”

That’s right, folks: no camp here. No gender non-conformity, either. And definitely no guys in gowns.

Why? Because the marriage equality movement is largely predicated on the notion that us queers are just like “everyone else,” meaning mostly white, mostly middle-class or up, gender conforming monogamists. You know, the non-threatening queers. The rest of us should apparently find a nice closet to go hide in for a while, lest we threaten the rights that are apparently meant for the more upstanding, respectable members of the LGsomeotherlessimportantletters community.

Read More…Read More…

Love is…

gay_marriage_lg.jpg

Phyllis Lyon (left) and Del Martin, lesbian activists who have been together for 51 years, embrace after their marriage ceremony at San Francisco City Hall.

That picture is from 2004, when Lyon and Martin were illegally married by San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom. Today at 5:01pm, they will be the first same-sex couple to be legally married in the state of California.

Congratulations to them, and to all the other couples today and hereafter who will be afforded the basic right to marry the person they love, regardless of gender.

California Love

gay_7.jpg

Way to go, California — today is the big day:

SAN FRANCISCO—It is either the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end, depending on your point of view. After weeks of preparation—and for many couples, years of waiting—at 5:01 p.m. today, at the close of business, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom will preside over the wedding ceremony of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, a lesbian couple who have been partners more than 50 years. When they exchange vows, Martin, 87, and Lyon, 83, who have been together since they moved into a Castro Street apartment on Valentine’s Day in 1953, will become the first same-sex couple to be legally married in the state.

It’s a good day.

And it’s pathetic that religious fundamentalists have nothing better to do than torment two women who have been together since the 1950s, and try to strip rights away from all the other average people in this country who are only looking to marry the person they love.

But today, congratulations, California. You done good.

The feminists were right

Socialized gender differences are bad for marriage:

Notably, same-sex relationships, whether between men or women, were far more egalitarian than heterosexual ones. In heterosexual couples, women did far more of the housework; men were more likely to have the financial responsibility; and men were more likely to initiate sex, while women were more likely to refuse it or to start a conversation about problems in the relationship. With same-sex couples, of course, none of these dichotomies were possible, and the partners tended to share the burdens far more equally.

While the gay and lesbian couples had about the same rate of conflict as the heterosexual ones, they appeared to have more relationship satisfaction, suggesting that the inequality of opposite-sex relationships can take a toll.

“Heterosexual married women live with a lot of anger about having to do the tasks not only in the house but in the relationship,” said Esther D. Rothblum, a professor of women’s studies at San Diego State University. “That’s very different than what same-sex couples and heterosexual men live with.”

But there is hope — it just requires dropping gender-essentialist ideas:

The findings suggest that heterosexual couples need to work harder to seek perspective. The ability to see the other person’s point of view appears to be more automatic in same-sex couples, but research shows that heterosexuals who can relate to their partner’s concerns and who are skilled at defusing arguments also have stronger relationships.

One of the most common stereotypes in heterosexual marriages is the “demand-withdraw” interaction, in which the woman tends to be unhappy and to make demands for change, while the man reacts by withdrawing from the conflict. But some surprising new research shows that same-sex couples also exhibit the pattern, contradicting the notion that the behavior is rooted in gender, according to an abstract presented at the 2006 meeting of the Association for Psychological Science by Sarah R. Holley, a psychology researcher at Berkeley.

Dr. Levenson says this is good news for all couples.

“Like everybody else, I thought this was male behavior and female behavior, but it’s not,” he said. “That means there is a lot more hope that you can do something about it.”