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

Category: Marriage

The Non-Case Against Gay Parenting

By now you’ve probably seen the right-wing-funded study that says the children of gay parents fare far worse than the children of straight parents. And hopefully you’ve also seen that the study’s methodology was so sloppy that by its terms, Ted Haggard is a “gay dad.” But one thing I haven’t seen discussed is how the results of this study — even assuming it were accurate, which it’s not — should influence same-sex marriage rights litigation. The answer: It shouldn’t. I explain why in the Guardian. A taste:

Congrats, Washington!

My home state does good.

Washington appeared almost certain to become the seventh state to allow same-sex marriage after the State Senate voted late Wednesday for a measure that would allow gay and lesbian couples to marry beginning this summer.

Daughter of the Patriarchy: Admissions

“When I was your age, my parents wouldn’t send me to college,” my mother was telling me. “I had to work my way through on my own. I don’t want you to have to stop. I will do everything I can to help you keep going to school. Your education is the most important thing to me.”

We stood in the kitchen, a printed letter lying on the counter between us. It was not good news.

I glanced up at my mother with a strained smile. I knew that if wishes could be cashed at the bank, I’d be writing my admissions essay to an ivy-coated castle. Instead, I was trying to find a way to pay the bill from my last semester of community college in time to register for fall classes. It was already August.

Fall Into the [Reverse Gender] Gap

This is a guest post by Jessica Mack.

One of the concepts that I hope fades out as we enter 2012 – along with flash mobs and marshmallow vodka – is the “reverse gender gap.” Somehow, in the American obsession with doom and gloom, small but important gains for women have become a reason to worry. They’ve become a reason to claim that the gender gap is not just closing, but – worse – it’s reversing.

Sex & Marriage

In the epic breastfeeding thread below, someone brought up another Dear Prudie letter from Tuesday’s column, so let’s discuss:

Sex Is a stumbling block: My wife and I have been together for eight years. We regularly had sex until three years ago, when we got married. Almost immediately after we were married, my wife told me that we couldn’t have sex anymore as she entered therapy for abuse that her father committed to her when she was a child. I’m confused, hurt, and feel that she was less than honest entering into our relationship; it seems as though she hid this until we were lawfully wed and then it was too late for me to back out. I’ve tried to be supportive for the last three years … I’ve respected her request for abstaining from sex and physical intimacy, but although she has regular therapy and the therapist says she’s progressing, I see no end to this situation or any signs of improvement. Am I wrong to question whether this marriage is worth it or not?

A: I hope you’ve had some serious talks these past three years about why she wanted to marry you, why she withheld this crucial information, and what she feels her obligations to this marriage are. It’s terrible that your wife was abused by her father (let’s assume that is true), but she has pulled quite a switcheroo on you. As soon as you became her husband, she decided to punish you for the sins of her father. That therapist has quite a nice sinecure going: three years of payments and no end in sight since there seems to be no clear goal for this treatment. It sounds as if they’ve got you so brainwashed that you feel you’re not allowed to state that you had no intention of entering a celebate marriage and your needs are not being considered or met. I think you should insist on a joint session with the therapist, or a few sessions with a couples therapist, just to try to figure out if resuming conjugal relations is even on your wife’s agenda. If nothing changes in short order, I think the most helpful professional for you will be a divorce lawyer.

So some of Prudie’s advice is totally jacked — like insinuating that the wife might be lying about the abuse, or that she’s pulling a “switcheroo,” or that she’s punishing her husband for the sins of her father. I agree with her that ideally, the wife would have been upfront about this before these two decided to get married — sex, for a lot of people, is a Big Deal, and a necessary part of marriage, and if you are going to withhold sex upon getting married, I think you do have an obligation to tell your partner that, so that your partner can decide whether or not to continue the relationship. And since ending a marriage is much more complex than ending a non-marital relationship, best-case scenario is that you put potential deal-breakers on the table before you tie the knot. So yes, I actually do think it was kind of shitty of the wife to not bring up the whole “I’m going to want to stop having sex” thing before they got married.

That said, of course, we don’t know if that decision was even contemplated before marriage — maybe it wasn’t. And as circumstances change, so do feelings and needs. She has a right to not have sex if she doesn’t want to. That doesn’t make her manipulative or mean.

But I think where Prudie is right on this one is that it’s messed up that the husband doesn’t get to address his own needs. Does the husband have a right to demand sex from his wife? No. Does he have a right to coerce or guilt her into sex? No. But does he have a right to decide that he does not want to be in a celibate marriage, and to present that fact to his wife, and then to leave the marriage? Yes, he does, and he’s not a bad or selfish or unreasonable person for wanting a marriage that includes sex. And does she have the right to evaluate that information in deciding how she wants to proceed? Yes, she does.

Red Flags

Why am I watching “Kim’s Fairytale Wedding,” about Kim Kardashian’s nuptials? I don’t know. Why do I even know who Kim Kardashian is? No idea. And yet here we are. And *SPOILER* Kim’s husband (who is some basketball player, I think? Unclear, I’m not watching that closely) wants her to change her name, and she says ok, and then she says wait I am Kim Fucking Kardashian and my name is a brand so maybe not? and then he acts like a big whiny titty-baby. But then Kim’s dad isn’t alive anymore, and Kim is sad he’s not there, and so her husband is like Well I guess it’s cool if she keeps her name because it was her dad’s and it’s one thing she can have of his.

So, look: I actually do have a fundamental problem with the expectation that women change their names. Yes, I know we all choose our choice and blah blah, but I think it’s really fucked up that it’s really only a “choice” that’s offered to women and that there’s so much pressure about “tradition” and “family” and unspoken expectations that you’re Really Committed and Really Love Your Husband, and that in 2011 the whole concept of marriage still involves dissolving your own identity into your husband’s. I am not going to pretend that I am a fan of the name-change. I am not even going to pretend that I don’t get a tiny bit internally judgy, or at least frustrated, when I scroll through my facebook feed and see all of these names I don’t recognize. But also — and this is not a new observation — we all make compromises in our lives, and we all do the best we can against the very strong tide of social norms, and a lot of really unfeminist social norms can also make us feel good, as name-changing reportedly does for some reason (something I honestly don’t comprehend, but people are different). Some battles aren’t worth fighting, and some people tie a lot to tradition even if those traditions are totally fucked up, so ok. I mean, my feet are all fucked up from years of wearing high heels and I continue to wear them anyway, so, glass houses and whatnot.

But you know what is a huge red flag? If your fiance pitches a fit about you hesitating to change your name. Actually, I think it’s a pretty big red flag if your fiance pressures you in any way to change your name. Having a discussion is one thing; having him be like, “You should take my name” and then getting salty if you push back is kind of a dick move. And I know, I know, I just called a whole lot of dudes dicks on the internet, so cue comment blow-up about how maybe all of these dudes are just really nice guys who want a family unit and tradition and and and and. Fine. If a dude pressures you to take his name, suggest he take your name and watch him literally laugh in your face. A dude who wants you to subvert your own identity for his because you are The Lady is probably not the most woman-friendly dude, you know?