Feminism Keeps My Marriage Together - 3/26/08

[Smartmarriages]

Feminism Keeps My Marriage Together
AlterNet.com
By Christie Church, Girlistic Magazine
March 26, 2008 

We talk about updating our technology (internet, YouTube, web optimizing) to
reach today's couples.  Read this to update and reorient our heads to better
understand the next generation of 21st Century couples. We should invite
Christie Church to present a keynote - or at least, a workshop.  I'd sure
like to track this couple - and wish I could give them a marriage education
course to help insure their success. Have to be pulling for them - these
marriages of the future.  What's great is that our marriage education models
are egalitarian - are based on the theory that both men and women can and
must do the work of creating team marriages and of becoming masters of
marriage....marriages that can thrive in today's more egalitarian context.
Also, after reading, visit the site to leave a comment. I tried to
congratulate her on her helpful insights but I'm too technically
challenged....couldn't get registered.  Auuugh.    - diane

> Patrick has taught me a lot about feminism by being my husband. . . on the eve
> of our second anniversary, my husband and I credit feminism with keeping our
> marriage together. . . We didn't live in a vacuum, and we never could. . . .
> Just as sexism tells women that they must fit a very narrow mold, it tells men
> the same thing. 

When it comes to heterosexual marriage, feminism gets blamed for everything
from the divorce rate to declining birth rates, or even in the case of Ted
Haggard, meth addiction and secret gay affairs. Feminism is, after all, the
movement that teaches women to leave husbands, kill children, and become
capitalist-destroyin', witchcraft lovin' lesbians (thanks Pat Robertson!).
But on the eve of our second anniversary, my husband and I credit feminism
with keeping our marriage together.

Many second-wave feminists argue that no matter how many gains feminism
makes, it should never cease to be taught, because the younger generations
will be stunned powerless in the face of unexpected sexism without having
feminist education to help put that sexism into context. Thanks to my
marriage, I know this to be true. Patrick and I considered ourselves equal
partners, but not necessarily feminists. One night while folding laundry,
we, two equal partners decided to get married.

We got engaged for all the reasons that very young 20-somethings do -- we
wanted a public declaration of commitment, we hoped we would be together
forever, we were straight and it never occurred to us to do anything else,
and we were a little bit crazy. From that moment on, sexism smacked us in
the face at every turn.

We didn't want an engagement ring, as we felt it was a one-sided gesture
based on a tradition involving the man proving his financial worth to the
woman he would take care of. We did, however, buy each other some badass
high-top sneakers. At first were thrilled. We were counterculture. But I
became less thrilled when the same script played out with nearly every
person I knew.

"You're engaged? Congratulations! Where's the ring?"

"Oh, we didn't want one."

"You poor thing. He'll buy you one soon."

"No, I didn't want one. We bought each other these rad sneakers, though. We
thought it would be more equal. I wanted him to have something too."

"Well, he'll come around. How did he propose?"

"He didn't. We just had a discussion. That's really our style."

"He didn't get on one knee or plan a big surprise?"

"Nope. Hey, don't you know us? I hate surprises and he sucks at keeping
secrets. And I've never really appreciated the knee thing."

"Oh, honey. You really shouldn't settle for this. I'm sure he'll buy you a
nice diamond if you just drop some hints. You deserve better that this."

This what? This equality?

The overwhelming majority of romantic traditions are deeply rooted in sexism
and any deviation from those traditions left me pitied and questioning my
own value. Sure Patrick and I thought that sexist traditions were stupid,
but if he didn't offer me sexist traditions, how else could he show me that
he really did love me? What else was there? I had always known that I wanted
to keep my name if I got married, but suddenly I was pretty pissed that
Patrick was OK with this. "Why aren't you upset that I won't share your
name? Why doesn't this bother you like everyone keeps telling me it will? Oh
my god, you don't want to marry me, do you? If you wanted to marry me, you'd
be insisting that I keep your name! Everyone told me so!"

We had a lot of confusing, bitter arguments. Patrick couldn't understand why
we couldn't just make decisions in a vacuum. Surely if he and I wanted
things one way, then all the other ways shouldn't matter. I couldn't
understand why there was so much dissonance between what we wanted and what
family, friends, magazines, and seemingly the rest of the country told me to
expect -- and why it all made me feel awful. I felt guilty for letting
Patrick do most of the wedding planning, even though he loved designing
invitations, buying decorations and all the other artsy aspects that bored
me silly. I felt guilty for not having an aisle.

I felt guilty for not stressing out enough over the wedding itself; I simply
didn't do anything that I didn't want to, and it seemed to close me off to
bonding with other women who were always asking if I was "going crazy yet"
(I was, but it had nothing to do with reception menus). I felt guilty for
making decisions, because someone was bound to say, "Hey, look out for
Bridezilla!" I felt guilty just for buying a wedding band after the jeweler
saw us walk into the shop and said to Patrick, "Poor guy. I know this is the
last place you want to be right now. Well, let's make her happy and then you
can leave."

Looking back, it's a wonder we even got married. I wish that I had the
language of feminism back then, to understand how we are all socialized to
see marriage as a woman's prize for being appropriately attractive and wily,
and how men are offered no part in it except as reluctant, defeated lumps
following behind. But the wedding was just the beginning.

As a wife, thanks to popular culture, well-meaning friends and family, and
generations of sexist baggage, I was convinced that I had to be constantly
capable. Growing up in my family, the women handled all the cooking,
cleaning, event planning and what we call "friend maintenance" (making
plans, returning calls, sending cards, etc.). The men didn't dare handle any
of that because everyone knew they would screw it up.

If television has taught us anything, it's that men in the kitchen produce
inedible meals and explosions. Men with mops will ignore piles of visible
dirt. Best to leave the details to women, who are innately suited to the
more mind-numbing elements of daily life. I tried to do it all, plus pet
care, paying the bills on schedule, and keeping track of birthdays and big
events in both our families.

The more I controlled Patrick's life as well as mine, the better I convinced
myself I was good at marriage -- and the culture at large reinforced that.
Sometimes I told myself that it was better this way, because if we tried to
split chores 50-50, then Patrick wouldn't do things as well as I did. But I
was kidding myself. Patrick was a great cook and an OK housekeeper. If we
would abandon the idea that men don't or can't clean, he would learn to do
things well, just as I had learned them.

Marilyn French once said that with feminism, "it always comes down to the
damn dishes." In my house, it came down to sex. I wanted it constantly. He
didn't. When the tables are turned and a woman has a lower drive, it's
natural. It's expected. When a woman wants more sex and isn't getting it,
then something is badly wrong. She must be gaining weight. She must be ugly.
Because as we all know, men are simply walking penises who want sex all the
time. A woman who can't convince him to have it with her must be doing
something wrong. Or there's a deeper issue at heart, as a friend said when I
complained to her that our drives just weren't synching up. "Do you think he
could be gay?" she asked, quite seriously. At this time, we were having sex
about twice a week. "Still," my friend said. "What kind of a man turns down
sex?"

For me, that's when things began to change. What kind of a man was Patrick,
to be an independent, thinking, feeling, capable person, when everything in
the world was giving him marching orders to be something completely
different? What kind of woman was I to do the same? We always had been
individuals who valued equality, but we were gradually beginning to see the
impact and influence of sexism on our lives. We didn't live in a vacuum, and
we never could. The day we began to acknowledge sexism, instead of
pretending that it didn't exist, was the day we started to treat each other
like adults.

Patrick has taught me a lot about feminism by being my husband. I've learned
that patriarchy hurts men, too. While I was feeling guilty for anything and
everything I did, he was beating himself up over his salary and benefits,
his lower sex drive, and his own struggles with anxiety and lack of
confidence -- emotions that men aren't supposed to have, much less express
to their partners. He was chafing under the idea that he wasn't smart enough
to manage his own daily life, and he was insulted by the implication that he
was so governed by his penis that he would cede all control to it at the
prospect of sex.

Just as sexism tells women that they must fit a very narrow mold, it tells
men the same thing. Any attempt to simply be yourself is met with derision
and disapproval, even from supposedly equal partners who expect you to act
as they've been told "all" men do. Intimacy just isn't possible under
patriarchy. You don't see your partner or even yourself as a real person,
but instead you see through the lens of gender expectations, through which
deviation is confusing at best and threatening at worst. You suppress every
scary impulse -- whether nonmonogamy, demanding equal effort on chores or
relationship issues, or simply slumming it all weekend -- lest you upset the
security of living under those expectations. Maybe that works for some
people. But at 23 and 25, we hope to have a lot of years of marriage ahead,
and we'd rather just relax and be real. There is enormous security that
comes from knowing that your partner respects you enough to handle what you
dish out, and vice versa.

These days, we're both feminists. In feminism, we've found a language to
describe the challenges inherent to being multifaceted, complex people in a
society that reduces us to pink and blue, and we've found alternatives to
buying into that society. Being heterosexual has afforded us many
privileges, but it also has allowed us plenty of opportunities to challenge
assumptions about what heterosexual marriage should be. This summer, I'll be
enrolling in full-time law school while Patrick takes over all of the
household responsibilities. Eventually, Patrick would like to take some time
off work to focus on writing. We've even discussed living apart for travel
and internship opportunities.

Whatever we do, I'm confident that it won't be motivated by the guilt that
drove the early part of our relationship. While our marriage may not look
like the ones we knew growing up, it works for us. We married a friend, but
we got an ally.

© 2008 Girlistic Magazine
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/80417/


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