Her Obligation, His Choice: Raising the Kids

"It doesn't make sense that only women are saying 'How can I combine career and family?'"

I heard Gloria Steinem say this in an interview today. First of all, I would love for her to be the next President. Just saying. She's awesome.

But anyway, this is such a great statement. Today we still don't think of men as responsible for childcare. Yes, there are more men choosing to stay home with the kids, but pay attention to the key word: choosing. For many women, staying home is not a choice. It's a practicality and an assumption; daycare is too expensive, so someone has to stay home, and many families assume that someone will be the mother.

Recently, having a conversation with a soon-to-married friend of mine, he was joking around about his future wife staying home with the kids. I asked him, "Well why don't you take the time off and stay with the kids?" He said "Done! That would be awesome!" He made it sound like a vacation, something exciting. And yes, many people love, love, love, staying home to raise the kids, and I'm not knocking it, but no one who has done it would say it is easy. It is difficult, exhausting, all-day unpaid work. And while men may see this (before they do it) as a vacation from work, a year off, a choice they can make or not, too many women deal with it as work, as an obligation, as a choice they didn't get to make.

My mom often talks about what it was like for her when she and my dad were still married. He helped with us a lot; she often had friends mention how impressed they were with his involvement. But he always expected to be thanked. This shows that he fell into the same trap of thinking that raising the kids was just women's work. She was expected to do it; if he deigned to do it, he should be rewarded. Her obligation, his choice.

I don't mean to say that this makes my dad a bad father or anything like that. This is just a personal example of how these cultural assumptions really affect our personal lives. We have to stop seeing stay-at-home dads as these wonderful, self-sacrificing people who are giving up on a (masculine) career to be a (feminine) stay-at-home parent. Or rather, we should start seeing all stay-at-home moms as the wonderful, self-sacrificing people who are giving up on a career to do very real work at home with their children. All stay-at-home parents are sacrificing a portion of their lives for their children, and they all deserve equal credit. 

Penises don't make men better parents; they shouldn't get them more praise either.

The. Most. Important. Day: "It's My Day!" Part Two

 In August, I wrote a post about my problems with the cultural traditions surrounding the modern wedding, and the traditions of it being "the bride's day" and all that. I discussed the problem with all the focus on one person (the bride) instead of on the partnership of two people.

Last night, I had a bit of a revelation about this. Now, I don't remember exactly how my train of thought got there; I was out at the bar with some friends, one of whom is engaged and was talking about the planning of his wedding. I was thinking, as I so often do, about my plan to skip the whole wedding tradition and just go to city hall with whomever I choose to marry, and throw a big party later for all of our friends. And a thought crossed through my mind (I admit, I had been drinking wine, so the exact thought escapes me) that went something like this: Do I really want the most important day of my life to happen in city hall with just a few witnesses?


That's when I got it. The attitude of "It's My Day," the thinking of a woman needing one day to feel like a princess, to feel like the most important woman in the room, all stems back to the idea that for women, your wedding is supposed to be The. Most. Important. Day. Of. Your. Life. This idea is ingrained into us girls and women by our culture and the people around us.

Well, pardon me, but fuck that! I have had, and will have, a lot of important days in my life. Graduating college? Yeah. Getting promoted from intern to managing editor? Awesome! Night I met my current boyfriend? Pretty good, too.

Of course, a lot of this stems back to a time when a wedding was the most important day of a woman's life, because it meant financial security and status. And while we all love to say we've moved on, these assumptions and beliefs still follow us around. How many movies have we seen where the woman who is "always a bridesmaid but never a bride" is sad and lonely? She may have a great job, she may have great friends and a social life, she may be (probably is) super hot (Hollywood-standards hot, of course) but she is not married, so she must be incomplete and inferior. (This is one thing I liked in the movie Bridesmaids; sure, Annie's lack of a relationship is part of her sadness, but most of it stems from her failings in her career; she's not trying to get married, she's just trying to get her life together.)

And, again, the focus on it being the most important day for a woman, and for a relationship, takes the focus away from the partnership. Recently, my boyfriend pointed out that he thinks the way wedding anniversaries are counted is weird. "Why do they start over at the wedding? Does the relationship before the wedding, the months and years together before that one day, not count anymore?" It's an interesting thought. I do get the wedding anniversary thing; it's the date that you officially started a life together, and made that commitment to stay together and move forward as a pair. But it's interesting to think about, especially when so many relationships blur those lines these days. Some people talk about getting married way before they are officially engaged. Some live together for years before walking down the aisle. Some have children before getting married. The traditional way of counting the "years together" may not fit many relationships anymore. And the wedding may or may not be, or feel like, the most important milestone anymore. I can certainly imagine that after living with someone for months or years, the wedding/marriage may feel more like tying up loose ends and bringing everything together than embarking on a huge new step.

So with all this cultural change and blurring of the lines toward commitment, why is there still such a focus on the bride's day as the biggest day of her life? Is it because we haven't caught up to the changes in women's lives? Is it because the larger culture refuses to accept that some women have more important plans and milestones in their lives than marriage?

What do you think?

Practice Makes...Pathetic?

"I was shaking my head no when I pulled the vibrator from the envelope...It wasn't just the vibrator and thinking of my mother masturbating that upset me, but also that my mother's boyfriend had stopped sleeping with her and that no amount of love I gave her could equal what was in my hand."  Lisa Glatt, A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That, p. 120.

First of all, I would like to say that I am currently reading A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That and loving it. My post, which you will soon find out if you haven't assumed already is dealing with my problems with the quote above, has nothing to do with my feelings on the book. I think it's great; I just had such a problem with the sentences above that I had to stop and write about it.

When I read the section quoted above, I stopped cold, and I was a little angry. Why does the author (or character, perhaps) assume that a woman ordering a vibrator is lonely and not getting sex? It makes me sad that our culture has painted masturbation as something that only lonely people do.

Masturbation is not a sad, lonely, pathetic substitute; it's not the opposite of a sex life. Masturbation is a healthy part of a sex life. It's a supplement. Your partner is not in the mood but you are? Masturbate. Partner out of town? Masturbate. Partner not in the mood yet but wants to please you? Masturbate and let them watch. And in the same way, owning a vibrator/dildo does not mean that said owner is not getting any sex. Vibrators can be used for solo or partner time.

Now, I understand that the author could be using the vibrator scene to paint a larger picture in her novel. I won't ruin anything (I can't spoil too much, I'm not finished with the book yet) but the woman/mother who ordered the vibrator is dealing with cancer and cancer treatments such as chemo and radiation. So maybe the vibrator is supposed to symbolize her isolation from other (healthy) people, whether self-imposed or not, and her daughter's inability to understand what she's going through. I get it, and I'm not saying the author should have done anything differently. What I am saying is that it's interesting (and sad, and sex-negative, and woman-negative) that we are supposed to see this vibrator, this wonderful tool for a woman's pleasure without needing a partner, and see it as something sad, lonely, something heartbreaking. Are we supposed to feel sorry for her? I think maybe so...

I remember the scene in Parenthood when Steve Martin accidentally finds his sister's vibrator, his divorced, single, lonely sister, and bursts out laughing while she is mortified. No one else in the film mentions sex toys or masturbation aids. Why? Because people (according to our culture) in relationships don't need to masturbate. If you're in a relationship you must be getting ALL the sex you need/want exactly when you need/want it.

This is not reality. And it truly can cause real-life problems. I was amazed the first time my boyfriend turned me down for sex. I couldn't believe that he, a male human, didn't want sex every time it was offered. And I was hurt when he suggested I masturbate (which I had never done) because I thought it meant that I was pathetic and lonely. It's just not true. Most women who masturbate have more orgasms when they do have partner sex. Why?

Practice makes perfect.

I just wish our culture could accept that.

Stop Acting So Crazy!

Today, a friend or two on Facebook posted this article on their wall, and I immediately needed to share it. This is an article written by a man explaining how men in our society have been socialized to treat women's normal emotions (anger, frustration, sadness, etc.) as "crazy" and "irrational," you know, because emotions are just so feminine. Since the article is titled "A Message to Women From A Man: You Are Not 'Crazy,' " you can guess where the author's opinions lie.

This article is so refreshing! It's really great to see a man understanding, and speaking out about, the deeply ingrained misogyny in our society (and though I know it happens, I still love seeing a man openly identifying as a feminist). Many men (though I am not saying all), even those who see themselves as progressive and forward-thinking, tend to fall back on this kind of reaction to women's emotions.



Men and women have been socialized to feel and express emotion totally different.** Women are taught to be passive, more in touch with their "feminine" emotions and their expressions (like feeling sad and then crying) while men are taught to "man up" and express as little emotion as possible. So it makes sense that men see women's emotional reactions as abnormal or different (just like when women don't understand men's seeming lack of emotion). Any one man by himself is not at fault for not understanding a woman's emotions at any given time.

The problem really comes in with the way our culture created and reinforces the idea that women's reactions are not just different from men's, but "crazy" and "irrational." How many movies have you seen where a man discusses his "crazy" ex-girlfriend who constantly "freaked" out about nothing? This stereotype associates natural emotion with mental illness, instability, and illogical thinking. It's a terrible way to think about the women of the world (and a terrible stereotype that undermines and ignores the many, many people of the world who have mental illness and can cope and lead stable lives).

I would write more about this, but honestly, the article that inspired this post is written so well, I really suggest you read it in its entirety. However, don't read the comments after; surprise, surprise, they are filled with misogynist reactions attempting to undermine the author's piece.



**I would just like to point out that when I discuss men's emotions and women's emotions as categories, I am talking about two things: 1. the way these gender groups are socialized to feel and express emotions and 2. the way that members of each of these gender groups tend to express emotions. I recognize that every person feels and expresses emotion differently, and many people may not fit solidly into one, or either, of these categories. I am simply using the categories as they are used in society to reinforce these stereotypes.



Update: Just discovered this follow-up to the original article. Here he specifically responds to the misogynistic comments the first post received. I love it!! I think I'm gonna start following this blog.

"It's My Day!": Weddings and Sexism

I have several problems with the cultural traditions and ideas surrounding weddings. I have a problem, as I've said in a post before, with engagement rings and the expectations of spending a specific, certain amount of money on them. I have a problem with the idea that a wedding has to be perfect (marriage sure as hell isn't going to be perfect; why should the wedding?). And I especially have a problem with the idea that the wedding is the bride's day, no matter what.

This bothers me on several levels. For one, women use the "my day" excuse to lose control, boss people around and stress everyone (themselves included) out. The first year of marriage is stressful. A wedding is stressful. By going into all of this with the belief that "It's my day and it must be perfect," is just adding more stress, plus the inevitability of something failing. Now, I'm not saying that all women turn into bridezillas; of course they don't. But I am saying that with our culture telling us it's OK to expect everyone to fall over backwards for us in order to achieve perfection, we are telling women that bridezilla-like behavior is acceptable when they are getting married.

But the idea that a wedding is the bride's day bothers me even more because it focuses on one person.
Forget for a moment the assumption that a wedding is a fairy tale princess day for every woman. Forget that it's about flowers, decorations, food, a band, and everything else. It is a wedding. At its most basic, it is a ceremony to celebrate a marriage. And a marriage simply can not happen with just a bride. You need a groom (or another bride, or two grooms, etc.). It is about the joining of two people. It's about the start of a journey, the start of a life. The wedding is not the culmination of months of planning, spending, crying, etc.; the wedding is the beginning.

So where is the groom in all of this? Why is it all about the bride? Because she's wearing a pretty dress that she'll never wear again? Because women are supposed to be emotionally excited about marriage and men aren't? In the same way that these cultural assumptions allow women to take on the ridiculous behavior of a bridezilla, they allow men to play the role of uninterested, aloof bachelors counting down the last days of their freedom. Until recently, I thought that the story of a groom showing up still drunk from the bachelor night at the strip club was just a movie plot device; not so! A woman I know recently told me about her wedding and that is exactly what happened! I couldn't believe this was real (and I couldn't believe she still married him, but I didn't say that out loud...). Why is it okay for men to care so little about this ceremony that women are supposed to care so much about (and why must women care so much when men get to care so little)? We, as a society, tell men that weddings and marriage are not something they need to be concerned with; if anything, it's something they have to put up with.

A lot of this ties back into gender assumptions that we have about men and women. We expect women to be faithful to one person; we tend to expect less from men, and therefore simply roll our eyes when men go off to strip clubs or to sleep with someone else before getting married. "Boys will be boys" our culture tells us. Meanwhile, the women are supposed to be dealing with flowers and dresses and cakes; you know, because that's what women love to do, and are good at. I, for one, can not imagine entering into a lifelong commitment to a person with these divisions from the very beginning. Marriage is supposed to be a partnership. Marriages are about people vowing to support each other. Marriage is not about boys being boys, or women being bitchy micro-managers. But this, as far as I can tell, is what our culture has made weddings into. With TV shows like Say Yes to the Dress and other wedding reality television, we are telling people that this is what they should aspire to when they find someone they love.

I don't know about you, but when I'm ready to commit to a marriage with one person for the rest of my life, I expect a little more.

Sharing Some Links

OK So I hope to do a new post in a couple of days, but until then, here are some links to articles and/or videos that I've found interesting in the past couple of days. Some of them are more recent than others, but they're all new to me, so they may be new to you too! Enjoy!

I just recently discovered the blog Sociological Images and I really enjoyed this blog post on excusing violence in TV and film.

The Daily Show never disappoints (at least in the episodes and/or video clips that I've seen) to humorously explain all the horrible problems in our society. Here's a satirical video on the No Taxpayer Fund for Abortion Bill.

I really enjoyed this blog post on the Ms. website about the cultural assumptions surrounding women and cooking.

I found an appalling story, also featured on Ms.'s blog, about a news reporter who was raped. The writer believes that she should have never been out covering a story in a dangerous area to begin with, because she's a woman and a mother. The post covers the cultural assumptions about women and motherhood.


I just found this post on feminism and motherhood that's really interesting. Can one be a feminist and a mother? Read it to find out...but yes, of course you can.

I may add more links to this as I continue to surf the net instead of working on either one of my final papers.