Being Married

So, VOMD and I have been married for precisely 30 days, and I have to say that we are officially marriage experts who have it ALL figured out...

Maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration.

There is this myth that the media shows us that marriage is the happily ever after, the end of the line, the happy ending, the conclusion. But once you get married you quickly begin to realize that marriage is just the beginning of a whole new story that comes with its own trials and tribulations. VOMD and I are working to become better partners, more supportive of one another, more open to each other's views and opinions, and hopes and dreams. But being married didn't magically make us experts.

So, here are some lessons that I've learned since getting married.

1. Things that you (or your partner) did to one another before you were married, and things that you said will be excused by the statement "yeah, but we weren't married yet back then". This can be very frustrating on the receiving end.

2. You will not suddenly become comfortable with your partner's bodily functions, but they may feel like you should be and leave the door open while pooping in the morning or suggest that you pee while they brush their teeth.

3. You will not stop fighting, but half way through a fight it will not be uncommon to start thinking to yourself why the hell are we fighting? this is so stupid...I should just say sorry....we're married after all.. That being said, thinking that and actually saying it and ending the fight are two different stories.

4. The things that you got as wedding gifts may become sacred objects...and putting those nice shiny forks and knives in the dishwasher, or leaving the coffee grinds in the coffee pot become taboo.

5. Conversations about the future stop being magical and become pragmatic - you can no longer casually suggest that you may want to live on the other side of the world for a year without expecting a long and drawn out discussion of the implications and practicability of that proposition.

6. Really mundane things like watching your partner cook, clean or cuddle your animal friends become incredibly sexy in a way they never were before. Perhaps this is because your biological clock is ticking and you link these activities with their potential ability to be a good parent...

7. EVERYONE will begin asking you when you're going to have babies. Even if you want babies, like VOMD and I, it can become incredibly frustrating.


Altogether, being married has so far been a great experience. I love VOMD more with every day, and in totally new and unexpected ways. I am learning to love the things about him that I would have liked to change before we got married - like his insistence on taking his pants off in the hallway, or his unwillingness to put the toilet seat down because, in his words "it's not my responsibility to make sure you don't fall in the toilet when you get up to pee in the middle of the night"!

Happy Monday,

J

Why I don't mind that my husband is not a feminist

The problem with being a feminist is that everyone seems to have an opinion about what being a feminist entails. When a contemporary feminist icon like Nikki Minaj tries to distances herself from feminism, while maintaining that she is a “woman who wants other women to be bosses and to be strong and to be go-getters,” feminism becomes murky water indeed.  Groups like Women Against Men claiming that feminism is a hate group, an idea that unfortunately permeates much of society, doesn’t help either.

An article in the Huff last year, by Hannah McAtenmey, claims “There is no sitting on the fence. You are either a feminist or sexist.” This is a such an unfortunate perspective because it potentially alienates a large proportion of people, who will likely never call themselves feminists, yet are strong advocates for the rights of women. I’m no coward, but I do believe that you can be a feminist in some circles and an advocate of equality in others. And I also believe that being a non-feminist does not make you a sexist. There are very legitimate reasons to take issue with feminism - particularly the white middle class feminism for which people like McAtenmey advocate.

When I first met my husband we had some very complicated discussions about the concept of feminism. He asked me “if it really is about equality of the sexes, why is is called feminism?” His question would have been a very good one, were we not living  in a society that is still struggling to overcome the historical baggage of female subjugation, and were we not living in a society where men and women are still so far from being equal. Recently he mentioned to me that he learned that the wage gap between men and women is a startling 27%. This is not so startling to a woman in academia, who is constantly struggling for legitimacy among her largely male colleagues, but being a man who has worked in the trades for most of his life, where most people start off with the same wage, and female applicants are uncommon, women and men making different rates for the same work never crossed his mind. Now he is heading into a degree in computer game development, and he is for the first time being faced with questions of inequity and inequality in the workplace and in academics. This is how feminists are made. But it is very unlikely that my husband will ever call himself a feminist. Like Minaj says, some words just “box you in”, and try as I might, I will probably never convince my husband to embrace the term. But the concepts, those are easy to grasp once you do some research, and once you give the facts some genuine thought.  

I do not wish to distance myself from feminism, and in fact will continue to proudly associate myself with a movement that seeks equality for all people, regardless of gender, ethnicity, and class. But as an intersectional feminist I have begun to recognize that the term feminism may also carry with it a lot of cultural baggage from the Western World, and there are many strong female writers from across the globe who decline to associate themselves with feminism largely because they feel the term erases their particular struggles.  

For example, Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta says: “I will not be called a feminist...because it is European. It is as simple as that… I do believe in the African type of feminism. They call is womanism…” What Emecheta is trying to explain is that Western Europeans and North Americans do not share the same experiences of women from Africa. Our experiences are not universal, so the words that we use to describe our struggles may not be universal either.

As Western feminists we can have a tendency to think our values are universal. We can get bogged down in our own experience of the world. Whether we do this by claiming that any person who is not a feminist is a sexist, or by insisting that women in Africa care about the same struggles as us, we are creating a situation that alienates our potential allies.

Does it weaken the movement that a large proportion of the ‘feministic’ population will likely never call themselves feminists? I don’t think so. Whether you call yourself a feminist or not, if you believe that women should be raised up in our society, and that there are certain accommodations that women deserve based on their sex in order to level the playing field of business, academics, politics etc. then your position is a feminist one. I don’t mind that my husband isn’t a feminist, because I recognize that my understanding of feminism is not universal.