Gender & Feminism

Feb 2012

I could have written this post. I mean, almost. You see, I kept my name. No fuss, no bother. My name is my name, David's name is David's name, names do not a family make. (Hear that you guys? Names do not a family make. Seriously.) But for us, the difficulties arose when it came to kids in exactly the way that Rachel describes. I was in no way willing to be the odd one out when it came to family names, nor was I willing to effortlessly cede the name game to David, just by virtue of him being born male. And while we haven't reached the same compromise as Rachel and her husband, we have reached one. Given all this, I'm passionate about furthering the feminist conversation around names here at APW and providing a wealth of alternatives, as we all fight to make the choices that are right for us (without judgement). Let's discuss.

Long before Bruce and I talked about marriage, I knew I wanted to keep my last name. I mean, I’m definitely not so attached to my name that I’d stubbornly refuse to become Ms. Awesome, should the right man with the right name come along. But, for anything short of that, I was prepared to resist. The fact that Bruce’s last name is unpleasantly alliterative with my first name only sealed the deal. The decision was easier than pie, and I’m pretty good with pies.

I was also prepared, I thought, to let our children take his last name. We’d both agreed that we didn’t want to hyphenate, so, really, it was one or the other, and he has convention on his side. I’ll admit, I was a little miffed about the tacit assumption on his part that they would take his name, but whatever. He’s all for equality. He just hadn’t really given it any thought.

Then one day, for no particular reason, I freaked out. I was so sure I’d thought it through, and I was so sure that I was fine with my decision, but I suddenly became hyper-aware of the fact that my future family would be the Russells, and I wouldn’t be a Russell.

To some people, this wouldn’t be a problem. I know that, rationally, a name doesn’t define a family. Of course it doesn’t. Still, I couldn’t shake my discomfort. Maybe it’s because I study English Literature, but my mind is fine-tuned to notice how apparently superficial qualities can have enormous symbolic weight. If my life were a novel, then my name would represent my exclusion.

The decision went from impossibly easy to just impossible.

My frustration built. Why do I have to go through an identity crisis? Why has Bruce never had to seriously entertain the possibility of sacrificing his last name? Even worse: why does a part of me feel guilty for asking him to consider it? Why do men have any more right to their last names than women? Well, they don’t. But, sometimes, it sure feels like it.

I expressed my frustration to Bruce, and he began to understand. We took another look at our options. The more we thought about it, the more we felt like we needed one name. For all of us.

Continue reading Reclaiming Wife: The Coin

Posted in: Gender & Feminism, Reclaiming Wife, The Hard Stuff, Tradition | 189 Comments »

Feb 2012

On Being Single, Happily

I've mentioned in passing many times on APW that I loved being single. I mean, I loved being single. I was completely and avowedly single for more than four years in my early twenties when very few people around me were. And even after David and I coupled up, I rather aggressively continued to live on my own for years. In retrospect, it was one of the most wonderful, healing times in my life. It's when I learned who I was and how to make myself happy, and it's when I learned what I wanted out of life. And it was only after I learned all that and was no longer particularly interested in coupling up that I begrudgingly fell for my husband (even if I didn't give up my own place). Often, when I've brought this up on APW, people have accused me of well... lying. Like, someone who writes about being happily married can't actually deeply believe in the importance of single life. So, I called in the big guns. I asked Elizabeth of Lowe House Events to write about being happily single. And I'm hard pressed to think of a post we've run on the site that I agree with more on a deep personal level. So let's take a time-out from weddings and marriage today to talk about why knowing how to be single is so damn important. (Hint: This post REALLY REALLY applies to those of us that are coupled, too.)

and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.
―Mary Oliver

I spent the entire first half of my twenties in a serious relationship, a relationship that came thisclose to ending in marriage. He was not a bad guy, he was just a bad guy for me. Somewhere inside, I had known for a very long time that the relationship was wrong for me. When we would talk about planning our wedding, somewhere in my head I was simultaneously thinking about our eventual divorce. (Please note: This is, rather obviously, a terrible sign.) Ending that relationship was one of the hardest things I have ever done. We had been through a lot together—serious illnesses, deaths, births, unemployment, graduations, growing up. Yes, we fought all the time, and yes, much of the time I don't think we even liked each other that much, but relationships are supposed to be hard, right? And the truth is? I was absolutely terrified of being single. But as utterly awful as being single sounded, when I realized that I would rather be single for the rest of my life than spend another week with him, I knew that it was finally time to end it.

And it was then that I discovered just how awesome being single as an adult can be. For the first time in my life I was making decisions based solely on what I wanted to do, not what someone else wanted. (And for the first year it turned out what I mostly wanted to do was go out and listen to live music and drink whiskey until two in the morning. It was, and will undoubtedly remain, one of the most fun years of my life.)

I was able to work on deepening my friendships, and I learned that it is possible to be held up by a community instead of by one person. I learned to trust myself and to move my life in a direction that felt true to me without concern that the decisions I was making were influenced, at least partially, by someone else. The freedom of having to worry financially only about myself made it possible for me to take huge risks (see: starting a business in the middle of a recession). And I learned that it's actually ok to sometimes feel lonely, or more importantly, that feeling lonely when you're actually alone is much, much better than feeling lonely when you're lying in bed next to someone else.

I also learned how amazingly fun dating can be if it's not seen as merely the means to an end, or marriage (because that, my friends, can making dating incredibly frustrating). Ladies—dating is a blast. I've developed a personal philosophy that there are only three potential outcomes for a date:

1) The most common—it's fine. Just fine. You don't particularly connect, and there probably won't be a second date, but it's also not terrible. You get to meet someone new, and in general it ends up being a perfectly acceptable way to spend an evening.

2) The most rare— it's awesome, you connect, have a blast, and voila, more dating ensues.

3) Almost equally, but not quite, as rare—it's Godawful. And I mean truly terrible. You get un-ironically taken to Hooters (happened to me!) or accused of being a call girl, because that's the only obvious explanation for why someone as young, attractive, and smart as you would be interested in him (also happened to me!). These dates become amazing stories that you can tell at cocktail parties for years. Not a loss!

(Side note: Blind dates are my absolute favorite. Please set me up with your friends.)

Of course, there are some downsides to being single. The truth is, not everyone is comfortable with single women. I lost a not-insignificant amount of friends, mostly coupled ones, when I left that relationship. The questions about when I'm going to finally settle down seem to increase with each birthday. My mother regularly makes jokes-that-aren't-really-jokes about getting older and when she will be getting grandchildren (at which point I remind her that if she wanted to be a young grandmother she should have been a young mother).

I can sometimes literally feel pity emanating towards me when I'm at an event where the company consists mainly of couples. Luckily for me, I have always been exceedingly good at hanging out solo with couples. I've also somehow become the person that my married and otherwise-partnered friends ask for relationship advice, which I find slightly hilarious, but suspect is one of those "perspective from the outside" scenarios. Continue reading On Being Single, Happily

Posted in: Gender & Feminism, The Hard Stuff | 118 Comments »

Oct 2011

Reclaiming Wife: Painful Sex & Women’s Health

Months ago, when we put out a call for posts discussing sex (You know, sex! An important part of relationships and marriages!) we were overwhelmed by a flurry of posts about painful sex and difficult sex lives. It turns out that those of you with happy, easy sex lives didn't have much you wanted to write about, and those of you going through difficult periods (which happens to most all of us at some point) deeply craved connection and discussion. We picked this post because of its very clear message: sex should not hurt. If it does, seek help. If the professionals you talk to tell you nothing can be done, get a second (and third, and fourth) opinion, till you find someone that will work with you. And in the meantime, hold each others' hands, and know you're not alone... and you're very definitely not broken.

My husband and I had sex on our wedding night.

I hear this is actually pretty standard. But for my partner and I, this was a triumph. Instead of slipping into the haze of post-coital pleasure on our wedding night, I leapt out of bed and broke out my victory dance, complete with butt-wiggle and fist-jabbing, exclaiming, “We did it!”

I suppose I should back this story up a bit. For over eight years, I suffered from an undiagnosed pelvic floor disorder called dyspareunia. In the beginning, sex was uncomfortable, but my partner and I managed the pain by using specific positions. We came up with all sorts of creative explanations and excuses. But as the years passed, the pain worsened. Finally, intercourse became impossibly painful and even oral sex became uncomfortable. Worst of all, I had no idea what was going on with my body.

When I finally worked up the courage to tell my doctor that sex was painful, my gynecologist explained that nothing appeared to be wrong with me. She could find no physical explanation for my pain. She sent me home with the advice that we should use more lubrication, and I should try to relax with a glass of wine at dinner. None of my friends or family members ever talked about sex being painful. So with no explanations forthcoming, I drew an illogical but deeply shameful conclusion: I was messed up.

I felt like a failure. I felt like I was selfishly denying my partner. I felt unfeminine and worried about how we’d ever get pregnant. Any sort of physical intimacy was fraught with stress. I pulled away from backrubs and kisses, worried they would lead to greater intimacy. I coped with these devastating feelings by trying to ignore the problem.

But as it turns out, sex is really important for relationships. I could feel close to my partner through cuddles on the couch and long talks, but my fiancé felt increasingly cut-off and rejected. We tried to talk about the problem and find work-arounds, but often these conversations ended in tears, and I would walk around with oppressive feelings of shame, guilt, and anger bubbling in my gut.

Last summer my partner finally sat me down to talk about these problems. “Things aren’t OK,” he softly explained, “and they don’t seem to be getting any better.” As a result, we bought a few books on pelvic pain. I devoured these books! I read revolutionary ideas like, “Sex doesn’t have to hurt!”[1] Empowered with new terminology and facts, I finally went back to my gynecologist and asked to be sent to a pelvic pain specialist. Though this specialist was able to diagnosis me, she unfortunately sent me home with misinformation. I now know this is much too common—many doctors know very little about helping women with pelvic pain. Continue reading Reclaiming Wife: Painful Sex & Women’s Health

Posted in: Gender & Feminism, Reclaiming Wife, The Hard Stuff | 91 Comments »

Oct 2011

Wedding Graduates Return: Helen & Lindi

Last week, Lauren put out a call for past Wedding Graduates to write Wedding Graduate Returns posts about what had happened since their wedding, and about how their wedding had played into their married life. Today we have the first of this (re-launched) series. You'll remember Helen & Lindi from their epic kissing in the rain wedding. Now they are here to talk about how the first year of marriage was hard, and what it's taught them about living their vows.

People talk about how the first year of marriage is the hardest... and I can only say, I hope so. After our spectacular wedding last year, we've had a bit of a tough go of it. Planning for the wedding was exciting and stressful and fun; the wedding itself was amazing. Our life since then has been amazing as well, but a lot of things have happened, and we've had to navigate through the rough patches together.

Right before our wedding, we had two massive, emotional, heartbreaking things happen with people we were close to. One was my bridesmaid who decided the week of our wedding that she couldn't be there for us because of newly found religious conviction. Another was when we found out that a person we both cared about was nothing like who we thought he was. We've repaired our relationship with the first person, thankfully, but likely never will with the second, although we've recovered from the aftershocks of both.

Then there was Everything That Happened With Our Families. Surprisingly, this was not the in-law drama that many couples struggle with surrounding their wedding, though we had some of that, too. No, more specifically, this was when a veritable herd of relatives had life emergencies and moved in with us for varying stints of time. Although we have two bedrooms, our apartment is rather small, so having other people live with us (usually as a surprise with less than 24 hours notice) was an added stress.

A week after our wedding, Lindi's 18-year-old half-sister, who we had never met, was kicked out of her house by her abusive stepfather. She needed help, and we helped her. She lived with us for about a month. A few months later, a cousin was having a hard time with her family, so she moved in with us for a few weeks while she sorted her life out. A relative was slated to go to rehab, but needed someone with her 24 hours a day until they had room for her, so she lived with us, too, and we took turns being with her while she went through the first stages of withdrawal. We had a massive flood in our city which left my little sister homeless for a month that stretched over finals week, so she moved in until her apartment was safe to live in again. We had a death in the family this summer, and six family members came to stay while we handled the funeral arrangements.

In the midst of all this, we navigated our first set of major holidays as a baby family, juggled school and work, built a photography business, wrote and defended our senior theses, graduated from college and undertook a job search in a very unfriendly job market in which we both have applied to dozens upon dozens of jobs and only one of us has been successful.

It's been a stressful year, and the way we act toward each other has reflected this. I'm ashamed to say that because we are supposed to be each other's biggest supporter, and sometimes we both suck at it. I tend to get irritable and snippy when I'm tired or sick, among other things. Lindi has a deep-seated fear of abandonment, among other things. It's been a long, long year full of big things going wrong in our world, one after another, and the number of arguments we've had shows it.

I do feel lucky that the things that we argue about tend to be small things blown out of proportion, and while that is really, really stupid, I am grateful that we tend to be in the same place on "the big stuff": how we deal with money, how we feel about family and future kidlets, what we want out of our life and so on. Those are, luckily, not what we usually fight about. No. You want to know the number one thing we fight about?

The dishes.
Continue reading Wedding Graduates Return: Helen & Lindi

Posted in: Gender & Feminism, Marriage Equality, The Hard Stuff, Wedding Graduates Return | 36 Comments »

Sep 2011

Name Changing: Don’t Be Quiet About It

It's been awhile since we discussed name changing on APW. And funny enough, in the time that we haven't talked about it, it hasn't gotten any easier, nor have the answers become any more obvious. So here is the first thing I want to point out: if you're in the middle of making this decision, you have lots and lots of options. Society tends to present a black and white world view: you change your name, or you don't. But thinking about it that way just disempowers you. As illustration, let's look at people we know in the APW community:

APW staffer Lauren was going to change her name, but then decided that felt wrong to her. She and her husband decided to hyphenate at the last minute. A new name for a new family.
Cate changed her name, but was adamant about using Ms., not Mrs., because, "Because you shouldn’t be able to tell a woman’s marital status from her title any more than you can a man’s."
APW staffer Kate has a dream husband (hi Kevin!) who offered to take her name. But after a lot of discussion she decided that she didn't want to keep her often-mispronounced-as-a-bad-word last name, so she changed her last name, and took her maiden name as her middle name. Well, socially. She hasn't done the paperwork yet, and it's been more than a year. She goes by Ms. as well, in case you were wondering.
Brenna changed her name, and then it didn't feel right, so she changed it back.
APW Staffer Alyssa changed her name, and then cried about it, mourning the loss (which in no way made it the wrong decision for her).
Marie-Ève lives in Montreal, where it's actually illegal for a woman to change her last name upon marriage. We had a long conversation about this, where I said, "People here think that to be a family, you need the same last name." And Marie-Ève said, "That's crazy. To be a family, you just need to be a family."
And then there is me. I didn't change my name, and I didn't have any heartache about it. If you ask us what we'll name our kids, however, you'll get some flustered arm waving. Don't think I'm going down without a fight.

So you have options. You have way more options than I've listed here, but this is just to get you started. You don't even need to make a decision right now; you can wait til you feel ready. Or you can make a decision, and then change your mind. But don't let anyone make you feel like you don't have choices.

But here is where I have an issue: for most of us, this decision isn't an easy one. Even if we take the most traditional route and change our names and go by Mrs., the process is often emotionally difficult, leaving us in tears, feeling like we're mourning a loss. And if there is anything I've learned from the ongoing APW discussion about name changing, it's this: the men in our lives, by and large, don't know how hard it is for us.

Why? Well, I'd argue that we're being too quiet about it, and we're wasting far too much time judging each other for making choices different than our own. (Every second you spend judging a woman for making a different choice than you is a second you wasted.) For whatever reason, we're internalizing a lot of the painful bits. Maybe we're talking about it with our partner, but we're not talking about it with the world at large. We feel like, "This is the way it's always been," and "I just need to figure out what I want to do," and "There just are not any great solutions," instead of saying, "I'm just not willing to put up with this anymore!" or "You need to know that this is painful for me," or "I want more options, damn it, and better options, too," and then politely lighting something on fire. Continue reading Name Changing: Don’t Be Quiet About It

Posted in: Ask Meg, Gender & Feminism, Manifestos, Marriage, Meg's Thoughts, Personal Thoughts | 627 Comments »

Sep 2011

Reclaiming Wife: Do I Have To Call Him Husband?

When I started the Reclaiming Wife section of APW, it was because the word wife felt terrible, archaic, insulting, and something I wasn't. It wasn't that I had a problem with the word, it was that I had a problem with the connotations. (A simple google image search of the word should reveal why. Ick.) And while we've talked a lot on APW about making, and not making, that word our own, we haven't talked a lot about the word husband. So I'm delighted to welcome Joanna of A Lil O' This today, talking about how she's thinking about the word. I can't wait to read your discussion.

Let me start by saying that I absolutely adore the man I married. He’s hilarious, fun, supportive and, as he says, always on my side. I just don’t want to call him husband.

Matt and I have been married for almost three years, so if I were planning to come around to this whole “husband” thing I would probably have gotten there.

When a friend of mine got married, she spent much of the reception telling everyone how excited she was to call her new spouse “husband.” She used the word as much as she could that night and was joyous that she was finally allowed to be forever aligned with the man she loved and to call him, happily, her husband.

My experience was not quite the same. I don’t think I called Matt “husband” the day we got married, although friends and family did find it (understandably) fun to ask me where my husband was all night. A few months into our marriage, I realized I was avoiding the word to a degree. It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel “me.” And I think I finally figured out why.

It feels archaic. It feels symbolic of a role he doesn’t play and like a counterpart to a role I don’t play. I’ve yet to find much joy in many of the stops along the traditional marriage life path.

I didn’t want a diamond. It felt like something I was supposed to want, but didn’t.
I didn’t change my name when we got married. It felt like giving up a part of myself I wasn’t willing to part with.
I wasn’t sure I wanted a church wedding, although we ended up doing it for our families, a decision I’m still unsure of.
I don’t feel a yearning in my loins to bear children. I’m not even sure I like children.

I don’t call him “husband” and he rarely calls me “wife.” Those words feel like what our grandparents used to describe the roles they led. My grandmother, for example, made dinner every night decked out in pearls. My grandfather, on the other hand, sat at the dinner table expecting meat and potatoes and maybe a deliciously neon Jello cup for dessert. Did he help with dinner? No. Did he help clean up? No.

These are the people I think about when I think of an example husband and wife. And these people are not me. Or my husband.

I think a part of me is terrified of becoming that traditional wife with a traditional husband. So I reject everything that embodies those roles, including the words I associate with them. “Wife” I am not, but I do cook (because I love it) and clean (because I hate roaches). “Husband” Matt is not, but he does take care of the lawn (because it’s relaxing) and grill a mean steak (because it’s fun). Sure, there may be some tradition to the roles we embody, but it’s because we want to, not because we have to, and that makes all the difference.

Matt’s “husband” role has best friend written all over it. He pushes me to be a better person, encourages my ever-changing ambitions and works with me as we both struggle (for the seventeenth time) to decide if having children is in our life plan. He’s my love, my partner and my companion for, as our wedding rings say, as long as the journey will let us. But I’m not calling him husband.

Posted in: Gender & Feminism, Reclaiming Wife | 158 Comments »

Gender & Feminism

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