Gender & Feminism

May 2012

Reclaiming Wife: The Weight of the World

Body image posts are hard. They're hard for people to read and hard for people to discuss, even on APW. This makes me sad. It makes me sad because I feel like Western Women have been fed a poison pill about our bodies, and instead of valuing them for what amazing tools they are, we spend our lives beating our bodies up, and then trying to come to some sort of reluctant truce with them. This leaves us unable to converse with other women in supportive ways, because different perspectives might harm our tentative peace we've struck with ourselves. But. What APW Editor Maddie had to say about putting on fifty pounds after getting married, grappling with that emotionally, and still loving the shit out of herself, was so important that we had to publish it. So please don't read Maddie's experience as filling in for your own. Instead, let it stand as one super smart woman's experience, and let it guide a conversation about your own thoughts. (Fingers crossed!)
A few weeks ago, a tweet came through my Twitter feed that went something like this:

I've gained ten pounds since my wedding. I feel like such a failure.

No stranger to the post-wedding weight gain myself, it was the last part that stopped me cold. Failure. At first I was so angry I couldn't see straight. FAILURE?! Really?! How are we allowing a society to exist in which a ten-pound weight gain amounts to failure? I wanted to reach through the computer and shake the person on the other end and say, "You aren't failing! The world is failing you!"

But then I was mostly sad. Because I remember that feeling. It happened to me when I looked in the mirror, not more than two years after my own wedding; I noticed the stretch marks that had settled on my body after a particularly grueling start to married life left me with fifty pounds of excess body mass and a chubbiness that had begun to show in my face.

For me, the change wasn't gradual. I instantly gained back the twenty pounds I'd lost before the wedding when I decided to throw away our pots and pans mid-move in anticipation of getting a new set as a registry gift. Well, the wedding came and went. And the move came and went. And we didn't get our pots and pans. So after we got married, we ate frozen pizza for three months until we could afford a new set and in the meantime basked in the glow of being newlyweds in a shiny new apartment with a newfound freedom and DVR'd episodes of Glee to catch up on.

Then we got our dog. Saddled with sleepless nights and too much overtime, our routine—which was once made up of bonding over home-cooked dinners—quickly turned to running down the street for—ready for it—fresh pizza and scarfing it down before one of us passed out on the couch from sheer exhaustion. My Christmas present that year was our one-year-later honeymoon to Mexico and an extra thirty pounds of midsection. Gee, thanks, you shouldn't have.

But it doesn't matter how I gained the weight or even how much I gained. What matters is how I felt afterwards. I'd lost and gained weight before, mostly the same twenty pounds in college, usually because I couldn't keep my hands away from the cafeteria cookies and because I didn't understand that one cookie is a serving, not seven (which is bullshit, if you ask me). But this time it was different. Continue reading Reclaiming Wife: The Weight of the World

Posted in: Gender & Feminism, Reclaiming Wife, The Hard Stuff | 361 Comments »

May 2012

Reclaiming Husband: The Name Game

One of the issues I'm most passionate about in weddings and marriage is name changing. Not because I think everyone should do it one way (far from it), but because I think it's an extremely complicated issue for most women (even if the complication is, "I want to change my name and I feel fine about it; SHOULD I feel fine about it?") and it's an issue most men don't even think about. In my most passionate plea on the subject I wrote Name Changing: Don't Be Quiet About It, trying to get us all to make a personal issue into one our partners, and hopefully society, shared. So, I'm just beyond thrilled to give you Tristan (a huge APW reader!), the groom in last week's joyful courthouse wedding, writing about taking his wife's last name. His post goes to the heart of partnership and the real emotional power of names.

Erika and I, like many readers of APW, slid gently into engagement rather than in one momentous display. First came discussions about whether either of us was even in favor of marriage (previously, we were both firmly opposed—funny how finding the right person changes your mind on that subject). We discussed conceptual children and what became very real plans to move across the country. There is still some disagreement between us whether I asked her to take her name (her contention) or if she beat me to the punch (which is the clear memory that I have) but not long after we decided to get married, before we even announced it to the world, we knew I'd be taking her last name. It wasn't a very fraught decision. I know it's supposed to be a big deal for the husband to take the wife's name, but for us it just wasn't. We wanted to share a name to symbolize that we were a family together, and since we'd both come of age in pretty strong queer communities, we knew we didn't have to abide by anyone's rules but the ones we made for ourselves. We didn't really get any push back from the people in our lives, and while my parents were a little reticent at first, they recognized that there wasn't any reason I shouldn't take Erika's name other than “tradition.”

The whole process was complicated by neither of us using our birth names in our day-to-day lives. Her “last name” was her professional last name (she's an actor), which she hadn't yet gotten around to legally changing. This was another reason for me to take her name; Erika had already established a professional identity under that name. For her, that name was her brand. If that been the only issue, we could have just selected her stage name for both of us when we signed the marriage license. But I had been using a different first name for over twenty years (anyone who learned my legal first name tended to be baffled by how wrong it was for me), so clearly, this was an opportunity for us to get all our names changed in one fell swoop. I would change my entire name, first and last, and when we married she would “take” her own professional name.

In California, at least, changing your name through the courts (which I had to do because I was changing my first name as well as my last) is a fairly involved and somewhat expensive process. I got advice from a transwoman I work with, but she'd done it years ago with assistance from the transgender law center, and so some of her experience was glossed over and out of date. In June I filled out the numerous forms. I paid a lawyer to look them over and was glad I did; as with any legal document there was plenty to get wrong. Another $400 and a month later I had a court date, then two months more, to give time to publish my name change for six weeks in a local weekly (another $100). (As late as 2007, this was the only way a man in California could take his wife's name; at over $600 dollars vs. $80, one could see why it would get challenged under the equal protection clause). However, as I was changing both my given name and my surname, that victory for equality in the California court system did not, alas, help me. Continue reading Reclaiming Husband: The Name Game

Posted in: Gender & Feminism, Reclaiming Wife, Tradition | 64 Comments »

May 2012

BackTalk: Women, Marriage, and Money—A Response to The New York Times

(Note! We're playing around with an extra Friday feature for the first time today. It's tentatively called BackTalk and will be quick responses from me, and sometimes the staff, to current news articles or trend stories, or short form discussion of wedding planning. Then, next up, we'll have Ask Team Practical to close the week. Since we're just getting our feet wet and figuring out what works, no fancy logo or anything yet. —Meg)

It's possible that I've never had a news article show up as often in my Twitter feed with a desperate plea for APW discussion than the recent New York Times article about joint finances called, "In Marriage, the Unseen Bottom Line." The comments were mostly in the vein of, "This article makes me livid, but hey! They quoted Caitlin Moran!"

As most of you know, I'm a long time (feminist) advocate of pooling your financial resources (see: marriage as mini-socialism). But this article, the couples that were pooling their financial resources scared the shit out of me. I suddenly understood people's reticence to pool resources. Because yes, if pooling family resources meant that I couldn't spend money without my partner's say-so, or that I ceded all personal responsibility for knowing the nature of our finances (this is dangerous stuff, women of the world, whether you pool your finances or not), you bet I'd think it was anti-feminist to pool finances. Here are some key quotes:

A completely unscientific snap poll of 44 girlfriends in Europe and the United States — all highly educated, in their 30s and in relationships, most with children and a job — showed that 41 pooled at least some money with their partners. Dissecting what constitutes joint spending makes for an intriguing study in gender equality: Milk and diapers rarely cause disputes. But what about postnatal yoga? Or haircuts, invariably more expensive for women than men?

I asked Paul, Rachel’s husband, why he felt that shoes (and, it turns out, makeup and clothes! What am I doing wrong?) should be paid for by the joint account. “There are so many explicit and implicit requirements on how a woman should look,” he said. You shouldn’t be punished financially for being female, he said. Caitlin Moran, author of the best-selling “How to Be a Woman,” called it a tax on being a woman.

When women have children and one parent, still usually the mother, sacrifices at least some earnings to maternity leave or part-time work or a less ambitious career, the notion of equality would seem to demand that both parents pool their (often different) incomes and decide on an identical spending allowance. But in my mini-survey, 30 of the 41 women with joint accounts preferred keeping their (often lower) salaries in a personal account and paying a pro-rated amount into the family pool in order to enjoy some unscrutinized spending. “I know that a lot of my spending is frivolous, and I couldn’t defend it if you shoved a spreadsheet in my face.”

But if the women spend the money, the guys control it. Only one of the friends I interviewed is in charge of family finances ... What it is with us liberated women? We took care of our financial affairs when we were single. Why do we give up control when a man shows up? “It’s boring,” groaned one French friend — a banker, no less — echoing many others. “I’m rubbish at math,” said another. It’s just a division of labor, suggested a third. “He is finance minister, and I am minister of culture and entertainment.” —Read the Whole Article

But with all of my reservations about the Jimmy Cho shopping on the sly, out-of-control-of-the-family-finances way that women were portrayed in the article, I felt that some of the questions that the piece was asking were key. Continue reading BackTalk: Women, Marriage, and Money—A Response to The New York Times

Posted in: Gender & Feminism, Marriage, Meg's Thoughts, Reclaiming Wife | 342 Comments »

Apr 2012

Reclaiming Wife: Demanding Careers and Equality in Marriage

Today's post is an anonymous post on a subject that is so profoundly important to the health and success of our marriages (and something to which, even several generations into feminism, we don't really have an answer to). It's about figuring out how to balance home-work and work-work. It's about figuring out how to find balance and partnership. It's about figuring out how to make the work of running a household not just women's work. Today's post holds no easy answers, but hopefully it will prompt all of us to ask questions of ourselves and each other, and discuss.

I have a loving spouse, great health and money in the bank. I recently finished my PhD and am lucky to have a job doing what I love. As a couple, my partner and I look very successful on paper: ambitious yet balanced. At work I am a role model for younger women (or so they tell me) who want to "have it all." I spend a growing proportion of my time mentoring, encouraging, and dispensing advice to these young women (and sometimes men!). We have a wonderful group of friends with whom we socialize regularly. We share our enthusiasm for books, music, and movies with each other. We often travel together for work and for vacations. We have sex regularly (although not as much as we both would like!). He considers himself to be a feminist and is supportive and encouraging of my career. He is the partner I always dreamed of, and more.

And yet, and yet. Despite appearances, the truth is I am scared for our future and almost every day I wonder if our marriage will survive. Our jobs demand so much of our time and energy that there is little leftover to nourish ourselves and each other. We want children in our future, but we also want to provide those children with a home where the parents are engaged and happy, not preoccupied or simmering with resentment. But even without children, we struggle to achieve this. Already (less than two years into marriage), one might say that I am The Bitch in the House because of my frustration and resentment of the inequalities in our relationship.

Because even though we each pay lip service to equal partnership, and in spite of our similar incomes, educations, and careers, there are inequalities. I do more of the housework, grocery shopping, and cooking. I also commute much farther for my job. The responsibility for vacation planning, gift buying, and keeping up our social life falls on my shoulders. Of course there are reasons and excuses for each of these. We have different expectations of cleanliness (APW has helped with this one!), I have a more flexible schedule (often I can work from home), I am naturally more organized and money conscious. Me running our household is one way I can help him in his battles with anxiety, which insidiously works its way into our lives. We tell ourselves this won't last forever, that we are working for our shared future, that we will reap the efforts we sow now in that glorious future. Continue reading Reclaiming Wife: Demanding Careers and Equality in Marriage

Posted in: Gender & Feminism, Reclaiming Wife | 331 Comments »

Mar 2012

Four Layoffs in Four Years

Yesterday we kicked off "For Richer, For Poorer" Week by tackling the For Richer bit. (Which is something I think women do not spend enough time talking about with each other. We use a lot of our energy competing with each other and shaming each other for doing well... destructive behavior we can't stop fast enough.) And today, we wanted to dive into For Poorer. I know many of us are battling with, or have recently battled with, unemployment in this terrible economy. My household has certainly been there, and I've written about our year of unemployment, how hard it was, and what we learned. Today's post from Amelia hits on some important truths that I feel passionately about. She talks about realizing that partnership is not about what we financially contribute, but how we share what we have and support each other (oh yeah, and she talks about married travel).

Finances are something Mark and I have always had to talk about.

In fact, I’ll go so far as to say one of the reasons I was first interested in dating him was because I discovered he was good with money—something I definitely wasn’t.

Our first year of dating saw me suffer a redundancy (for U.S. readers, that's being laid off) and the indignity of having to move back home to my parents while I looked for new work. I then stayed at my parents for an extra five months so I could work on clearing my credit card debt, while Mark saw out the end of his existing tenancy.

When we moved in together, I started talking to Mark about my finances, and we started to look at things as “our” finances. We had a joint account that we put a set amount of money in to each week, but everything else was our own. That Easter, Mark offered to help me pay off my credit card, and in return I would pay him back at the same rate I was paying off the card with a much lower interest rate. He admitted later he was already planning for us to get married, and he never expected the money back, but rather saw it as an investment in our shared future.

That year we got engaged. And a family member suffered a financial disaster that also impacted us, as Mark had invested all his savings with them. Talk about making wedding planning stressful.

Early the next year, we were both made redundant on the same day. Ouch. Continue reading Four Layoffs in Four Years

Posted in: Gender & Feminism, The Hard Stuff | 65 Comments »

Mar 2012

Elisabeth: An Interlude Regarding The Patriarchy

Today, I'm so grateful to be introducing you to the third intern that will be writing about planning her weddings all year, Elisabeth. She is dealing with the decidedly complicated situation of having converted to Islam, getting married in a different country, and getting married in a different faith than the one she was raised in. She will be doing more long form writing once a month, because some things deserve a lot of words. Today she's getting started with a not-so-tiny topic: her blossoming feminism while planning a wedding in a new culture.

Four months ago I got engaged. One week later I packed up everything I owned and moved back to my American hometown. And now it is March, and I’m in the Middle East.

This was always going to be something of a transition year for me; I just finished an MA in London, and now I have to sort out where I go from here, whether it be a PhD or a job. What’s more, I have to figure out how those plans fit in with my other half, who’s gainfully employed and at least relatively settled. Now add to that the fact that I am planning a wedding God-knows-where, with a fiancé who is three time zones behind me and three thousand miles away, and you have the makings of a complicated situation, logistically and emotionally.

One additional complicating factor, one I didn’t really expect and I know Amin didn’t expect, is my increasingly vocal assertiveness about gender. I would call it feminism, but it’s so lukewarm I honestly feel weird calling it that. I guess I could best describe it as a rude (and, let’s be honest, pretty bitter) awakening to the fact that the gender-equality assumptions I grew up with in a WASPy liberal American suburb are not, in fact, universal. Surprise!

I converted to Islam roughly a year ago. Whatever you do or do not know about this religion, you certainly must be aware that the status of Muslim women is hotly contested. Muslim women themselves, along with Muslim communities, are struggling with what it means to be a woman and Muslim, what it means to be empowered and faithful, and what it means to be self-sufficient and, yes, equal. I bring this up not to debate the merits of Islam, or Islam’s position on women—obviously those debates are too big to do justice to here. Rather, for the first time in my life, I am consciously aware that some think it is relevant that I am female. And not in a good way, or in a way that reflects what I believe my religion teaches. It is an uncomfortable experience, and it has made me hypersensitive to any hint of unfairness.

Okay, oversensitive.

One day, walking to the mosque, we passed the imam, who called out a friendly greeting from across the street. I was immediately furious that he had said hello to Amin, but not to me. I raged, I ranted. Was he uncomfortable speaking to a woman? Did he think my modesty would be offended? As it turns out, he had said hello to both of us. Oops.

Unfortunately, wedding planning is not improving the situation. Lots of the traditions Amin and I find meaningful have patriarchal overtones, and these days I find them hard to overlook. Do I wear a white dress? Will my father walk me down the aisle? Am I taking Amin’s name or keeping my own (read: my father’s)? On the Pakistani side, will my father sign my marriage contract for me? Will Amin pay a dowry? I can’t blame Amin for sometimes feeling like he’s tiptoeing through a minefield. Continue reading Elisabeth: An Interlude Regarding The Patriarchy

Posted in: Gender & Feminism, Planning, Planning: Journeys | 69 Comments »

Gender & Feminism

Friends