Bride-Bashing is Woman-Bashing: My Response to FMF’s Choices Campus Blog
This post at Feminist Majority Foundation’s Choices Campus blog has got me riled up. It was this type of bride-bashing that strongly contributed to my break from the feminist blogging community, and has definitely been at the root of my frustration with feminism. Women have choices. We should have the right to make those choices. This seems to be a basic tenant of feminism. You don’t have to like the choices women make, but you really should, as feminists, defend their right to make them. This type of bride-bashing (and by extension, woman-bashing) is so incredibly demeaning and unfeminist.
Needless to say, I am really disappointed in this post. What happened to the feminist idea that women have the right to make whatever choices they want? What happened to the feminist idea that women should not participate in putting down other women? I think Gloria Steinem called it “sisterhood.” Personally, I don’t always agree with all of the choices women make, but I will defend their right to make them till the day I die.
The author of this post absolutely is guilty of “adding to the woman-on-woman bashing by saying all this” (her words, not mine). She says there are better ways to spend our “time, energy, and money” – better for whom? I am getting married in October, and while it’s no one’s business what I am spending on my wedding, I’ll divulge that we are inviting 180 people, and having the big white dress, the traditional ceremony, the big reception – the whole shebang. I am planning the whole thing with the help of my mom and my fiancé – yes and my fiancé (the author of that post grossly over-generalized that men don’t have anything to do with their own weddings) – without the aid of a wedding planner or some other similar time-saver. Part of the post reads:
[The wedding industry and vendors] create all this to guilt you into worrying more and spending more. You’ll be too exhausted to think about everything else you’ve been meaning to do – saving for retirement, studying current events, donating to charity, organizing and lobbying to erase the gender wage gap, etc.
While we are all a little stressed out about it (as is natural when you’re planning a big event), we still have plenty of time and energy to save for retirement (we set up our separate retirement accounts just last week), study current events (I read the news every single day and listen to NPR on my way to work), donate to charity (I’m walking in my 6th Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in 2 weeks for which I have raised $1800 every year I’ve participated, and we are making donations to chosen charities in the name of every person there as a wedding favor), and while I haven’t organized or lobbied to erase the gender wage gap, I do somehow find time to blog regularly about feminist issues at here and at Equality 101. I’ll stop tooting my own horn here; you get the point – women can and do plan weddings all the time, and their daily lives don’t seem to suffer much, unless your only basis for this bride-bashing are television shows depicting bridezillas.
I might also point out that weddings are only a “spectator sport” (again, her words) if you’re sitting on your couch watching said wedding shows. If you are the one actually getting married, it is a 100% participatory event that involves you, the love of your life, your family and your partner’s family, and all of your closest friends. Everyone helps; everyone pitches in. And it is the absolute most wonderful thing to see people who are close to you and your partner work so hard to make sure you’re ready for a life together. It was absolutely offensive to see this sentiment diminished by the comparison of a wedding to a gladiator match.
I am a feminist. I even wrote a guest post; for this very site about being proud to be a feminist. But I have to say, the more wedding-bashing from “feminists” I see, the less I want to tell people I am a feminist. I know that it’s really trendy right now for feminists, especially young feminists, to bash women who choose to have a big wedding, or get married in general – and heaven forbid they decide to take their husband’s name! – but it isn’t fair, and it isn’t right. We feminists parade around, fighting for women to have the right to choose what happens to our bodies, but, for some reason, when it comes to choosing to have a big wedding or change our names or whatever else women have “traditionally” done, those of us on this side of the coin are subject to this type of criticism and downright ridicule. And, frankly, it makes me ashamed of the entire feminist movement.
Why is it always the people who seem the most liberal-minded who end up telling people like me that we should be doing “better things“?
Hey!
I totally get your frustration and it sucks to have your choices challenged, but I think that it’s ok to challenge institutions (weddings) without personally attacking the women who decide to have a wedding – we all do things in a patriarchy that aren’t exactly feminist or women/self loving because we’ve all had the same indoctrination. At the same time – just because feminism made it possible to women to make more choices in her own life, doesn’t mean that all choices women make are feminist (see: Sarah Palin).
You should make the decisions in your life that you feel the most comfortable with. And they won’t all be feminist – and some feminist may call you, or your choice in general out – but at the end of the day you have to live with yourself and your partner. You can still be the best feminist you can, even while enjoying some of the trappings of patriarchy. But to not have these conversations at all, that to me would be the saddest thing, because that would mean we’d all given up on one another.
I’ve enjoyed hearing about your planning so far and am excited to read more as the date draws nearer!
Kate
Hi Kate! Thanks for the thoughtful comment.
It is absolutely OK to challenge institutions without personally attacking the women who decide to “buy in” to those institutions. This post, however, slipped from a critique of the wedding industry to a critique of brides in general, and then further into the prescriptive sort of feminism that we all know I hate by saying that there were “better things” for women to be doing than planning a wedding. This is the problem I find with most bloggers who try to take on the wedding industry – they end up blaming the brides or trying to tell them the “right way” to be a bride (or try to tell them not to be a bride at all). When we talk about media persuading girls toward dieting to get an unattainable figure, for example, we would never think of blaming those girls for succumbing to the pressure to be thin. We’d blame the media for showing thin women and making women feel like they have to look like that, right? So, when it comes to weddings, why not stick to a critique of the media that makes us women feel like there’s something wrong with us if we don’t want that huge, white wedding? Feminist posts about weddings always start there, and I think these bloggers have good intentions, but they often end up telling women that we should absolutely not have those weddings, when what should be said is that we shouldn’t feel pressured to have those weddings, but the choice is ours. It’s a slight difference, but an important one.
This post by FMF’s Choices Campus Blog was not a thoughtful commentary on the patriarchal problems with weddings and the wedding industry. It was an indictment of weddings and the women who choose to have them. Gladiators? Come on. People keep telling me that it’s OK to critique the industry. It’s OK to call to attention the problematic things with weddings. Of course it is! I do it here often. But this particular author on this particular post I’m discussing here deliberately chose her words to call up images of slavery and bloodshed in conjunction with weddings (and that was only one of the metaphors used). I don’t think that was an accident, and if it was, that’s even worse.
I wonder, too, what makes a choice “feminist”? Lots of feminists, for example, fight for women’s rights to have access to jobs typically held by men. If a woman decides not to pursue a job traditionally held by a man, did she make an un-feminist decision? To me, that notion seems preposterous, and if that’s the case, then I’m not a feminist. I’m an English teacher planning a big wedding – this already would seem to be two huge life strikes against me on the feminist front. Can you really say that I’ve been indoctrinated by the patriarchal society and that is why I’ve chosen these things in my life? No, I don’t think that’s the case. I think, instead, that I’ve been empowered to make my own decisions and, given all the options, this is what I’ve chosen. That, to me, is the core of feminism.
Ashley, I think your point that posts that begin as critiques of the industry often devolve to person-bashing is apt. This slippery generalization really gets under my skin, too.
Critiquing of the industry–ok, fine.
Critiquing specific instances of brides who turn crazy, kick their friends out of the wedding party unless they lose weight, etc. (these people do exist: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2010/01/22/DI2010012203391.html) is, I would argue, more gossip fodder than political statement. But I still think it has its place: unacceptable behavior needs to be called out, because it gives everyone else in the demographic a bad name (though of course not only for that reason).
As soon as you get away from specifics into general judgments, declaring what it’s reasonable to spend or care about, based only on what *you* think it’s reasonable to spend or care about, you’re on shakier ground. That’s usually where I start to get annoyed, as a reader: when I feel like someone’s telling me what to do based on what they would do.
Even this, though, is exactly what many blogs, columns, and other editorial-esque genres do all the time. I’m more sensitive to it when I feel it’s directed at me, of course, but “trying to get people to think you’re right and do what you say” is probably the oldest genre of writing out there. If someone thinks it’s stupid to spend more than $300 on a wedding, fine, it’s their right to say so.
What bothers me the most, though, is what I think also bothers you the most: first, the assumption that anyone who cares at all is an aggressive crazy (hmm….feminists making the same judgment about brides that others often make about feminists?), and second, that the author is somehow “better” than the whole situation, too far above it to be bothered, and pities everyone who is.
I wrote about this earlier this year after a similar post really got under my skin:
http://littlehelpplease.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/feminism-not-a-get-out-of-planning-free-card/
Ahh, Becky! Sorry this post got stuck as spam with all the links in it! I think you’re totally right, though. Individuals who perpetuate this stereotype do need to be called out. However, I don’t know how much we can really call out the brides in those wedding shows. I mean, we all know reality TV editors can make us think whatever they want us to think about a given TV situation. So, instead of calling out those brides, we need to be calling out the creators of those shows!
“What bothers me the most, though, is what I think also bothers you the most: first, the assumption that anyone who cares at all is an aggressive crazy (hmm….feminists making the same judgment about brides that others often make about feminists?), and second, that the author is somehow “better” than the whole situation, too far above it to be bothered, and pities everyone who is”
YES! You have said it exactly as I should have! 😀
Ashley,
Have you seen A Practical Wedding? It is a safe haven for feminist brides on the net. She is a smart lady and has created a whole community of smart ladies where we can ask questions, vent our concerns (or feminist crises)and celebrate each other.
I have seen this! Thanks for the link! (All you brides out there reading this should check out this site!)
Oh goodness, Ashley, as someone who just got engaged I feel like people have been telling me that planning a wedding goes against the very core of being a feminist. I am so sick of people telling me what feminism is, and isn’t! I understand cultural implications of actions, but I also like to honor tradition.
Along the same kind of frustration, I read a post about name-changing telling women to stop changing their names (you can read it here: http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2010/05/against-name-change-polemic.html). It left me very frustrated in the same kind of way that post from Change.org made you frustrated. Feminism is about having choice–so gosh darn it, don’t tell me what to do!
Oooooh, that name change post pissed me off!
My sister and I just had a long conversation about weddings and the historical/patriarchal significance of a lot of the traditions involved. Not sure I would ever get married (although I’m not gonna lie: I already know what my dress and invitations would look like if I did!), but far be it for me to revoke anyone’s feminist card because they decided to have a wedding. I think it’s fine–and necessary–to critique patriarchal traditions. However, person’s decision to get married (or change their name) can be deeply personal and should be respected. It isn’t so black and white.
For those who were upset by the name change post (I was too!), this is a really great response to that: http://challyzatb.tumblr.com/post/622731848
My (lengthy) comment on that post (this is the original version before I had to edit to make Blogger accept it):
@Vanessa: “And the point of the post was that it doesn’t make my wedding any less “special” than yours.”
Who said it did? When did that come into the conversation??
Ashley’s point is that instead of critiquing a woman’s choices for her wedding celebration, we should let each woman make her own choices and understand that EVERY kind of wedding is special to the couple who celebrates it — be it a big, white, fancy wedding; a small intimate affair; two people at the courthouse; whatever.
You’re the one who assumed that “expensive wedding = ‘better’ wedding.”
This post says “expensive wedding = stupid woman who was duped by the Evil Patriarchy of Wedding Vendors Who Apparently All Are Male.” Like Ashley, I disagree with that idea and take offense to it.
I got married at a very big, and very expensive church. Because my father-in-law had recently passed away and his ashes were buried in that church (where my husband’s family have been members since they’ve lived in Ft. Worth). It was important to my husband and to my mother-in-law that the wedding be there, so that’s what WE decided to do (and my mother-in-law, who can afford these gifts, paid for it without my husband and me going into debt).
My big, poufy dress (pink, not white, BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT I WANTED) was purchased off-the-rack at David’s Bridal for $300. It was beautiful to me, and if anybody in attendance thought it “looked cheap” or whatever A) nobody ever said a peep to me, and B) I don’t give a flying flip.
We had a “big” wedding and a “big” party in part because a year and one month before the wedding my father-in-law had lost a short and ugly battle with cancer, and my mother-in-law had been battling cancer (so far, she’s cancer-free) for the six months leading up to the wedding. We wanted a happy reason to get my husband’s family together, the people who had been there for these sad and trying times.
Unless you [and by “you” I mean the collective “you,” not Vanessa or anyone in particular] are that bride, you cannot know or understand her reasons for choosing the wedding/celebration she chooses. It’s not your place to judge her choices, or to impose your views on her: this is why Sarah Palin and Phyllis Schlafly aren’t feminists, because they force THEIR views and choices on others. As Ashley pointed out, that’s what this blog post is doing: “If you have a big wedding, you’re not a feminist!”
I wore a big, PINK dress because I like to dress up and how many times will I have a chance to wear a big, PINK, poufy dress??
Are you going to revoke my Feminist Card because I like to wear pink? Or because I like to wear dresses? Or because I planned a “big” wedding?
Do I get my Feminist Card back if I bought my invitations and wedding announcements from http://www.womancraft.net? If I designed and printed my own programs (with bamboo paper, which is a renewable resource)?
Does my husband get a Feminist Card because he was involved in EVERY aspect of the wedding planning — sometimes more than I was — except for picking the bride’s and bridesmaids’ dresses (he was involved in picking the flower girls’ dresses)? Does he get Brownie points for handling my meltdown when I almost broke the printer working on our homemade programs?
I got married because I love my husband and want to start a family with him and spend the rest of my life with him. The party (and the presents) were a side bonus.
Some women get married because they want a party. So? That’s their choice; it’s not my job to judge it. Neither is it yours.
The reasons for the party could be called “unfeminist” — IF you know what those reasons are. But you don’t, because you are not that woman and you have not lived her life experiences (even the women who get married just to have the party can have feminist reasons to do so; since I am not them I cannot tell you what they are. I understand my many privileges may limit my schema).
My sister is a proud stay-at-home mom. Is she “unfeminist” because feminists should work (outside the home, for money)? Is she “unfeminist” because she’s not putting her kid in daycare while she volunteers full-time (since she can afford to not work for pay) at a women’s rights cause?
Or is she exercising her woman’s-lib-given right to make the best choice FOR HER about her life (and her family’s lives)?
Am I “unfeminist” because I chose to go into teaching, a “feminine” profession, when women fought so hard to earn the right for women to work in more male-dominated jobs? Should I be using my skills and talents to crack the glass ceiling?
Why is it OK to bash women’s wedding choices but not their career choices? (And if you ARE going to bash the career choices I gave above, then let me go ahead and turn in my Feminist Card right now, because I want to part in a movement like that.)
Criss, I love you. You are awesome and totally made my day! Thanks for posting this.
This post and the comments touched on many of the reasons I’m not sure whether I’m a feminist or not. I always tell people I’m “big on girl power.” When I compare myself to other feminists or read some feminist blogs, I feel I don’t really fit the bill.
I had a big wedding. I wore the perfect dress. I took my husband’s name. I’m a teacher. In fact, I’m leaving teaching and I’m going to be a nanny next year while I pursue some of my passions that teaching doesn’t leave much time for. I also like pink. I’m typing this on my pink laptop, actually. I’m even pretty conservative politically, although I’m pretty liberal socially.
Sometimes I read other feminist blogs and feel so small. I like yours, Ashley, because I feel it’s about what the feminist movement really should be about: choices.
Aww, Lauren, thank you!
I think we have very similar views of feminism and what it means to be a feminist, and I think you’ll find that a lot of my readers/twitter friends share in that mindset. Hopefully this will be a place where you feel safe talking about feminism and the issues that plagues it recently!
Also, super excited to be working with you on Equality 101!
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