Privilege and Weddings and Marriage
I am privileged. Extremely privileged. And there seems no better way than planning a wedding to remind me of this. All. The. Time.
I am a heterosexual, cis female so I can actually plan a wedding and get legally married in the state of Illinois when so many others can’t.
I am white, thin, young, and able bodied, so when I look at wedding magazines and blogs, I see women who resemble myself and it isn’t hard for me to see myself in the clothes, dresses, shoes, accessories, etc. that the women are wearing in these magazines.
I am economically privileged, and so is my fiance and our families. We may not be the best off in the world, but Tim and I both have jobs, and so do all of our parents. So, when we see things in these magazines and catalogues that we want for our wedding, we do have to stay in budget, but we can have that big party with all of our friends and family without worrying about it too much.
I have the support of my family and friends while entering into this marriage. I also have the privilege to be able to discuss whether or not to change my name or whether or not to have children as private matters with my fiance, and I will have the support of him and our family and friends in whatever decision we make.
There is probably, unfortunately, a small minority of people out there, of which I am a part, who actually do think about these privileges every time we enter a bridal store or open a wedding magazine or read a wedding blog or, heck, write about feminism and relationships. But I do believe that the number of people who consider their privileges while planning a wedding or negotiating a relationship is growing; look at all of the wonderful feedback and guest posts I’m receiving on this blog for example. There are smart, interesting, progressive people out there with lots of things to say about relationships – from weddings to marriage to cohabitation to dating and every variant thereof… and more. And it seems evident to me that these people are examining at least some of their privileges as they examine their relationships. Maybe it isn’t overtly stated (as it isn’t with many of my personal posts about relationships and weddings and marriage), but I think the very nature of examining relationships under a feminist lens leads to examining privilege within those relationships as well. At least, I hope so. And that is what I’ve been trying to flesh out a bit with this series.
I also think that one important aspect of feminism is, obviously, equality and, moreso in terms of relationships, equity (I’ll do the laundry if I have time, and Tim will do it if he has time. Is it always equal? No. But it is equitable.). And, as bell hooks often posited, the best place to start examining and changing sexism is in the home, since that is often our first experience with a patriarchal power dynamic. Maybe I’m one of the few people that believe that we really can fell big oaks with small strokes, but what better way to change the world than by examining our own relationships and putting forth an ideal of equality and equity within the home for our children, who then will hopefully grow up to do the same?
That all said, I hope those who have looked at this series with skepticism, thinking “Oh here’s another privileged girl adding to the wedding craze” or “We could be doing such better things with our time than talking about relationships and weddings” now have a better understanding of my rationale behind starting the series, and keeping it going – and it is still going! And I don’t discriminate in the posts I publish in this series, so as long as you follow my guidelines, I’m happy to publish posts with different perspectives. In fact, that’s the idea here – I want to publish posts with different perspectives! So send them my way! Hopefully, with lots of posts, we can all start examining our privileges and relationships with a new point of view.
This post is part of an ongoing series about feminism and relationships. Have something to say? Submit a guest post to samsanator(at)gmail(dot)com! And, of course, you can always comment here!