Small Strokes Big Oaks

This is a guest post in a series on feminism and relationships.  If you’d like to submit a guest post for this series, see the guidelines here and submit your post to samsanator(at)gmail(dot)com.

Jessica Mack is a Senior Editor at Gender Across Borders, a global feminism blog, and a lifelong global feminist. She works in the global women’s health field, loves to travel, adventure, and has not lived in one place for more than four months in the last year and a half. She is currently living between NY and Seattle, dreaming of far-off places.

Long-distance relationship.

What an odious term.  I’ve always disliked it, and what it represented – long hours on the phone, suffocating logistics of weekends and holidays shared here and there, that persistent pang of missing someone, and that distinct feeling of dislocation one gets living between two worlds.

So how did I end up in one?

In the five-plus years that I’ve been in my relationship, my partner and I have spent a total of 27 months apart – in Kenya, in India, in NY and Boston – and are on the precipice of another year on top of that.  I would say it’s part personality, part feminist persuasion that drives me to endure distance in the pursuit of personal/professional gratification.  And I am deeply appreciative of a partner who feels the same way.

In contrast to the age-old character of long-distance relationships, in which the woman is often left behind, pining, while the man goes off to work or war or otherwise, ours is mutual and often driven by myself.

My partner and I are both very driven people, deeply committed to our careers and proscribing to the notion that if we individually are not pursuing our dreams, then we cannot pursue our collective one.  And if that takes us apart from each other now and then, well that’s a price we are willing to pay.

The feminist in me reviles against the notion of sacrificing for another until I am good and ready to, and it’s my choice to do so.  While I hate that constant missing, I sort of revel in the independence that it gives me and deeply appreciate the elasticism of my relationship.

Despite growing up in a more progressive environment than women before me, the specter has still hung over my head all these years that a “good” wife/partner/woman sticks by her significant other for support and because she can’t bear to be apart from him.  She doesn’t go off to live in a rural village in Mali to bolster her career; heck, she doesn’t even put her career ahead of his.

It is this archaic model that I am resisting against, silly as it may be.  And though I was raised in a very different time from my feminist ancestors, who were denied the right to vote or attend university, I am still conscious of the relative rarity of these privileges…no rights…for women worldwide.  Therefore I feel a feminist duty to take advantage of the opportunities afforded to me, in honor of all the women who cannot or will not.

I think it’s deeply important for women especially to feel licensed to take risks professionally and personally, and move beyond the sphere of comfort.  There is a pervasive stigma against women traveling alone, striking out on their own, etc. that we need to continue pushing against.

Contrary to the onerous long-distance relationship of old, I think that the long-distance relationship of today can be re-envisioned and re-appropriated for the feminist project.  For a younger generation of women, the world has gotten more global, more connected, and more traversable.  This means for most of us, we’ll be moving around, traveling, perhaps living among continents.  And meanwhile, relationships happen – not always when and where you want them to.

It is possible to have a relationship amongst two individuals who are  equally supportive of the other’s pursuits and dreams and willing to endure distance to ensure personal growth.  It is fighting against the clichés that when the cat is away the mouse will play – or if you are apart from your partner, you will be replaced.  It is fighting against the cliché that you cannot be a supportive partner and pursue your own career as a woman.  And in that independence, and in that distance, I think our identities as women and feminist can become even stronger.

Obviously it doesn’t always have to happen this way.  Plenty of relationships function just fine when two people are in the same space, and one can have utter independence while not having a long-distance relationship.  In many ways, that is of course ideal.  But it is my hunch that far too many women shy away from inducing a long-distance relationship because of the stigma and the expectations that we still carry with us on this regard.

Almost every relationship in life becomes a long-distance one at some point.  People move, they leave, they fall out of touch, they pass away. I’ve realized that repulsion to goodbyes won’t do me any favors in a long life of comings and goings.  As a person who considers herself at times cripplingly sentimental, having long-distance relationships has provided me an important series of meditations on distance and closeness – not just with my significant other, but with friends and family as well.

My wanderlust continues to grow and I’m not sure it will ever be sated – but part of why I love leaving so much, whether it’s saying goodbye to my partner or to my best friend, is the eventual return, the eventual reunion…and how oh so sweet that is.  It is in the contrast of that binary, I’ve found that I’m learning much more about love and relationships.

My latest revelation, that I’m slowly coming to embrace – is that it’s OK to compromise for another person in the relationship, and it’s OK to move closer when distance becomes too much.  One can be feminist and compromise.  For me, I’ve had to move stubbornly in my own direction in order to come back around and feel secure in moving in another’s.