In honor of the influx of trolls we’ve had that think life was so much better when women could take a beating without whining or running to the cops about it, this link from Feministing to a study demonstrating what I think a lot of us knew in our hearts:
Contrary to popular opinion, feminism and romance are not incompatible and feminism may actually improve the quality of heterosexual relationships, according to Laurie Rudman and Julie Phelan, from Rutgers University in the US. Their study* also shows that unflattering feminist stereotypes, that tend to stigmatize feminists as unattractive and sexually unappealing, are unsupported.
Granted, it’s a small study, but taken with others that have shown that female independence is linked to happier marriages, it’s probably accurate enough.
They found that having a feminist partner was linked to healthier heterosexual relationships for women. Men with feminist partners also reported both more stable relationships and greater sexual satisfaction. According to these results, feminism does not predict poor romantic relationships, in fact quite the opposite…..
Rudman and Phelan found no support for this hypothesis amongst their study participants. In fact, feminist women were more likely to be in a heterosexual romantic relationship than non-feminist women. The authors conclude that feminist stereotypes appear to be inaccurate, and therefore their unfavorable implications for relationships are also likely to be unfounded.
It makes a certain kind of sense—surely few of us haven’t picked up on the glint of desperation behind the words of women who are eager to denounce feminism, a certain, “Look at me, boys!” pathos that accompanies so many strident denials that women really need equal rights. So many questions. I’m guessing that feminist women tend to have more stable relationships, so that explains the majority of the reason they’re more likely to be in one—if your relationships are going well, you spend less time “between” relationships, as it were. Stability alone would make up the difference between the likelihood that any feminist and non-feminist straight woman was partnered, but it does raise the question of whether or not a lot of women are driven to decry feminism because they’re told that they need to lower their standards to get a man. Obviously, if you’re getting lots of dates or are in a relationship, you’re probably not as compelled to listen to assholes telling you to lower your standards, but I’m sure a percentage of women who don’t date as much probably do feel this reflexive need to decry feminism because they’re told it turns men off.
It’s telling to me that the IWF uses the “you’re not getting dates because of Teh Feminism” as a recruiting call; they modify the message some for college age women who are getting laid but can’t get a guy to commit* by telling them that guys fuck and run because of Teh Feminism. I have no idea if this works much; it appears to have a lot of sway over IWF’s token young woman Alison Kasic, who seems to believe that boyfriends would be easier to obtain and maintain if all women joined in a solidarity of keeping our legs closed in the name of the patriarchy.
Allison Kasic, a member of the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) - a US-based conservative group - organises Take Back the Date, a campaign that seeks to “restore chivalry” on college campuses. “Young women still overwhelmingly want to get married, but they are not engaged in the traditional courtship that leads to marriage,” says Kasic.
So my thought is this: Is it that feminism makes it easier to find dates and have secure relationships? Or is it that women who have little problem finding dates and secure relationships are immune from this pressure that Kasic is giving out to affect a submissive stance in order to be more attractive? I find IWF’s strategy of bribing girls to abandon feminism by promising them boyfriends (and/or threatening them with the idea that no one will love you if you keep acting like a modern woman) to be sickening, and I really don’t want to imitate it by touting feminism as some sort of boyfriend-finding device.
I will cautiously say this much, agreeing with things Jessica wrote in her book about how adopting a feminist philosophy can improve your personal life: Men are much easier to get along with once you start to live your life as if it’s about yourself and not about pleasing men. You get so much more out of dating when you do it for the pleasure of it and not as a way to shape your very identity. The patriarchal fairy story that’s being told by anti-feminists like Kasic goes something like this: If you live you conduct your dating life with the goal of finding a man to validate you with the Mrs. degree, if you treat sex like a bargaining chip to get commitment instead of as a means to pleasure, if you’re deferential and self-effacing with men, then one day you’ll get paid back for all those sacrifices with a blissful marriage to a man who is fond of flowers and the giving of them. The fact of the matter is that ship never comes in, though. Token signs of gratitude like flowers will not make up for the millions of slights that come from being the servile, self-effacing one. Just the microcosm of sex shows how the subservient person will never get hers—if you’re unable to make the move or say what you want for fear of seeming to eager and therefore devaluing your currency, then he’s going to go about pleasuring himself without knowing (and often without caring) what you like, and you’ll find yourself just getting more and more frustrated with him because he can’t figure it out and you were promised that if you just shoved a sock in it and acted the part of the good girl, he’d do right by you, but that seems to not be happening. Passive aggression is the coping mechanism of the woman stuck in a deferential position to a man—unable to say what you want for fear of being a pushy, unattractive bitch, you end up dropping giant hints that he never seems to get and you start to hate him because he’s using you, yes, using you and never giving back and you were promised that your reward for being a good girl was a loving husband.
On the other hand, sometimes these men occasionally fill their patriarchal obligations to their wives with routine purchases of useless but shiny gifts like flowers or diamonds. So there’s that. But yeah, men are easier to get along with when you feel that you can speak with them as an equal. Make no mistake, there are some out there who get pissy and flip shit when they realize that you’re not groveling on the floor for their approval, but another advantage of being a feminist is that you don’t have to waste headache-inducing minutes trying to get said approval. Not that it’s all roses or anything, but I’ve often found in my life that the vast majority of problems I have with men can be traced back to a moment when I abandoned certain feminist principles, when I did revert back to my gender training and was deferential or passive aggressive. Also, feminism improved my dating life because it made me realize that it’s okay to be single, dashing really, and I was better served by clinging tenaciously to my single status and only letting go of it if someone really, truly presents a better offer. Feeling like you have to get married, that you have to have a man in order to be a real woman is a solid way to buy too quickly on the first offer without doing some comparison shopping.
There’s other factors that make it likely that self-identified feminists are happier in relationships and have happier partners. Economics is a big one—the more likely you have two incomes coming in, the less stress over money. A solid commitment to family planning is part of the feminist pantheon, and that helps relationships a lot.
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Now we know exactly why Miss Bring Back the Date isn’t married at her advanced postgraduate age, now don’t we?
It’s really simple. Relationships in which people are constrained by their gender roles are, by definition, going to be less happy than those without such constraints. (It’s actually a mathematical theorem: the optimum over a region is always at least as good as the optimum over a more constrained region). We feminists get to flex relationships to meet the needs of ourselves and our partners, rather than having to fit particular roles.
My husband really wants to be a stay-at-home parent. He couldn’t do that if he hadn’t married a feminist.
Well, no surprises there. The competent and confident among us have always known that a partnership tends to function in a much more fulfilling manner when it’s a partnership.
Relationships in which one party is subservient to the other - even worse, relationships in which one party expects the other’s subservience - are the province of those without the self-knowledge and confidence to deal with other human beings in a healthy way.
As my happily married, feminist best girlfriends tell me: Having a companionate relationship of equals and friends is FUN! And far more likely to last, and last happily, than one based on game-playing and dependency. Not to mention that feminism is a great way to weed out the jackholes and Nice Guys ™.
I remember one of my biggest schadenfreude moments was when one of the Rules Girls authors announced her divorce. So much for anti-feminist game-playing as a road to happiness.
Ack! The comment posted before I was finished. To continue:
I’ve been saying this to every friend who would listen since I was in high school. Broken people aren’t fixed by their relationships. Their relationships are just broken like they are. Unable to relate to human beings without defining an unquestioned continuum of subservience/dominance? Broken. Unwilling to relax iron-tight control over the people around you? Broken. Viewing your lover as a prop to your own existence, to be punished when she doesn’t obey your every whim? Broken. No wonder folks who conform to these standards have unhappy relationships.
I have to say that conservative women are less likely to have dates and romances because they wait for the men to initiate contact, which is a bad policy. Sitting on the sidelines of life leads to a lot of sitting on the sidelines. It’s not often that I hear about a sexually liberated woman who has trouble finding a partner. Everyone can have complaints at times about the right partner, but a woman who approaches men has little problem finding men who are willing to be approachable. Whether or not a man is worth approaching is something best determined by actually approaching him. Unfortunately, this approach is harder for conservative women who feel like they owe a man something for leading him on if she determines she doesn’t like him. Feminism leads to women who can say “I’m not interested” while conservatism leads to women who worry about whether or not he deserves something for her aggregious and wanton display of possible sexual interest.
I’ll never understand the mentality of waiting for others to initiate contact. Sure, you don’t want to approach just anyone of the desired sex, but you don’t want to limit your search to those who search for you, either. There is so much fear of rejection, opening up and saying some version of “Hi, I find you attractive. What’s your name?” as a way of striking up a conversation. What’s to fear? The worst I get is the occasional “I’m seeing someone” blowoff. Usually it’s a polite blowoff, but sometimes I meet someone interesting and things can progress somewhere, or (horrors!) a conversation might ensue. And in the reverse situation I have never said anything rude or awful to anyone brave enough to try to strike up a conversation. Usually it gets me to look again at women who aren’t necessarily my “type”, which is not a realistic way to pursue happiness when restarting dating at the ripe old age of thirty-seven.
Damnit women, be brave! Your happiness depends on it, and men will be much more open to feminism when they get hit on. Or is it that men who are feminists will get hit on more? I hope to see further studies, but I’m busy with my own research.
I HATE THAT STUDY. HATE IT, HATE IT, HATE IT.
It screams at me loudly saying “HA HA, YOU ARE THE ONLY FEMINIST WHO CAN’T FIND LOVE!!!” “men don’t hate feminists, THEY JUST HATE YOU, HA HA!!!”
I hope the authors die a long painful death.
(not really; I’m a huge drama queen)
Another reason feminists have happier relationships than conservative women is that many conservative women absolutely HATE men. I think we all know that the “feminists hate men” idea is a straw-woman on the scale of the Wicker Colossus. But conservative women (and men) seem to really hate men a lot. The message I get from reading conservative women on relationships is that men are nasty, evil overgrown children, rather like Damien in The Omen. They’re violent, they’re oversexed, they will divorce you on a whim, they don’t pick up after themselves, they can’t be trusted with money, and women are put here on earth to civilize the brutes. In the name of Lord Squirrelmort, who wants to be in a relationship like that? And what self-respecting man wants to be thought of that way?
“Romance” is a bunch of sexist shit. Having a rewarding love relationship has nothing to do with any of the patriarchal horseshit called “romance”.
Not that it’s all roses or anything, but I’ve often found in my life that the vast majority of problems I have with men can be traced back to a moment when I abandoned certain feminist principles, when I did revert back to my gender training and was deferential or passive aggressive.
Me too.
Another reason to be a bit wary about this study (and I’m sorry to steal your thunder, rowmyboat): as my feminist girlfriend with whom I am in a stable, happy relationship frequently points out, there are lots of feminists out there who are of the fat (i.e. a bit curvy to very large) and ugly (i.e. do not meet conventional male-defined standards of attractiveness) variety. When we get defensive about the whole ugly/fat/hairy feminist trope, to the point that we’re sponsoring studies to prove that it’s untrue, aren’t we kind of buying into the idea that women who are not pleasing to men don’t matter? Instead, we should go on the offensive: “YES. Whether or not they are the majority, many feminists are fat & ugly*. That does not in ANY way diminish them as people or their significance to feminism. Wouldn’t YOU stand up against a culture that hates you for not looking maximally attractive to men at all times? Wouldn’t you want to break down a system that only wants to hear your opinion if you have a single-digit BMI, long blonde hair and no unsightly chin hairs? How is that not the very essence of what we are seeking to accomplish?”
Because after all, if feminism isn’t working for all women, including the fat & ugly* ones, who is it working for?
*When I use the word “ugly,” I mean it in the sense of “not attractive according to beauty standards defined by men in the patriarchy.”
Complete credit for articulating the above point goes to the very awesome rowmyboat. I didn’t come up with this on my own, but I thought it would be good to put it out there.
Well, there’s another side of it, too. If you’re relatively unattractive or romantically unsuccessful then you’re going to be more afraid to call yourself feminist precisely because of those stereotypes. It’s going to take extra strength of character to keep refuting “You’re just saying that because you’re bitter/lonely/ugly,” if you do in fact see yourself as bitter/lonely/ugly and that’s a source of pain to you. I think the cost of being openly feminist is higher for women who conform to feminist stereotypes (if they’re heterosexual)
um, yeah. relationships with feminists are much more fun, because, you know, it’s like dating a real person, rather than having a houseplant.
i think firefox just ate my post, so sorry if this comes up twice: dating feminists is always more fun, because dating a real person is always more fun than dating a houseplant.
also, dating feminist men is more fun too. nothing more disgusting than misogynist gay men.
I’m just going to sit here giggling over the idea of “the traditional courtship that leads to marriage”
Do I have to give my ring back if I admit I got my husband drunk and seduced him to start our “courtship”?
Good point, kali—calling yourself a feminist probably is a privilege of the attractive and the better-off. Or a lot of things that insulate people.
I have to say that conservative women are less likely to have dates and romances because they wait for the men to initiate contact, which is a bad policy
I’d have to say that “conservative women” are as unlikely to be in a hive mind and subsuming their individuality to the dictates of the broad category as “liberal women”, “conservative men” or “liberal men”.
Some don’t fuck, some do, some do lots and lots.
They probably feel guiltier about it afterwards, though.
On the other hand, sometimes these men occasionally fill their patriarchal obligations to their wives with routine purchases of useless but shiny gifts like flowers or diamonds.
I guess that’s how I know I have a feminist man: he was very reluctant to buy me a diamond engagement ring (we ended up inheriting my late grandmother’s ring, which was MUCH better than a store-bought ring) and I have to instruct him as to exactly when I would like him to get me flowers. I think we’ve settled on birthday and Valentine’s Day, but he can pick them up at the store and doesn’t have to spend ridiculous amounts of money on having them delivered.
He’s really good at picking out books and movies that I like, so that makes up for any annoying culturally-induced twinges about the flower thing.
The number one issue is respect. If two people don’t have it with each other then the relationship will fail or the couple will stay together out of fears of being alone.
kali- You hit the nail on the head. I’m an avoidant with not much in the ways of social skills or looks. I often let sexist bullshit slide, because I’m afraid I’ll only be reinforcing the feminist stereotype.
That, and I can’t articulate my thoughts worth a damn anyway.
Mary Tracy9, I don’t think anyone would claim that being a feminist hetero woman makes it easier to get a date (or second or fifth date). I’m pretty sure it’s actually way more work to get through that screening process and initiate a full-blown “relationship” when you adhere to the principles of gender equality. Not only are feminist women probably less likely to lower their standards and put up with bullshit (as Amanda mentioned), it’s also challenging to meet a man who genuinely thinks that you’re his equal and who will “tolerate” gestures like always splitting the dinner bill. You just have a smaller pool of gents from which to pull.
My partner and I split everything–expenses, housework, playing amateur psychologist–equally, and it’s better than any dumb fairy tale.
Getting a gender-equal relationship: hard. Keeping one happy once it’s started: not as hard.
But I know you were just joking around, Mary Tracy.
Are there any pro-feminist online dating sites? How great would that be? There already is one for veg*ans, so why not feminists?
It’s been a long, long time since I dated, but my last relationship was with a woman who was amazing. She’s the only person I’ve dated who earned more than I did, she’s the only person I’ve dated who had a more promising career. And, somewhat amazingly, she loved me. At her wake, her father told me she told him she found the man she was going to marry.
She was also the most feminist person I’ve known.
But, I must object to one thing in the post: Cats are very smart, there’s no way they’d ever be conservative!
Also, as rowmyboat has pointed out to me more than once, and very astutely: getting defensive about this stereotype somewhat validates, even if indirectly, the patriarchal notion that women are only worth caring about if they are pleasing to men. The “fat & ugly” feminists (meaning women wearing anything from the higher single digits or above, and women who don’t meet male-defined conventions of attractiveness) are out there, and their place in feminism is every bit as important as that of their thinner, more conventionally-attractive colleagues. Rather than pretending that these feminists don’t exist, or aren’t a big part of feminism, we should go on the offensive: “You’re damn right there are “fat & ugly” feminists, and we should bloody well be listening to them. If we can get people to take feminists seriously, but only the pretty ones, we won’t have accomplished that much. ALL women are people, and it isn’t anyone’s job to please you just because you say it should be so.”
As a male ally, I stand behind ALL women, cause dammit, it’s not about ME (except in the incidental ways that equality will benefit men as well as women).
Anyway, I didn’t come up with this on my own; this is a point rowmyboat (semi-regular commenter here) makes, and she can no doubt articulate it better than I can. Hope I didn’t steal your thunder! I tried to post this earlier, but it didn’t work for some reason? Oh well, there it is.
This is about the security of stance within your own mind. The idea that, per the purchase of IBM equipment, if you fail, you did it in the standard way, and no one can laugh at you for it. If you try something innovative, and then fail, you may well become a laughingstock in your own mind. It sounds so stupid, but we seek approval from all of the odd things in our lives that are merely transplanted memory. Your old sports trophies, pictures on the wall, an oft-reread novel on your bedstand, or how a particular network of people might reflect on you or your actions. Our minds tend to grab ahold of life-meanings in a way similar to the way we see faces everywhere so long as the pattern sorta matches it.
So we thrust our expectactions outwards, and it feeds right back into ourselves, in a cycle of ME. The personal salvation that feminism might offer isn’t really the world. It is a freedom to renovate the associative network of possessions, obligations, and memories that help structure your life. Only that. The patriarchy doesn’t stop, your needs don’t stop either, and you don’t get a cookie for all of that reading.
What the women that we love to castigate are about, surrounds the topic of need. They want to be secure in their ability to influence the world and above all, seek secret-superior-worry-free methods to overt control. It seems so much easier to get what you want through selling the ideas (partial) of yourself than to constantly expand the idea of yourself and take possession of some future you that is not so now. I think many women approach the idea of marriage as a means towards stasis of who they are, by giving up a part of themselves in order to keep the rest. They note society’s threats through the miasma of the “missing blonde girl” media and rape culture (all men are boys will be boys evil). So an involuntary change of self-makeup is always on the table as a nice, big stick. Marriage as camouflage inside men.
So, what does feminism in relationships mean? I think Dr. Confused has much of the right of it. Feminism is about self recognition of changes in your persona. It is also about recognizing how society expects to mold your behavior by modifying what certain things mean. Once you know that, you can create your own meanings best for your life (and if it’s not best, then you’ve given yourself more self-knowledge). Think about the significance of Roe v Wade in terms of the acceptability of single motherhood. So, perception, enlightment, so you can see all of that, what does that mean? Conservative women (and men too) do not view a topic akin to feminism that comments on assumptions without aggression. You see, when one is talking about assumptions, you are talking about what their decisions mean, and they typically conflate meanings and their own persons because oftentimes they tend to be highly determinist and/or egoist. If you say that someone’s hobby is trivial, or their jobs oppress others, how would that person react? Would they feel like they are worthless, silly people, or that they are evil? Well, to the extent that conservative women consider feminism, they tend to think two things:
1) Feminism won’t prevent you from getting raped, or stop glass ceilings from smushing on your heads, or any number of bad things that can happen to women. To some extent, publicly embracing feminism can aggravate all those potential events. Feminism violates their ideas of realpolitik.
2) Feminists who are in happy relationships are a pretty direct threat to some unhappy people’s ego. They’ve made some bad choices and may very much see feminism as some kind of rival alternative in some schema conflict over who is more naturally superior, or something. Many conservatives very much want to believe the worst of feminists as a way to prop up their own egos. Whatever I had, it was a nice, solid, IBM product. I’m not at fault, look at those silly feminists who don’t get what the world is “really” about.
I think I’ll leave with a quote from Gordon Ziniewicz
Overman and The Last Man
I am “traditionally attractive” (although I do what I can to not be traditionally “feminine”) despite my being a big-mouthed feminist, and I must say, sleazy pick-up-artist-wanna-be guys love me… They seem to cling onto me. Until I stand up for myself. Then, of course, I’m a “bitch.” I wish I knew why that type likes me so much, but after two decades, I have not figured out how to innately repel them.
Here’s a segment of a conversation with my best male friend which I think is significant:
“You know, I’ve been reading Plato (for a poli course), and I just finished a passage in which Socrates describes how people who continually stand up for just positions are viewed with hostility. Odd that. . . makes me think of that day when you were confronting the misogynist Orthodox guy and that girl shouted at you from the car. . .
Being just is a sure-fire route to unpopularity in the short run, but I think it’s worth it in the long term. . .”
I adore him. And I think he makes a beautiful point.
We will be forced to defend ourselves, even when it is obvious that we are in the right.
We will be forced to defend ourselves, even when it is obvious that we are in the right.
Reminds me of Professor Avengers’ favorite quote from Ibsen, from An Enemy of the People
Mightiest is he who stands alone.
As for relationships, Mother Avengers’ advice rings true for everyone AFAIK:
“It’s not enough to fuck them. You have to be able to talk to them afterwards.”
My ISP likes to run provocative headlines in their news section of the homepage and then when you read the article the information content is much less than one is led to believe from the headline.
One such article had a title about what subgroup of women had the most sex.
In a trend keeping with the studies cited here, they found that women who had the most sex were those who were in committed relationships.
Among the reasons I love Pandagon: Nietzsche and Ibsen references shortly after each other in the same thread.
PhysioProf, romance doesn’t suck- it’s all in how you define romance.
To me, romance is getting up at 5:15am to get the kids ready for school (involves hauling them out by the ankles and bullwhips) and finding a hot cup of coffee waiting for me. It’s listening to each other’s interests, even when it includes his watch obsession, all things political or newsworthy, or discussing the online morning comics.
Romance is going over 16 years (15 of it married) where we can’t remember a single day we didn’t talk to each other at least ONCE, despite a gazillion business trips. Romance is when we talk at either 5:15am or 10pm on those days apart, just to say “good morning” or “good night”.
This year, I found that true romance is complete support in the wake of my sister’s suicide- she was undiagnosed bipolar and Rx pain med abuser for 20 years, but always lived 1000-2500 miles away, so we didn’t know until the last year of her life. Despite the fact that they only met 5 times over 20 years and couldn’t stand each other, my Charlie has helped me stay sane this year.
THAT’S “romance”. The real life, every day shit that a couple who gives a damn about each other goes through. Flowers? Those are in the garden and he built the raised beds for me. Candy? Yeah, we buy it when we need a sugar fix and remember each other’s faves. Gifts? Those come EVERY DAY, and most are unwrapped.
Off to check an email he just sent me about Cute Overload bunnies…
Isn’t this obvious?
At its core, the “patriarchal fairy tale” makes sense only if you view all women as prostitutes. The games women play and “the Rules” they follow are merely haggling over the price.
In their eyes, sex is a bargaining chip and something of value for the woman to negotiate with. A smart woman holds out for the highest price. Likewise, someone who just “gives it away” is being taken advantage of. In this system, it should come as no surprise that men don’t respect women, nor would women expect them to. After all, all women are whores.
I don’t think I have to explain to anyone on this blog the problems with this approach. Nor do I have to explain why a relationship between equals is better and more satisfying for everyone than the glorified prostitute-john relationship the patriarchy pushes.
I am “traditionally attractive” (although I do what I can to not be traditionally “feminine”) despite my being a big-mouthed feminist, and I must say, sleazy pick-up-artist-wanna-be guys love me… They seem to cling onto me. Until I stand up for myself. Then, of course, I’m a “bitch.” I wish I knew why that type likes me so much, but after two decades, I have not figured out how to innately repel them.
Seriously, the only way to innately rebel them is to not be female. But I know what you mean—a lot of these guys view women as objects to be conquered, and your unwillingness to be with them gets interpreted as you thinking you’re hot stuff, ergo you are a bigger prize to snag, ergo you should be bothered more. Just be bitchy right away, would be my advice. Seems to work out okay for me.
Also, as rowmyboat has pointed out to me more than once, and very astutely: getting defensive about this stereotype somewhat validates, even if indirectly, the patriarchal notion that women are only worth caring about if they are pleasing to men. The “fat & ugly” feminists (meaning women wearing anything from the higher single digits or above, and women who don’t meet male-defined conventions of attractiveness) are out there, and their place in feminism is every bit as important as that of their thinner, more conventionally-attractive colleagues.
Important point, but I do want to strike a balance between that and not chastising women for being human, and a lot of human being do care about being able to have a romantic life and should not be made to feel guilty about that. The view I have is, “It’s okay to want to be attractive to the people you wish to attract; what’s not okay is staking your life on it or thinking there’s something wrong with you if you’re single.” A lot of younger women especially perceive there to be a dogmatic insistence that you reject all of the innocent and understandable pleasures of combing your hair and flirting with your preferred gender, a stereotype that does need to be addressed. Feminists are (most of us at least) about making life better, not less pleasurable.
Amen, amen, amen.
“it’s okay to be single”
And conservatism is all about becoming part of a set. Single conservatives are either gay and closeted, unhappy, utterly miserable, or victims of those damn feminists and unwilling to take it anymore and have to write odd screeds against the women who don’t like them or against the men who can’t value them for their inherent amazingment that somehow they can’t express to men because that would cheapen the whole thing and be kinda whorish. I would suggest arranged marriages for conservatives as a Fox News feature, but then someone would have to marry Ann Coulter.
How funny. Allison Kasic reminds me that when I was at Stanford, a meme started that people at Stanford don’t date that continues till this day.
Funny, as I dated boys and even had a long-term relationship (that included dates) while I was there. So did my friends.
The cartoonist in the Daily often ran jokes enforcing this notion.
I can only conclude the meme-pushers didn’t get dates, so pushed the idea that the entire student body was anti-date to justify their problem.
“It’s not ME, it’s the SCHOOL.”
“It’s not ME, it’s the lack of traditional dating forms”
No, Ms. Kasic, it’s YOU.
The google ads at the top of the page are:
Attract “Mr. RIGHT” , Make Him Fall In Love, and Inside a Boyfriends Mind.
I guess they think Allison is reading here.
Why can’t it be that people are attracted to people who are happy and comfortable with themselves? Feminists are women doing what they choose not trying to be something they are not.
mnemosyne, it sounds more like you have an employee than a boyfriend.
Where’s the spontaneity? I probably read mor einto your post than was there but it sounds like a stifled relationship.
But, if it works then rock on…
Mine didn’t want an engagement ring. Claimed that they showed ‘ownership’ and that she was ‘property’.
Well, several years after the marriage I heard her showing off her grandmother’s huge diamond set into a custom mouting as ‘her engagement ring’ from me.
I probably could have acted better but I was floored. She said that she ‘always wanted one’ but wanted me to make the move’. Whaaa? Where was that coming from? Somehow I was now ‘cheap’ for ‘bagging her’ without spending x% of my salary for a ‘mark of property’. I offered to pee on her leg if it would make her feel better. The whole experience was very hurtful and bizarre.
Same thing with flowers, although now it’s “what did you do wrong now?” that I get.
I can’t win for losing…
No spontaneity. Plenty of mind games…
That study makes perfect sense to me. Feminism makes me happier, more confident, more emotionally healthy, etc. When I’m happy about me, I’m a much better partner in a relationship.
Oh. Wait. “Partner” in a relationship. Ms. Kasic’s vision seems less partner, more property. That could explain the confusion.
Pinky, what are you trying to say, exactly?
I am inherently distrustful of studies that make people feel good about themselves.
Yeah, Pinky, it sucks when a partner is not honest or is playing mind-games with you. I recommend having a heart-to-heart about how what matters most to you is her happiness, so if having an engagement ring would make her happier than not, she should tell you so.
A bit of insight on the engagement ring issue: women hear conflicting messages re: engagement rings. It’s part and parcel of the whole “fairy tale wedding” thing girls are typically raised to believe will be culminating experience of their lives. On the other hand, there are a lot of jokes and complaints out there about how women are money-grubbers who will do anything to get “the rock”, or conversely, won’t do anything until they get “the rock”.
So that might provide some insight into why your fiancee might want an engagement ring but doesn’t want to tell you so.
i’m of the opinion that it comes down to what your ultimate, absolute number one goal is. if your clear goal is to be married, you can achieve it by following rule and gender roles and such, but you might not be happy because “being happy” is not your end goal.
i also think this is a situation where men get hurt, too, as pinky’s indicating. jerks are not necessarily men. if a woman’s playing a mind game on you, you don’t have to stay with them and you don’t have to take it.
I, personally, would love to Coulter get married to some uber conservative Nice Guy; karmic payback and all.
Grolby my love, you made my points beautifully, thank you. I would say though, that after following the posted links, the study didn’t do any talking about the beauty and attractiveness and so forth of these studied feminists, so I’d question whether this was the perfect moment to make those points. But, when talking about happy feminist relationships, attractiveness usually isn’t far behind, so whatever.
Also, I would like everyone to know that I, being a woman, have been known to bring Grolby, who is a man, flowers and chocolate,
I just remembered feeling so crushed when she lied about the ring and would berate me for buying flowers when they weren’t ‘appropriate’.
I guess people have to be on the same page, and brutely honest with themselves when they sit down and make these decisions.
BUT, now I bring food to her at work and get a game and she jokes about “what I did”… I get tired of it.
THis turned into more of a rant than I wanted but I guess what I was trying to get at was that both have to agree and then live by that agreement until they mutually decide to change.
We’re still married but the games have gotten to me. I’m an economic prisoner in the relationship which I realize is mostly my fault. But life goes on I guess…
I identified with Green Day’s ‘Pulling Teeth’ for a while… Although it’s not quite that bad. Nothing physical.
I wish I knew why that type likes me so much, but after two decades, I have not figured out how to innately repel them.
Well, some women don’t get bothered by them; there’s a body language thing involved. It’s like how you get harrassed in the street more often when you’re daydreaming or not paying attention: if you’re aware of your surroundings and you notice if someone’s looking at you and you kind of stare through him like he’s an ugly and inappropriate piece of furniture, then you don’t get approached. That’s what I do, though it took me a while to consciously notice it as it’s an automatic reaction. And in my case it’s a necessary defence mechanism because talking to strangers makes me very anxious, but it wouldn’t suit everybody; it doesn’t even really suit me. Having to maintain that kind of low-level vigilance and reflexive hostility is probably too high a price to pay for most women even if it is a thing you can choose consciously.
I’m sorry, but how is a study indicating that feminists are frequently in commited, happy relationships any indicator of the existence of “fat and ugly” feminists? As if “fat and/ or ugly” equals “nobody will ever love you”? As if all of those happy-relationship-having feminists are size 2 and blond? Isn’t a relationship with someone who wants a partner rather than arm candy more likley to be sucessful in the long run anyway? All the chunky, hairy-armpitted feminists I know who are clebrating 20-year anniversiaries would be very suprised to learn that they can’t exist, since no non-hot women, feminist or not, ever find love. Am I really seeing this undercurrent of “poor ugly feminists, don’t forget that their voices are important too!”
(sorry for basically posting the same comment twice, I didn’t know it took so long to post).
Don’t know how to block quotes, but Amanda said:
“Important point, but I do want to strike a balance between that and not chastising women for being human, and a lot of human being do care about being able to have a romantic life and should not be made to feel guilty about that. The view I have is, “It’s okay to want to be attractive to the people you wish to attract; what’s not okay is staking your life on it or thinking there’s something wrong with you if you’re single.” A lot of younger women especially perceive there to be a dogmatic insistence that you reject all of the innocent and understandable pleasures of combing your hair and flirting with your preferred gender, a stereotype that does need to be addressed. Feminists are (most of us at least) about making life better, not less pleasurable.”
Word. This actually reminds me of a discussion I had where someone said (paraphrased), “I respect the real feminists, not the ones that are accusing me of sexism one day and batting their eyes at the police officer who pulled them over the next.”
This is obviously not the same issue, and a lot could be said about what’s wrong with that comment, but just as women need to find the balance between where they capitulate and where they fight back in order to maintain their sanity in an oppressive culture, so too do we need to find the balance between sensible refutations of unflattering feminist stereotypes and where those refutations cross the line of tacitly accepting patriarchal notions of female value (ugh, that sounds pretentious). Because that is, clearly, not my line to draw, I prefer to err on the side of caution. But yeah, this study looks pretty legit. I was tired and didn’t follow the link. Bad grolby!
Anyway, attractiveness IS important, but we definitely need a more reasonable idea of what attractiveness is, and what are reasonable means of maintaining it in everyday life (e.g. not expecting women to spend 30 minutes in front of the mirror every morning). There are lots of conventionally ugly men walking around, getting dates, getting married, and there are’t too many people getting in their faces about it if they take enough time to bathe every so often.
And yes, rowmyboat brings me lovely flowers and delicious chocolate. I LOVE chocolate. I’ll take chocolate over power tools any ol’ day of the week.
Grolby love, you forgot to mention how I own more power tools than you (by more I mean I have 1 and he has 0).
Anyway dear, please see Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth — the phrase you are looking for is the Third Shift, meaning the time effort and money that women are required to put into their appearance that men are not.
Somehow I was now ‘cheap’ for ‘bagging her’ without spending x% of my salary for a ‘mark of property’.
I just want to say again what Denise pointed out: women definitely get conflicting messages about engagement rings and things men are supposed to buy them to prove that they’re worth a man’s love. Your wife was originally repulsed by the idea that she was something to be bought, but then she figured if she told people that, they would decide she was only saying that because she wasn’t worth buying in the first place. Maybe people did say that to her, as something like “your husband didn’t care enough about you to pay what you were worth.” She started to believe it. She was confused and probably a little sick, and she probably still feels that way when she thinks about it.
no, you know what, Pinky? that’s seriously bullshit. it’s highly manipulative. i have a friend who trapped himself financially in a marriage with a woman who is also manipulative and a control freak. after about a year of her behavior escalating, he’s actually scared of her now. there is nothing more that i think would be good for him than to leave, although i recognize that financially this is not viable… besides, he won’t listen to me. but if the opportunity comes up that you can leave, you really should. you don’t deserve that. it doesn’t matter if you did something wrong and she can’t forgive you — if she’s acting borderline abusive because of it, she shouldn’t be in a marriage with you.
and i say this as a 5-star general in the feminazi army.
Pinky, I agree with Lorelei, and also with you. Honesty and empathy between partners are two absolutely necessary ingredients for a relationship to thrive. If one partner isn’t being honest (and playing games with your partner definitely qualifies as dishonesty) then the relationship can’t and won’t work.
If you haven’t sat down with her and discussed how you’re feeling, straight up and completely candid, now might be the time. If you feel that the relationship is salvageable and you *want* to salvage it, then you’ve got to change the dynamic. Might want to consider seeing a marriage counselor too. It sounds like the lines of communication between you two have gotten completely jacked up. If you’re feeling this bad about it now, it’s only going to get worse.
Good luck.
mnemosyne, it sounds more like you have an employee than a boyfriend.
I was going to get pissed, but then I read the rest of your posts and understood how you’d misread me. (Not to mention that he’s my husband, not my boyfriend, but anyway … )
The flowers thing: I like to get flowers on certain occasions, i.e. my birthday and Valentine’s Day. Because I know this about myself, I specifically told him, “I like to get flowers on those occasions, so please buy them for me.” He’s not a mind reader, so if there’s something I’d like him to do for me, I ask him to do it rather than hoping that maybe possibly he might get the hint if I play enough passive-aggressive mind games. And, yes, he does the same thing if he wants me to do something for him — he asks me for it.
Believe me, it frees up enormous amounts of time for more entertaining conversations.
(Oh, and I’ve never, not even once, tried to pretend that my ring is a store-bought one, because having my grandmother’s ring is much more meaningful to me than having one that he spent three months salary on, or whatever it’s supposed to be.)
I am inherently distrustful of studies that make people feel good about themselves.
I’d hesitate to believe it if there wasn’t more evidence out there.
Hey! I linked to that study in comment #228 [ ! ] in the troll-infested thread. Yea!
I’m a feminist… but I still want flowers. hehe. I think I’ll write an essay on that…….right now.
Amanda: The only flaw I saw in the methodology, according to the excerpts reprinted on Feminsting, was that the feminist women appeared to be ranking their partners. It’s kind of the classic conundrum; nobody responding to a poll who is satisfied with their partner is going to mark them down as a poor feminist or anti-feminist. Conversely, if they ask the partner “do you believe in women’s rights/equality,” knowing that their partner has self-identified as a feminist, they’re not going to mark “hell no!”
You know, it’s like the “are you planning on voting this year?” or “How often do you go to church?” question. 90% say “sure” or “every week,” then the voting turnout or attendance doesn’t fully bear it out.
The explanation you have in the main post is spot-on, Amanda, but the study seems strange. However, I would gladly defer to the soundness of the methodology if blessed by the blogosphere’s resident study breaker-downer, Echnidne.
I think Mustella’s got a crucial point here — feminism is probably the best hope of the “fat” and “ugly” women, because they’ll be able to weed out the potential partners (at such time that they want a partner) who think they should be “grateful” or some such crap. And the odds of someone who isn’t hung up on conventional standards of attractiveness are much higher in the non-straightjackets crowd.
But one important thing to remember for folks like pinky: being a feminist doesn’t stop you from being a selfish asshole. It means your basic worldview doesn’t compel you to be an asshole, but you can still be one if you choose.
I beg to differ. I am a conventionally attractive blonde, and feminism is also the best bet for me, as it ensures that any partner I have will respect me as a full and complete human being of worth, and not just a sex object to dominate/ejaculate into.
Feminism is the best hope for everyone, really.
I recall reading (on Pandagon, perhaps) that divorce rates are much higher in the Bible Belt. Could this be not only because of the lower educational levels and young marriages, but because there are fewer feminists there?
All these famblee-values people are barking up the wrong tree (but I think we all knew that). To strengthen “the family” in all its diverse forms what we need is a strong infusion of feminism.
Nailed it.
I can maintain it for a while, but the hostility I sometimes get in return can be tiring.
And FWIW, I would like to see Ann Coulter marry Bill O’Reilly and move to the Galapagos Islands without access to any wireless networks.
And isn’t it also true that Massachusetts is at the bottom of the pile when it comes to divorce rates, like top five lowest or something? Gays and feminists in the same place!
“And FWIW, I would like to see Ann Coulter marry Bill O’Reilly and move to the Galapagos Islands without access to any wireless networks.”
What the hell did the Galapagos do to deserve THAT?
:)
…
Hey! I’ve known this since I went out with my first feminist friend in 1968……
Oh…yeah…she was….
Hot!
And even better….
Smart.
At least there would be no humans around to be tortured by it. I definitely would feel for all animal life, however…
Sorry folks. That post brought up some bad memories. Yesterday wasn’t a good day.
Thanks to the glorious “Bush Recovery™”, my shot at economic viability is really struggling lately. Thank god I have health insurance.
Lots of “fat” and “ugly” people of all genders are happily married.
And Massachusetts has the LOWEST divorce rate in the US.