“I don’t have to commit to one person just because society says so”

“Love and Relationships Series: Multiple Dating and Me” by deb singh

Here’s the link: http://shamelessmag.com/blog/entry/love-and-relationships-series-multiple-dating-and

In a nutshell, singh’s blog post is about her experience with multiple dating partners in an attempt to challenge the pressures society places on people to remain monogamous. For her, along with most people (if they can admit it!), being attracted to more than one person at a time is not strange territory. The thing is that most people, especially when they’re in a relationship, ignore feelings for other people or even sometimes cheat. By being honest with herself and her feelings, deb chooses to engage with polyamory to avoid the guilt, dishonesty and even dissatisfaction with depending on one person for companionship.

I was especially intrigued by this post not only because it completely opposes the institution of marriage, which of course is deeply rooted in monogamy, but also because it reminded me that I shouldn’t feel pressured to seriously commit to one person. If I want to take my time, meet new people and just enjoy dating for a while (or maybe even forever! Who knows!) I should feel okay to do that and not rush into a relationship simply because it’s what 20-somethings are expected to do.

“When it comes to the types of relationships that are out there, it’s pretty clear that while we live in a culture of monogamy, we can still be attracted to more than one person at the same time”

This is obviously a massive contradiction in our society. I’ve heard that only a small margin of non-human animal species are monogamous, and that humans are naturally not part of this group. I would need to do more research to find out if there is merit in these claims, but when you think about how prevalent cheating is in our society, and how high the divorce rate is, it seems like a minority of people these days are finding complete contentment in their relationships. Even for those couples that stick it out to the bitter end (ie. death) who’s to say that they were truly happy? And even if these couples were generally happy together, does this mean that they went their whole lives without ever being attracted to another person? I highly doubt it.

“Both people had to be okay with knowing I was dating the other, or I wouldn’t have continued to do so. I guess if one had wanted me to be monogamous with them, I would have had to make that choice at that time, but both were okay with knowing I was spending time with the other”

I think this quotation points to a big reason for why polyamory and open relationships (wait, are they the same thing? I found this website to help clear up that question, and from what I read they are often used interchangeably but can often be different depending on the unique arrangements of the individuals: http://www.polypipeline.com/dear-poly-chick-polyamory-vs-open-relationships/) work well. It’s because couples are given the opportunity to be completely honest with one another about their feelings and they can avoid cheating (maybe some people would disagree, but to me it’s not cheating if my partner knows and agrees with me seeing other people!). I was telling Ebru recently about a good friend of mine who is in an open relationship: whenever he or his girlfriend has a sexual encounter, they tell one another about it. There’s no sneaking behind each other’s backs, and when they come together once again they feel closer than they did before. Ebru was telling me that people in these open relationships are actually happier a lot of the time than people who are in closed relationships. Although I must admit that I don’t think I would be able to share a man I was in a committed relationship with due to jealousy (which I think is one of the only major downsides to open relationships, along with social unacceptance), it makes sense to me that people in these relationships would be happier overall because (like Ebru and I discussed) they aren’t relying on one person alone to fulfill all of their needs. The expectations people place on their partners are most times unrealistic, which I think is a big reason why many relationships don’t last and marriages end. I also wonder if it is possible to remain attracted to the same person for your entire life…but that’s a question for another day!

“…check out all the people getting divorced for the reason of one partner cheating! It’s obvious in these scenarios that people clearly have attractions and needs for different personalities and kinds of relationships in their lives”

It’s just like I said in my last comment! But why don’t people come to terms with this? Is it because acknowledging the idea that one person probably isn’t going to keep you entirely happy forever defeats this romantic concept of finding “the one” or a “soulmate”? Is it because it messes with this idea of the picket fence, husband, two kids and the golden retriever? Do we avoid coming to terms with multiple attractions because it simply bursts the bubbles of the dreams we have been told we should have throughout our entire lives? I think there’s some merit to that theory, because I’m still struggling with coming to terms with these ideas. I think of every romantic movie I’ve ever watched in my life (Disney included, of course) and finding that one special person to love me and cherish me forever is a wonderful concept. It’s just…not necessarily a realistic one. It’s sad, but true.

“But the keys to doing multiple dating well are caring for the person, hearing them out and being very honest with yourself about what you can really manage”

It seems that there is definitely a right and a wrong way to pursue polyamorous relationships. If you’re so busy with school and/or your career that you barely have time for one person but you take on another, that might classify you as a little selfish. Being honest with yourself and the people you’re with, along with being considerate of their feelings and trying to do what’s best for you and them is a difficult balancing act that might be a little too messy for everyone to handle. If you’re committing to this lifestyle though, everything deb mentions needs to be carried out effectively.

“One of the biggest keys for me was being aware that I wasn’t dating one person or a few because I was lonely or couldn’t be alone. I had to be very comfortable being alone and having only myself to love me before I could get into complicated relationships where I had to juggle many dynamics”

I think the idea of seeking partnerships as a result of being unable to tolerate one’s own loneliness is a big stigma attached not only to people in open/poly relationships, but also people who are accused of being “serial daters” or those who haven’t been single for longer than a month since high school. These are the people who always have someone new on the go, if only for a few weeks, or those who jump from one serious relationship into the next because they desperately need the companionship. I’ll admit that I can empathize with these feelings. I don’t like being alone either, but lately I’ve realized that I don’t actually need a romantic partner to satisfy this loneliness. It might just be in my personality to be completely dissatisfied with being alone for extended periods of time (I try to get people to come with me everywhere…even on ridiculous errands like a trip to the bank or grocery store) and I’m beginning to accept that side of me. I don’t completely agree that a person needs to learn to be happy with being “alone” per say, if being alone actually means just literally hanging out by yourself. But if being “alone” means just not being in a relationship, then that’s completely different. You have to be content with yourself and being single if you want to be successful with letting anyone else in, and I think that applies to both monogamous and polyamorous relationships. But for me, disliking being alone isn’t a bad thing if it means I enjoy surrounding myself with family and friends.

“It’s okay to have many different kinds of friends and friendships, so trying to manage that in terms of romantic and sexual relationships - if others are okay with it - seems like it could yield a world of connections, experiences and love”

It’s funny when you think about it. Why is it okay to have many friends but not okay to have many romantic partners? Jealousy is also common between friends: I might get jealous of someone if I find they have been spending a lot of time with one of my friends and I haven’t seen them in a while. But this kind of jealousy is a lot less extreme and doesn’t usually lead to the termination of friendships (at least not in my case) whereas it happens all the time in relationships. It doesn’t make sense!

I think singh is onto something here…if I could just overcome my jealousy! 

"One of the many advantages to being single, and the one I enjoy the most, is being able to do whatever I want without having to worry about how my actions…will affect how a particular person thinks of me”

“Love and Relationships Series: Happy On Her Own” by R.B.

I found this blog series on the website entitled “Love and Relationships” and thought I would explore some posts in an attempt to get interesting and unique perspectives on such an overdone, clichéd topic. From the title it appears to be just that: CLICHÉ AS HELL. But what some of these writers had to say was anything but cliché, and mirrored many of my own thoughts and questions about relationships. The following blog and the one after it are my comments on two blog entries from this series.

 Here’s the link: http://shamelessmag.com/blog/entry/love-and-relationships-series-happy-on-her-own

In this short blog entry, R.B. discusses the pressures women experience with their choice to remain single. She talks about her own personal experiences with friends and family constantly giving her a hard time about her relationship status, arguing that she simply values her independence and has no desire to be with anyone.

“…the thing is, I don’t really want to get into a relationship. Nor have I ever seriously thought of getting into one. I won’t deny that there are people I find attractive, but so far that’s where my level of engagement comes to an end”

While I can’t personally relate to the author’s feelings as I have been in a couple “serious” relationships in my life, I have close friends who have expressed similar feelings about dating. I wouldn’t say that they have no desire whatsoever to find someone, it’s just that it’s not a priority for them. Neither of them have ever had boyfriends and they are perfectly fine with it. After reading this blog entry I actually feel a little guilty for trying to encourage them to go out with guys. When they tell me about someone who has an interest in them, or if there’s someone they find attractive, I’ll tell them to make a move…and maybe I’m being a little too pushy. Honestly, the more I date the more I realize that they might be on to something with this whole single life thing. Living completely for yourself (while sounding a little selfish, I must say) doesn’t seem like a terribly unpleasant way to go about things.

“However, whenever I express these views [that she would rather focus on herself and her ambitions], most people wonder (aloud I must note) if I’m making up an excuse (e.g. for not having a boyfriend/girlfriend, for being “traumatized,” and so forth). Or I am not taken seriously at all and patronizingly told that I only feel this way because I have never been involved with anyone”

Why is it so hard for our society to accept people who are simply not interested in dating? Can this all be traced back to the nuclear family, and the need for men and women to marry in order to make the most money possible? Ugh, I swear the more research I do the more I sound like a Marxist. I’m really not trying to! I just don’t know how else to explain it. Why do we need men and women to match up and get hitched so badly? What is the purpose? Can it be explained by capital, or can we connect it to something else like tradition, or patriarchy (even though patriarchy is often connected to capital…). I’m confused. I know there are no simple, concrete answers and there probably never will be, but that doesn’t stop me from questioning everything! On another note, I have to admit that I am completely guilty of accusing my friends of not wanting a relationship because they don’t know what they’re missing. I’ve always been very relationship-oriented. I like boys and I like their companionship. Always have, and (as much as I hate it sometimes) probably always will. If I’ve been single for too long I become lonely, and I’m constantly thinking about marriage and children. It’s really embarrassing for me to admit that after all of this research that I’ve done, but it’s the truth! Anyway. What this post and my other research has taught me is that I need to stop taking things like dating and marriage as “normal” and remind myself that these are all social constructs. I don’t actually “need” to get married. I won’t die if I don’t get married. I could just as easily not get married and have the same level of intimate companionship with someone if I wanted and I wouldn’t actually be missing out on anything in the relationship itself at all. But social pressures make it hard for women in particular to be okay with being alone, even though in reality if all of these bullshit pressures were stripped away we’d probably be perfectly fine. With each day of my research I find myself resenting the idea of marriage and empathizing more and more with my beautifully content single friends. I don’t need a boyfriend or husband to fill that horrible void of loneliness. I have a bunch of wonderful friends, both male and female, as well as an incredible family to keep me completely happy. Boyfriends should never be construed as “aspirations” for women. If anything, they should be bonuses to an already rich and fulfilling life.

…’spinster,’ a term associated with an unmarried woman generally carries a negative connotation, whereas ‘bachelor,’ a term associated with an unmarried man generally carries a more positive one. There is a popular perception that a bachelor lives an enviable life in which he can do whatever he wants. On the other hand, the lifestyle of a spinster is condemned and mocked”

I love this point! If this point was a man, I would marry it (ha, ha). Why is it that women are always condemned for remaining single, whereas men are never placed under the same scrutiny and to boot, are even envied for their free and sometimes lavish lifestyles (said “lavish lifestyles” make sense since they don’t have families to support and can climb the professional ladder as high as they want without worrying about how it will affect anyone else)? I find myself thinking about Federici once again…how these “spinster” women who did not live up to the status quo were accused of being witches and burned at the stake. Of course now we have moved past the witch trials, but even though we no longer kill women whose lifestyles we don’t agree with, our mockery continues to burn them pretty badly as they struggle to navigate their everyday lives.

Even though this individual has not identified herself as "asexual" (although I suppose it is possible...not really my place to judge) I found this short documentary included below incredibly fascinating. I cannot even tell you how I came across it, but all I can say is that it completely changed my outlook on asexuality. To be honest, I didn't really have a solid understanding of it beforehand. I had heard about it, and I've even made a joke or two about one of my cousins having her child through "asexual reproduction" because the baby looked completely like her and nothing like her husband! Prior to watching this video though, I thought asexuals had absolutely no desire to participate in any romantic relationships whatsoever. I imagined that they were essentially loners who were simply happier being by themselves than being with other people. This video, however, proves that this is not the case at all. Both of the individuals featured are emotionally, mentally and romantically interested in one another (they have a lot in common, they get along well, they even like to kiss and cuddle). They just don't have any desire to be sexually intimate with one another. This may seem quite odd to a lot of people, and hard to wrap your head around (especially considering that they sleep in the same bed), but that does not mean there is anything wrong with them. You don't need another person to be a complete person, nor do you need sex. At the end of the day if you can find things that make you happy, that's all that matters. For R.B., she's happy being on her own and focusing on her ambitions. For the couple in this video, they're happy and in love but without the sex. That's it. That's all. Accept it and move on! 

“[Penis] props are emblematic of the contradictory roles the bride is forced to play: Within hours of the bachelorette party ending, she'll morph from bawdy bachelorette to blushing, virginal bride”

“Rise of the Penis Piñata” by Madeline Grimes

Grimes’ fascinating article chronicles the history of the bachelorette party and compares them to bachelor parties in order to reveal their sexist and oppressive undertones. The article also draws parallels between the bachelor and bachelorette party to illuminate the differences between how men and women perceive marriage. For a man, a bachelor party symbolizes a final taste of the single life before being sentenced to the remainder of his life with the same woman (as I mention later on, the ball-and-chain bachelor party prop is a good representation of these perceptions). Women, on the other hand, have historically been made to believe that marriage is a life goal and a dream as opposed to something that should illicit a kind of mourning process. While these attitudes have changed somewhat with the rise of raunchier bachelorette parties (strip clubs, bars, etc.), Grimes argues that the penis paraphernalia that has become such a popular trend at bachelorette parties are not as sexually liberating as we might think…

Here’s the link: http://bitchmagazine.org/article/rise-of-the-penis-pi%C3%B1ata-history-bachelorette-party-feminism

“It seems there is an entire industry devoted to shoving genitals—penis whistles, penis pasta, penis straws, and of course, penis cake—into a bride's face. (Vagina whistles, pasta, piñatas, and cakes are hard to come by)”

I’ve never been to a bachelorette party (but now that I’m twenty-two I’m sure I’ll have loads of experiences to look forward to in the next ten years or so…lucky me!) so I can’t really relate to this discrepancy from experience but I find it fascinating! Why are bachelorette parties all about shoving penises in girls’ faces (excuse my derogatory language but I don’t know how else to put it!) whereas bachelor parties are about…real vaginas, like at the strip clubs? I was talking to my mom about this, and I was discussing my curiosity in the reasons behind why men’s and women’s bachelor(ette) parties are so different. She told me that bachelor parties just don’t have favors like women’s parties do (hence the lack of vagina-shaped items) and that it would be weird for guys to do that. She told me that the only favor she’s ever seen for a bachelor party was a ball-and-chain prop. I want to know why these differences exist: why is it considered “weird” for guys to have party favors? I observed that perhaps women go more for the “fake” penises with their party favors, while men often go for the “real” vaginas by going to strip clubs. My mother refuted this claim though by saying that both men and women visit strip clubs for bachelor(ette) parties. This is certainly true, however, I made a further point by asserting that if I collected research asking men and women who decided to have bachelor(ette) parties before their wedding what they did for said parties, I would hypothesize that there would be a much larger ratio of men attending strip clubs compared to women. So with these ideas in mind, I want to know: what do these differences suggest about how women and men respond to and perceive the institution of marriage (I keep thinking of that ball-and-chain…)? In what ways could an investigation of the bachelor versus bachelorette party reveal the gendered differences between men and women in marriage? To tie this into geography, I think it would also be interesting to compare the different places that each gender chooses to go for these parties: who’s going to the clubs and bars, and who’s going to sit-down restaurants and friend’s houses?

“Prior to the 1960s, women didn't celebrate the ‘end’ of their sexual freedom in ritualized parties like men because it was believed that women weren't actually giving anything up in marriage. Women were not expected to feel sad about their impending nuptials, nor were they expected to lament the end of their single days in drunken bacchanalia—marriage was the aspirational end point”

I can certainly relate to this idea of marriage as an “aspirational end point.” You see a lot of little girls planning their weddings and pre-naming their children, but you don’t hear about many little boys doing the same. Why is it that marriage and family is so deeply ingrained into the goals and hopes and dreams of women, but not men? For women prior to the 1960s according to this article (and even today too!) marriage wasn’t framed as a sacrifice or a compromise in the eyes of women, whereas marriage represented the end of sexual freedom for men. If we’re going to talk about sex for a minute here…for women, the single life (which can include dating, having multiple partners, casual sex, etc.) is not something to be mourned in marriage as it is often mourned among men. Why is that? I think things are changing with the rise of these more risqué bachelorette parties, but at the same time there is still this stigma with marriage that the man is being tied down and his freedoms are being taken away. How often do we ever hear about the woman being tied down, and having her freedoms taken away when she is married? I’ll watch shows like “Say Yes to the Dress” and “Four Weddings” and it seems very apparent to me that weddings and marriage are framed as the most important event in a woman’s life. Where are the shows about men shopping for their dream tux, and planning their dream wedding? Oh wait, there are none because men (stereotypically) don’t have those dreams.

“It wasn't until the 1980s that the bachelorette party was even given a name, and the late '90s before it was widely discussed in media (including women's and bridal magazines) or studied in academia. (Cosmo's first article about bachelorette parties appeared in 1998 and suggested that activities should be tailored to the bride's tastes, even if ‘you know your pal secretly wants to rub oil on the gun of a scantily clad 'police officer.’) The 1980s brought a subtle shift in tone to the parties—they were usually planned in advance and began to shadow the male version in activity”

I can’t believe it took THAT long for women to have bachelorette parties! No one thought before the late 1980s that having a night similar to the guys’ could be a lot of fun? I guess society was just trying to keep this stereotype of the perfect, homely little “virgin bride” alive for as long as humanly possible! Over twenty years later there are men who are still extremely attracted to the idea of a “virgin bride,” with some who even take it to the degree of a fetish (and in saying this, I’m excluding those men who believe in the importance of abstinence before marriage as part of their religious affiliations). I would be curious to know how important male virginity is to women! In pop culture as well as in my own personal experience, I’ve never heard of a woman seeking a male virgin (except for—like I mentioned previously—some religious groups. The Duggar family comes to mind here, but I’d say they’re a little on the abnormal side when it comes to the rest of the Western world).

[Jaclyn] Geller [author of the 2001 book Here Comes the Bride] maintains that the bachelorette party is ‘a gesture of retaliation rather than a real sensual adventure…[answering] an imagined insult, responding to the bachelor party's text (lewd sexuality) rather than its subtext (lamenting lost friendship)’"

So let me get this straight! According to Geller, the bachelorette party represents a mean through which women can essentially get back at their husbands for the shenanigans that they will inevitably get into for their bachelor parties? Instead of the bachelorette party being the last celebration before the obligations of married life make spending time with friends more difficult (which I think is really dumb to begin with but that’s a discussion for another day…), it is how soon-to-be brides respond to the condemnable actions of their fiancés. Is this correct? Am I understanding this? Because if that’s true, and women are only having bachelorette parties because they (I assume…) don’t appreciate their husbands going to strip clubs and drinking excessively and thus feel the need to “retaliate,” then the potential for bachelorette parties to be (what I was beginning to believe) a feminist activity kind of becomes moot. Women should have bachelorette parties because they desire to exploit one last evening of sexual freedom, just as their future husbands do. Why have a party as a means of revenge? That just seems really stupid and kind of pathetic to me, not to mention a poor way to start a marriage. You know, telling your fiancé you’re uncomfortable with him having lady parts shoved in his face all night isn’t a bad idea… But maybe I’m just crazy.

“Additionally, women began taking bachelorette activities outside of private homes and into the public sphere. Bars, clubs, and restaurants became popular venues for bachelorette festivities, and because women were celebrating in public, it was easy to witness (and comment on) their rowdy behavior”

A little geography coming into play! Grimes doesn’t expand on her point about people commenting on the rowdy behaviour of women celebrating bachelorette parties in public, but it seems to me that she is suggesting that the behaviours witnessed at these parties often brings about scorn and negativity amongst onlookers. I used to work at Captain Jack’s (an arcade and bar that also has laser tag, mini putt and other attractions) and we would get women in all the time celebrating their bachelorette parties: they’d come in with their six-inch heels, plunging necklines and short skirts and dresses with the feather boas and sashes. I remember coworkers making comments about the risqué appearance of these women and their often highly intoxicated demeanors. Although I can’t remember any specific comments made by anyone or on my behalf (I’m not going to pretend like I’m innocent, I’m sure I contributed to these comments), but I know that we were definitely judgmental. Whereas previously many bachelorette parties took place in the private sphere, out of the public eye and without the risk of social backlash, now women are becoming much bolder and taking to the streets (I’d often see these women parading up and down Clifton Hill). Why all of the judgement? When a group of guys go out to celebrate a bachelor party, do they receive the same judgement, or is their behaviour taken for granted? They say “boys will be boys”…but I’ve never heard “girls will be girls.” Women aren’t excused for outlandish behaviour, whereas aside from the potential scorn from their fiancés, men can stumble down as many streets as they want, hopping from bar to bar, and no one will say a word.

“…bawdy bachelorette culture is a manufactured construct that grew from the hushed urgings of big business. Between 1990 and 2002, the average cost of a wedding grew by almost 50 percent… In her 2007 book One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding, Rebecca Mead points out that in the first decade of 2000, bridal magazines conveyed the message that a wedding is "a consumer rite of passage, in which the taking up of a new role in life is given material substance through the acquisition of products and services for both the wedding itself and for the marriage that is to follow"

It all makes sense now! Our consumer culture of course played a huge role in the rise of the bachelorette party. I would never be so naïve as to say that it played the only role, but I can definitely get on-board with this explanation. One of the only ways that bachelorette parties could ever become acceptable in a patriarchal society that throughout history has aspired to keep women obedient and docile in their marriages in order to benefit a capitalist society (Federici keeps popping up all over the place!) would be if said bachelorette parties would be big money-makers. I watched a College Humor video on YouTube recently called “Why Engagement Rings are a Scam” (which I am going to insert at the end of this blog post) that explains how in 1938 the De Beers diamond cartel launched an ad campaign that told men that they needed to give their fiancés a big diamond ring when they proposed, and that they were pretty much losers if they didn’t. Can you believe that one massive money making scheme has secured a tradition that will probably last countless more generations to come? What did people think engagement rings were for, anyway? What do they symbolize? I don’t think most people think this far because it’s become so deeply ingrained in our culture! Men know that if they propose without a ring, their girlfriends will be disappointed. It’s a bad move. That’s the only reason they need. Just like rings, the bachelorette parties (along with bachelor parties, wedding showers, rehearsal dinners and all that other BS that comes before the wedding) make MONEY. And in our society, as has been proven time and time again…if it makes money, it’s a good idea.

“The forced use of phallic symbols at bachelorette parties suggests that the role of women in heterosexual marriages is simply to penis-please and that an evening of female bonding must include a reminder of the men they're leaving at home”

WOAH! My mind has been blown! I would have never thought of that myself! No wonder men don’t have vagina-shaped paraphernalia at their parties. For men, it certainly isn’t about vagina-pleasing…and of course, men want to avoid any such reminder of the woman they’re leaving behind. So instead, they seek other women and other REAL vaginas in the strip clubs. Sorry, that’s extremely crude again but this article has put me in simultaneously goofy and critical mood. I can’t help myself. I apologize if in saying all of this I am generalizing…which I try extremely hard not to do! I’m sure not all men think this way at all, but I would definitely be interested in researching this idea further (not sure how I would go about it though…those would be some interesting questionnaires and interviews!). 

“But in fact, the movement to create a system of formal education about domestic matters was founded largely on the notion that nothing about cooking, sewing, cleaning, or parenting was intuitive—and certainly none of it was inherently feminine”

This week, Ebru encouraged me to check out Bitch Magazine as well as Shameless Magazine. Both magazines are feminist-slanted in nature, and include many compelling articles about current feminist issues. I was able to find two articles from each to discuss in my blog that I thought would add significantly to my feminist marriage topic in particular. So without further ado (which it seems I’ve gotten in the habit of saying a lot…I’ll have to come up with something else…) I present to you the first article from Bitch Magazine, “What Happened to Home Economics?” by Christen McCurdy.

Here’s the link: http://bitchmagazine.org/article/what-happened-to-home-economics-history-feminism-education  

In this article, McCurdy presents the history of home economics and offers some conflicting perceptions of the subject as both liberating and oppressive for women. While the subject is originally rooted in feminist-oriented goals (just as the first quotation I include below suggests), the take-over of the subject by universities and consequently males both reduced the prevalence of the subject in these institutions and stripped it of its importance as a discipline.  

“Early home economists sought to simultaneously elevate the perceived value of domestic work and to create career opportunities for women”

“At the same time, many arguments for elevating the status of domestic skills were shrouded in the rhetoric of the 19th-century ‘cult of domesticity,’ which stressed the nobility not just of female work, but of a selfless feminine affect”

Women had domestic work drilled into their minds as a “noble” and “selfless” undertaking, which I think connects well to this idea of a “labour of love.” It seems to me that women were essentially brainwashed (maybe that’s too harsh of a word, but I’m keeping it anyways) into believing that they had to stay home if they hoped to be valued members of their society. This attitude still persists today. As a personal example, as I’ve mentioned before my mother has always been highly career-focused. Contrary to being raised in a traditional Italian household with a mother who was solely responsible for the domestic work, my mother never took to this way of life and established her goals elsewhere. My father’s mother was always extremely critical of my mother’s choices and gave my father a hard time about the fact that he was cooking meals and performing other domestic tasks when (according to my grandma) my mother should be the one doing it all. Not only does housework continue to be portrayed as this beautiful selfless act (I can’t help but think of the mother’s day crafts we would do for our moms in elementary school…always geared towards thanking them for all they do around the house and for us, while for father’s day all I can remember is making cards and other crafts that either involved ties or were tie-shaped), it also continues to be portrayed as an expectation worthy of scorn if a woman sets aside domestic tasks for a career.

“But there was a significant gap between what founders intended to do with home economics—to recognize domestic work as a skill and to improve the efficiency and safety with which it was performed, and to raise questions about the economics and justice of the work itself—and what college administrations seemed to want home ec departments to do for women students—to perpetuate a patriarchal, capitalist status quo”

“Christine Frederick, a contemporary of Richards, penned the 1929 book Selling Mrs. Consumer, in which…she argued for more efficient and scientific management of the home, as well as suggesting that manufacturers deliberately give their goods short life spans to keep women buying. Frederick had previously written that ‘our greatest enemy is the woman with a career,’ and presaged the Phyllis Schlaflys and Caitlin Flanagans of contemporary America by making a tidy income arguing that women shouldn’t work”

It’s quite painful for me to read something like this, even though I know from my own experience that many women (even more painfully, still today) think this way. My grandmother is an example of one of these women unfortunately, however I’m not sure I would count her for much since she’s not a great person (understatement of the year. It seems awful that I’m speaking this way about a grandmother of all people, but since this blog has nothing to do with her and I don’t feel like going into a rant about my family history, you will just have to take my word for it). I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m one of those so-called feminists who just go around hating and blaming men for everything when I say this, but I genuinely wonder if a belief system similar to Frederick’s has come about as a result of deeply ingrained patriarchal structures, or if this is really, truly, sincerely what she thinks women should be doing. All beliefs have to come from somewhere, right? They don’t just fall out of the sky. So I want to know what has made her think this way and why. Perhaps I should read her book…

“As [the first home economics teachers began to retire in the 1950s and 60s], they weren’t replaced with an up-and-coming crop of female professors (most home economics graduates were women), but instead with male professors—who usually ended up earning far more. In many cases, home ec departments were eliminated, renamed, or folded into other departments, and funding was cut (although administrators’ salaries typically rose)”

Why am I not surprised? I swear, at this point in my research I don’t think you could tell me anything about Western society and patriarchy that would floor me.

“[Universities] pointed to the low proportion of doctorates among home economists and observed openly that most of its faculty consisted of women (usually 90 to 100 percent), especially older and single ones. To them such female domination constituted proof that the field was out of date. This became a self-fulfilling prophecy, as home ec curricula were made lighter and less interesting”

Apparently when women dominate a field, this is a tell-tale sign that said field needs to be devalued. When it comes to academics and careers, based on this statement and my previous research, a couple of things happen when the majority of students or workers in a particular field are female: 1) Men don’t want anything to do with it anymore, especially when women take over certain jobs. These jobs become “girl’s work” and are thus beneath the abilities of men. 2) Just like this example and the previous example suggests, when an academic department is taken over by women, men need to either take it back or render it unimportant.

“People are agents, they are not passive victims of spatial structures and while a suburban environment may impede women’s efforts to combine their roles, they do have the distinct ability to plan and learn new ways of acting” (237)

Reference: England, K. (1993). Suburban pink collar ghettos: The spatial entrapment of women?. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 83(2), 225-242.

England’s article seeks to re-evaluate and interrogate the spatial entrapment theory that has been applied to suburban women. This theory suggests that women’s occupational prospects are being limited to those that she can find within the context of so-called “suburban pink collar ghettos,” which are most often filled with menial, low-paying jobs. Using a triangulation method (which combines multiple data collection methods. In this case, these include findings from other studies, local statistics, written questionnaires and interviews among other methods to assure a greater breadth of knowledge and more accurate results), England uses the data collected from other sources to put her own data to the test. Similar to Hanson and Pratt (1995), England chose a city that reflects national average trends in the United States, which in this case was Columbus, Ohio.

Even though I was able to draw many parallels between this article and Hanson and Pratt (1995) almost to the point of regurgitation, I have done my best to locate and explore the different ways that England approaches the relationship between women and work with the following quotations and accompanied commentary:

“Suburban women are presented as an attractive labor supply because they place a premium on their domestic roles and are secondary wage earners by choice, viewing their husbands as the ‘breadwinner’” (226)

Just as Hanson and Pratt (1995) discussed, although this may not be as prominent today as it was twenty years ago, women were and in many cases continue to be important contributors to jobs that are predominantly menial and part-time (like retail for example) because they would rather focus their time and energy on their children and their home. It honestly makes me a little frustrated to write this because it reminds me that women are in many cases choosing this way of life as though housework is the extent of their potential. I’m not trying to put anyone down here, or disrespect the choice, but I can’t help but wonder what some of these women could really be capable of if they handed over domestic responsibilities to their husband and took on a meaningful, thought-provoking career.

“Essentially suburban women, especially if they are married, White, and have young children, are viewed as being spatially entrapped in their place of residence. If firms wish to accrue savings from employing this spatially entrapped labor force, they must locate near these suburban areas” (226)

As a result of these women who are vying to provide a secondary income while also keeping in close proximity to their domestic lives, the spatial makeup of businesses has changed to accommodate these desires, with more businesses moving from the cities and into the suburbs.

“…suburban women possess a combination of characteristics that make them a preferred pink collar labor supply. They are relatively well-educated, nonunionized, married, White women with dependent children, who consider their wages to be a ‘secondary’ source of family income and, therefore, will accept lower wages than central city women” (226)

With the idea that suburban women are more likely to accept lower wages, it seems like there would be greater opportunity to take advantage of them. On the other hand, however, with these businesses targeting and hiring these women for employment, they must also realize that this must come at a price knowing that their families come first (for example, they might lose workers on any given day if a child is sick or there’s some other sort of family emergency).

“…suburban women have the language skills that are important in customer interfacing, while the class structure and related home-ownership characteristics of suburban women are believed to enhance worker stability and productivity, and to limit feelings of militancy” (226)

These assumptions really bother me. I don’t understand how being a suburban woman connects to having the language skills necessary in customer service environments, but I have an idea. Is it possible that the connection being made here between suburban women and language skills is that it is more likely that these women have adopted the attitudes and values of the dominant culture (especially since most of these women are white and middle- to upper-middle class) and thus are more successful in expressing and communicating the attitudes and values of said dominant culture, which is consequently the same as the company’s? I feel like nothing I’ve been writing has

Purpose and summary of research: “This paper presents an empirical and theoretical investigation of the widely accepted and, I argue, “taken-for-granted” concept if the spatial entrapment of women. Columbus, Ohio is used as the case study, and the empirical portions of the paper employ a ‘triangulation’ by layering various overlapping datasets and types of analysis. I selected this approach to facilitate the investigation of the spatial-entrapment thesis from two directions: the labor demand-side (focusing on the work-place and employers) and the labor supply-side (examining characteristics of the female clerical workers within particular communities)” (226-227)

Method: “I adopted a triangulation approach because a diversity of methods and overlapping datasets were employed in the study (other terms to describe this process include multiple strategies and combined operations)” (227)

The choice to employ this method allowed for England’s findings to be more reliable and allowed for her to be able to check certain findings against others to detect similarities as well as discrepancies.

“The clerical labor forces of these firms were also highly feminized; in no instance did the female proportion fall below 70 percent” (228)

Why is there such a high percentage of women in clerical work? Is it because these jobs are more flexible as opposed to more prestigious occupations (no doubt in many cases dominated by men) so that these women are able to fulfill their domestic duties? Or is it because clerical work has been branded as “girl’s work” and thus has become a taboo for men?

Reasons for why women statistically have shorter commutes to work than men: “First, the domestic division of labor usually means that women have greater domestic responsibilities than men, and are more likely to trade off commuting time to accommodate their domestic roles. Second, the segregation of women into low-paid, low-status waged work means that they are not sufficiently well paid to ‘justify’ lengty commutes” (230)

While the first part of this argument has also been found in Hanson and Pratt (1995), the second reason for why women have shorter commutes was not addressed. If women are choosing to work these menial jobs just for a little bit of extra money and maybe something to do while their kids are at school, they don’t want to be spending all of that extra money on transportation costs. It makes complete sense.

“…Hanson and Johnston (1985) found that unmarried women with no children (supposedly the least spatially entrapped women) had the shortest work-trips and that among the other households, the presence of neither children nor another adult reduced women’s work-trip length” (230)

While England acknowledges that these findings run in contestation with other findings such as with Hanson and Pratt (1995), I feel like a single woman having a shorter commute to work makes a lot of sense. When you’re single and childless, you don’t have to worry about negotiating with anyone concerning where to live. You don’t have to take your husband’s job location into account, nor do you have to take your children’s school locations into account, either. These women are free to find a place to live right around the corner from their place of work if they wanted to, and they have no one to hold them back.

“It is noted that lone mothers, who, ‘conventional wisdom’ tells us, are the most spatially entrapped, not only have the highest modal class, but commute greater mean distance than to nonparents in one-adult households (supposedly the least spatially entrapped)” (233)

This is interesting to me. One would think that a single mother would want to be close to her children, but evidently this is not the case. I would hypothesize that economic stability, over domestic responsibilities, are more important to these mothers and thus they travel greater distances to attend work that is (presumably?) higher-paying. On the other hand, I wonder why these women do not just move closer to their jobs. Perhaps many of these women are divorced and do not want to uproot their children from school and friends. At the end of the day though, these are all just guesses.

In the interviews England conducted, the response from a woman named Liz really caught my attention. She has dependent children (youngest child being seven years old) and she kept her job when her and her second husband moved regardless of the distance because she liked the job: “I wouldn’t take a job in Westerville just because it’s near home, that has no effect on me…I stayed with this job because of the job itself. I’d never change jobs just because of location, unless I was driving for over an hour. Because this job pays what I want and it’s mentally stimulating. I haven’t changed and won’t change because of moving house” (235)

I want to read about more women like Liz. In everything that I’ve read so far, women seem to be portrayed as victims to patriarchy whose ultimate goals in life are to raise children and keep their houses clean. Clearly for Liz, her job is a big priority for her. While I can’t say it is her biggest priority over her family since this article does not offer that information, there is no doubt that work is important to her. I want to know if there are more women like Liz in the Niagara region. My mother, for example, is similar to Liz: even though her commute is not terribly long, she still works five days a week, sometimes over ten hours a day. Without any disrespect for the pink collar workers of the world, I want to know more about women like my mother and Liz because these are the kind of women that I see myself becoming one day. I can relate to them and their ambitions outside of their family life. I want to know if these women are happy with their career choices, and if they have any regrets with not making domesticity a priority.

“…the interviews with suburban women showed that a short journey-to-work is not always tied to a woman’s negotiation of her multiple roles; nor, on the other hand, is a long journey-to-work necessarily characterized by the absence of such a negotiation” (235-236)

This quotation points to a problem with using primarily quantitative data when conducting studies in human geography. A statistic is not always going to point directly to the reason behind that statistic, so by executing a qualitative method such as through interviews, generalizations can be avoided and a greater wealth of knowledge and understanding can be discovered. In this case, it is easy to assume that the large percentages of women in pink collar jobs who have shorter commutes to work choose this in order to be closer to their domestic responsibilities. Based on the responses by many of the women in this article, however, this is clearly not the case. The next step for me after reading England is to figure out if these findings can only work in isolation, or if they might also be applied to Niagara (hopefully I will find an even larger number of women who are not making all of their decisions around their families!).

Conclusion as a result of evidence: “In short, it would seem that, at least for the northern Columbus area, the evidence is not especially strong with regard to women being trapped in their place of residence, waiting for employment opportunities to come their way” (236)

“I suspect that the varied results of previous commuting studies reflect the transitional patterns of women’s paid employment in the 1970s, as women (especially those who were married with young children) began to fit less easily into the stereotype of being spatially entrapped” (236)

What I gather from England’s statement here is that the differences in findings from one commuting study to the other reflects the time period from which they derive, assuming that the Western world is continually improving with regards to women’s equal participation in the labour force. This article was written the year I was born! That’s twenty-two years ago! Surely, assuming that this trend of improvement has continued (and I believe it has!) I’m sure the results of a study done in 2015 profiling women of the Niagara region would yield even more favourable results.

“…everyday life is not separate from, but rather integral to the processes of economic, social and spatial (re)structuring. By putting human agency center stage, emphasis is placed on the reproductive and the transformative capacities of people as they engage in the mundane, routine practices of everyday life” (237)

“Essentially, the sociospatial system in which a woman in the paid labor force operates is not a closed one. Her work-place location is affected by more than just her residence and vice versa” (238)

This quotation once again cautions against making generalizations and jumping to conclusions. In a way, it also makes me think about Bondi’s discussion of dichotomies and keeping women in the context of the private sphere as opposed to the public. This study serves as an excellent example of the futility of using binaries in order to draw conclusions about gender dynamics by showing just how complicated a woman’s relationship with both the private and public sphere can truly be.

“Many women I interviewed considered their jobs to be at least as important as their domestic roles” (238)

“Increasingly, both partners’ jobs are important, and this serves to make the household’s web of sociospatial relations even more complex” (238)

I’ve actually thought about this on numerous occasions: if I decide to marry someone one day (someone who, I would like to think, would also be career-oriented like me) how are we going to juggle where our careers may lead us? What if I’m pulled to one side of the country and he’s pulled to the other? What happens then? In marriage it’s all about compromise…but I’m not sure that’s a compromise I’d be willing to make!

“Clearly, spatial fixity does lie at the heart of women’s (and men’s) experiences of paid employment, but the spatial-entrapment-of-women thesis, as it presently stands, is an overgeneralization and over-simplification” (239)

I strongly agree with this! Plus, I can’t fail to mention how just the phrase “spatial entrapment of women” paints women as helpless victims once again. Women are not victims or slaves to their environment as contrived by patriarchy. Regardless of how evident patriarchy has proven to be among various spatialities, women still have a profound level of autonomy and the ability to fight these patriarchal restraints (as much as humanly possible, though things like the wage gap do still set us back) if they so choose.

“…current contributions to feminist geography indicate that attempts to reconstruct our discipline will remain limited and partial unless the gendered character of knowledge is brought into question” (102)

Reference: Bondi, L. (1992). Gender and dichotomy. Progress in Human Geography, 16(1), 98-104.

Bondi’s rather short article presents an argument for a more serious consideration of the implications of gender in the study of human geography. She begins by noting the lack of female geographers in the academic sphere, which I of course noticed in my own university experience and could not help but comment on! Most relevantly though, she briefly discusses the problems with using binaries (which she refers to as “dichotomies” and “dualisms”) of the private and public sphere in particular to explore gender (with women of course being studied predominantly in the context of the private sphere and men being studied in the context of the public sphere). In this vein she also takes note of some of the contradictions that these binaries produce, and argues for the study of gender outside of these restrictive and stereotypical contexts.

“During the 1980s, the longstanding failure of geography departments to appoint women to permanent positions, or to promote those few who were appointed, seemed to be recognized as an issue, and even as a source of embarrassment, in many quarters of the largely male academic hierarchy” (98)

Even today, the majority of professors in the geography department (I’m using Brock University as an example here, but I’m sure this applies to most other universities as well) are male. When I look back on my education in human geography, I become more and more aware of the exclusion of women in the geography classes taught by men. I won’t mention any names here, but I felt like the majority of what I learned by these male professors came from the male perspective and focused on the plights of men, such as those of the proletariat male, immigrant male, and other issues surrounding class and capitalism that almost seemed to pretend as though women weren’t in the picture at all. How is it possible in human geography courses about things like culture, and history, and rural and urban environments, only half of humanity is worth mentioning? It wasn’t until Federici’s book that I discovered that women had a much more profound impact on the rise of capitalism than I have been trained to believe. 

“Feminist geographers have long argued that associations between women/the home/consumption/the private sphere on the one hand, and between men/work/production/the public sphere on the other hand, are ideological constructs rather than empirical descriptions” (99)

I would definitely agree with this statement. By thinking about the oppression of women in the context of the home and the private sphere, problems with imagining the world through dichotomies (or binaries, as I would refer to them) is only perpetuated. In order to truly comprehend how gender functions in space, we need to step outside of the private sphere when we study femininity and outside of the public sphere when we study masculinity and explore how these genders function in all spaces.

“Pratt and Hanson interpret wage-earning and childrearing practices in terms of household coping strategies; in so doing they reject the notion that ’household relationships ... belong to a private sphere’ (Pratt and Hanson, 1991: 53), and imply that domestic arrangements and unpaid domestic labour should be understood in relation to a broader system of economic production. In this way both the presumed correspondences between dichotomies and the mutually exclusive oppositions themselves are brought into question” (99)

This example further explains the problems that arise when binaries are treated as polar opposites that do not intersect. Even though housework is not paid labour (unless of course you work as part of a maid service that visits other people’s homes), this does not mean that it does not have an impact on the economy. Although housework does not have the direct impact that actual wage labour has, one of the reasons why women have been assigned to do the housework is to free up the time that men have to go to work and make money to provide for the family (of course this does not explain why women in particular do housework and men seek wage labour, but the division of these responsibilities does make sense). In saying this I’m not trying to argue in favour of this kind of household dynamic, I am merely agreeing that domestic labour does have an impact on the economy and that it should not be considered solely in the context of the “private sphere.”

“However, like notions of public and private, the dichotomy conceals a masculine norm: the question implicit in the opposition between equality and difference is whether women are the same as or different from men. But for feminists, this formulation is itself symptomatic of gender inequality” (101)

This quotation addresses how men are commonly oriented as the staple to which women are constantly the victims of comparison. When men and women are compared, off the top of my head I think about debates concerning strength; “women are not as strong as men.” This example in particular has almost become a given in our society, to the point where both males and females have accepted the stereotype. But when are men ever compared to women in ways that give women the upper hand and does not position women in a negative light? For example, saying men are not as emotional as women is not all-around positive. Are there any examples of these stereotypical comparisons where a large majority of both males and females agree? For example, would both genders agree that women are more caring than men to the magnitude that both genders often agree that “women are not as strong as men”? In sum: I want to know if it is possible to compare men to women in a way that will give women the upper hand while also offering an example of a comparison that a large fraction of both genders accept (for example, I’ve heard women jokingly say that “girls are smarter than boys” but of course, a statement like this would be strongly refuted by men). Does any of this make sense, or am I just rambling?