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It’s now a month since my partner popped the question. Yet despite making the decision to betray the sisterhood by joining the patriarchal institution of marriage, I’ve never felt so feminist.
Why? Because I’m not wearing an engagement ring, and going by the incredulity this provokes, this makes me some kind of radical.
On hearing my news, the first response of pretty much every woman I’ve told has been “ooh, let me see the sparkly!”.
I have to break it to them that not only is there no sparkly, but There Will Be No Sparkly. The reaction this gets from other women has been bizarre to say the least.
They look at me pityingly, assuming I have a bare finger because either my partner is too tight or the pair of us too poor to afford a ring. This isn’t the case; we have simply chosen not to buy one, because I hate engagement rings – both in theory and practice.
First, I’m not one for ostentatious displays of wealth; I don’t wear any jewellery besides some simple earrings, and really don’t fancy the thought of a £2,000 rock on my finger. I’d rather not wear my fiancé’s taste and credit rating on my left hand, thanks. Knowing me, I’d probably lose it anyway.
I particularly hate the trend toward bigger, bling-ier rocks, worn by WAGs and the like. One acquaintance of mine even went so far as to ‘upgrade’ her ring after five years of marriage to one costing enough for a deposit on a house. Which just proves the point that for many brides it is about flashiness and not a simple reminder of a special moment in one’s life.
One onlooker – a complete stranger, to boot – even suggested I should get a rock as some kind of insane insurance policy “in case he backs out”. Do people actually do that? That’s tragic, if so.
Not buying a ring means we can spend the money instead on the holiday of a lifetime. Spending six weeks together in South America will give us both considerably more joy, pleasure and happy memories than a diamond ring ever will.
Moreover, my decision not to sport a solitaire means my fiancé isn’t contributing two months’ salary to prolonged wars in Africa, nor the death and displacement of millions of people caused by the harsh realities of the diamond trade.
To me the engagement ring is an outmoded commodity, signifying the woman as passive ornament and the man as provider. So it seems strange to me that feminism has made progress on many retrograde customs, but scarcely mentions the sexist practice of publicly marking a woman as “purchased” and “off the market” while requiring no such relational signifier of the male partner.
So with apologies to J-Lo: don’t be fooled by the rock I ain’t got. Instead I’ll have a clear conscience, some amazing holiday memories and no ‘insurance policy’.
And at our wedding ceremony next year, we will both give and receive rings as a symbol of our love and commitment. Those rings will be loaded with meaning, for both of us, and I hope we will wear them for the rest of our lives.
In this piece in today’s Guardian, Deborah Orr asks where the women have gone in contemporary literature.
All of the top five bestselling titles in this week’s Sunday Times Bestseller list included the word Girl. Not woman, but girl. As Orr notes:
In the 1970s, there was a groundswell of opinion suggesting that “girl” was a highly pejorative way of describing a female who was over 18, used to belittle her and rob her of status. Yet these books all lay claim to celebrating female power. Perhaps “girl” is being reclaimed, like the n-word before it.
But in these books (and in popular culture more generally), the term ‘girl’ isn’t used in an ironic or confrontational sense. It isn’t being appropriated to undermine its pejoritive sense; instead, it infantilises its female characters, labelling them as as immature and unthreatening.
While some might say the use of the term girl to describe adult females is harmless – flattering, even, with its implications that the subject is still young and pretty. But we’re now 15 years on from the era of Girl Power, and still I find it patronising and belittling when used to describe a grown woman. When, at work last year, someone referred to me as ‘girl’, the implications were clear; they weren’t referring to my clear(ish) skin – they were questioning my maturity and professional experience.
The message from these book titles, says Orr, is that women are dreary and past-it, while girls are dynamic and exciting. She worries that, in popular culture “women are being infantilised, and that they prefer it that way”.
To me the argument is a little more chicken-and-egg than that. Do women really prefer to be infantilised? Or are we conditioned by popular culture to believe being young and infantile – being a girl – is preferable to maturity and womanhood?
I love these guys!
So, the usual female-led protests against the Miss University London competition were given additional support from a guerilla group of male protesters setting up a booth outside the competition, “encouraging attendees to “vote” over pictures of the contestants”, (they provided kleenex), and “keeping a tally of the girls who brought the guys over the edge.”
Possibly the best bit was the comments garnered from bewildered beauty pageant supporters:
“you’re worse than the feminists, it’s disgusting”
“What so you want people to wank in the booth, over the girls and judge them, how’s that any different from the competition?”
“And I think your suits are shit!”.
“I don’t know what they’re protesting about, it’s not even animal cruelty, they must be jealous”
“But you’re not serious, right?”
Jo and I went to this event on 14 Feb and it was great, really informative. I felt it provided a really good space for discussion and gave a sense of hope for the future. We came up with loads of ideas as a result, simple initiatives that we could get involved with as a group. We’re going to write a little piece on each workshop. Mine will follow shortly.
As promised, here are few links to the stuff we talked about on Saturday to keep the momentum going.
First of all, the link to the body positive website that Jo introduced us to a while back. I really love this site, it’s so funny and informative. I note that they have a cafepress store, but will be closing it soon, so if you’re interested, buy some t-shirts now. I think I’m getting the Aunt Fattie one…
Unfortunately, we’ve missed out on a talk by Susie Orbach next week as it’s sold out already, but in trying to find out about it, I happened upon this website.
And here’s that Times article about women losing their jobs twice as fast as men.
An interesting piece today from Julie Bindel (link in title) defending political lesbianism.
The Institute of Spurious Science strikes again, mes amies.
Check the link above to find the usual frenzy of evolutionary pseudo-theorising, with a scrumdown to provide the most ludicrous explanation as to why women apparently have better orgasms with wealthier men. Such mundane considerations as socio-economic factors are not so much swept aside as ignored entirely beside the compelling weight of evidence which shows “women are inherently programmed to be gold-diggers”.
I expected better from the Independent, and particularly from its “science editor”! (for full article click on the headline above)
“Women might claim they want caring, thoughtful types but scientists have discovered what they really want – self-obsessed, lying psychopaths.
A study has found that men with the “dark triad” of traits – narcissism, thrill- seeking and deceitfulness – are likely to have a larger number of sexual affairs.
Peter Jonason, of New Mexico University in Las Cruces, believes that these traits may have an innate, genetic component that explains why some men seem unable to stop themselves behaving badly.”
Even when we ignore the dodgy “science” (Mr Jonason has foolishly failed to patent this “dirty rotten scoundrel” gene which he claims exists), the claim is simply that men with psychopathic tendencies are more likely to go out looking for affairs, which to my mind simply makes it more statistically likely that such men have affairs, (as the other chaps are at home with their families or are happy going about their business and not trying to seduce women left, right and centre).
Clearly, there is no evidence at all that “women” (which implies of course, “all women”…we are a homogenous group, after all) seek out these men. And of course it is not even considered that the women with whom these men have affairs may also be self-obsessed, lying psychopaths, which would explain how the men’s “strategy” appears to be so successful in the first place…
And now a
An interesting furore has apparently arisen from Johnny Vegas’ incorporation of lighthearted sexual molestation into his stand-up.
(See the link in the header for the Guardian Blogger article).
However, by far the most revealing comment on this matter must be the one which appears on the “Chortle” comedy website:
http://snipurl.com/26m6h (snipped for ease of posting)
” This was the most enjoyable night of comedy I have ever experienced…The discomfort in the predominately middle class section of the audience I was sitting was palpable during Vegas’s set! During the bit where Vegas was sexually molesting a librarian whilst singing Shakespeare Sister’s Stay With Me Baby I overheard a lady behind mutter under her breath ‘this is hideous!’. The scene was horrifying yet hilarious and Vegas was relentless until Simon Munnery covered the spectacle with his jacket! I will be laughing about this evening for a very long time!”
There’s a whole PhD to be written on deconstructing that really.
Josephine Grahl
Sharon O'Dea
scarlettmcqueen
