Jenn Leyva is not a fan of marriage, but that doesn’t mean she can’t support her friend who’s getting married this summer.
A close friend of mine is getting married this summer. I’ve imagined myself attending this lavish affair for years, but I’m missing all of it. I’ll be in Korea teaching English for a year. And honestly, I’m a little bit grateful. I love my friend, but weddings … sigh. Marriage gives me Feelings.
I’m not supposed to have these feelings. And I’m definitely not supposed to voice these feelings because I’m supposed to Support All Women. That’s the feminist bottom line, isn’t it? Taylor Swift said so in a Vanity Fair interview, and if for some reason Taylor Swift isn’t your feminist compass, Madeline Albright said it first. They even put in on a Starbucks cup, so you know it’s that important.
There’s a problem with this choice of feminism though. Take a very simple example of shaving legs. I don’t, and I really like my hairy legs. Some women love smooth legs. Neither hairy nor smooth legs are in and of themselves bad choices. But when nearly everyone chooses to shave their legs, it makes my life difficult. I become the scary lesbian feminist that people fear (and mock). I largely don’t care what the public thinks about me, but I really care what people think about me when they are going to hire me, fire me, arrest or imprison me, or otherwise have power over me. Then my hairy legs make me vulnerable. As much as I want to rail against and change the unjust system we have, I also want to be able to eat and pay rent.
There are no neutral choices. In the leg shaving example, when I don’t shave my legs I’m an iconoclast, a rebel with a cause, an activist. It’s a political choice, and people will respond to that. But if I did shave my legs (and I did for years), then I’m contributing to the norms of hairless women. Or I’m reclaiming it as an act of self-care and self-love. No matter my choice, there is no way to opt out. In a world where women’s bodies are not their own (read patriarchy), all legs, hairy and smooth, are political. A feminism (I say “a feminism” because there are many feminisms) that’s invested in supporting women to make choices is incomplete and, to borrow from Flavia Dzodan, hegemonic. We have to acknowledge, understand, and begin to change the invisible structures that define our choices.
So what does this mean in how I live my life?
I try to be kind. I try to acknowledge the complicated humanity of everyone around me: colleagues, strangers, and the people who work the customer service phone lines. I try to extend courtesy and respect. I’m not an asshole, and I won’t withdraw my presence and support in someone’s life. I won’t tell my friends they are making stupid mistakes and becoming a part of the patriarchy that’s oppressing all women.
I will judge your choices, but I will still support you in them even if I think they’re fraught. People don’t get married because they want to single-handedly continue the patriarchy. People get married because it’s expected and often way easier than creating alternatives. Marriage holds personal and religious significance for people, and I can’t wipe that away because it would make my feminist analysis easier. Marriage doesn’t mean that people can’t create other alternatives to the patriarchy.
I’m also not going to censor myself about structural problems. I will talk about how other people’s choices, including my friend’s choice, affect me. Getting married is directly contributing to a larger culture of marriage, capitalism, property, and patriarchy that further others my existence and actually makes my life harder. I don’t have to be quiet about my suffering.
I know this can be upsetting to people. My parents get very defensive and uncomfortable when I talk about how marriage is oppressive. But I can’t mean their marriage!? Oh, but I do. I like that I make people uncomfortable. Making people uncomfortable is sometimes the only power I have, and that instability can be the first step someone takes to examine the invisible minutia of everyday life.
This structural critique may come off as judgmental; that’s because I am. I think it’s important to cultivate an inner sense of “this is messed up and I don’t like it.” Even when people I love are doing it, I’m not going to pretend nothing is wrong. It sounds like a weird version of love the sinner hate the sin, and maybe it is, but more structural and less Jesus. Or an updated version: hate the game, not the player.
I won’t be there to celebrate my friend’s wedding this summer, but I think, and hope, that I’ll still be friends with my friend. If she couldn’t handle some criticism of the patriarchy, we would have ended our friendship much sooner.
When Jenn Leyva was 16, her dad told her that he’d buy her a car if she lost weight. She cried, finished her calculus homework, and is now putting her Ivy League biochemistry degree to use by teaching English in Seoul. She authors Fat Smart And Pretty, a fat blog about social justice, feminism, science, health, and fa(t)shion.
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