With the change in the federal
administration, I have begun to think more and more about women's
issues and how they have changed through time. I have also been
thinking about my “bubble” - even though I was born in the
midwest and have family members and friends in red and blue states
alike, most of the people I am closest too are on the coasts. And
well educated. And liberal. And I started thinking yesterday about
marriage and why my friends have long lasting marriages. We are all
Godless communists – how can we not be engaging in free love and
naughtiness? Perhaps it is generational – three out of four of my
best friends are pretty menopausal (sorry to out you ladies) – but
the ones of us that are married have been with our spouses for a LONG
time and while things have not always been a picnic for everyone, we
have persisted and remained faithful and loving.
For the longest time I have thought
that the divorce rate in the US was 50%. It turns out that (according
to the New York Times – which I read every morning, ask anyone!)
the divorce rate is dropping. And one of the main reasons for this is
feminism! And they reported this in 2014.
Well, dammit.
That was going to be the point of this
whole essay. And I was going to have a big reveal at the end. Smart
women marry feminist men. Your minds would be blown at the way I was
able to pull this amazing truth out of anecdotal evidence.
I was going to tell funny stories of my
friends' marriages. Well, not best friend #1 – I was going to call
her Victoria. She is my best friend from work. We became friends when
I started working at the high school over 10 years ago. She is
younger than me and single by choice. She was the favorite teacher of
both of my sons and she has had a huge influence on them. She has
not made me a godmother, but she has decreed that my sons are her
dog's godfathers. So I am essentially a godgrandmother or
grandgodmother. (Spellcheck is really resistant to both those
options.) Anyway, you can bet your ass that if she ever finds someone
she deems worthy of sharing her life with exclusively – they will
be a feminist.
There is my friend Lady Chardonnay (she
came equipped with her own secret internet name!) and her husband Dr.
Chardonnay. I believe she calls him Mr. Lady Chardonnay in her blog,
but he is an esteemed academic so I will refer to him as so. So Lady
Char just had double knee surgery a few days ago and Dr. Char has
been sending email updates to her friends and family. The thing that
shines through these is the fact that he respects and adores her. And
he may win for feminist-est husband in my circle – these two met
when she was working withPlanned Parenthood and he was volunteering
with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center when those two groups joined
up for an education program.
My friend Anna (short for Indianapolis
– her zombie survival name) is married to...hmmm...we'll call him
Mankato (even though he has a very uncalled for superior attitude
about Mankato, the greatest small city in Minnesota). If you look at
the facts of their marriage, it doesn't look typically feminist. They
were both raised in small towns the midwest. He is quite a few years
older than her (although he looks a few years younger than me which
is patently unfair). She married young. He is a minister. Ooh! He is
her boss at work! (Okay, I have been known to make very funny and
only mildly inappropriate jokes about sexual harassment in the
workplace to her.) He has spent most of his adult life searching for
truth and meaning in this world and helping other as they aspire to
do this as well. And he clearly respects and adores his wife. Now I
don't know if he calls himself a feminist, but in the 18 or so years
that I have known and loved this family, I have never heard him say
anything that was disrespectful towards women. And I have heard him
talk a LOT! And they have raised a daughter who is a teenaged
feminist of the highest order.
Mo is my anomaly. We have been friends
for over 25 years. She moved to California 20 years ago, but we have
remained besties. She has married two feminists! Okay, yes, I know,
the point of this was supposed to be that smart women marry feminists
and that makes their marriages last longer. But when I talked to her
about her marriages, I couldn't help but think that she had chosen
wisely twice. I watched her fall in love with her first husband,
Herle. I was actually friends with him before they met and I have to
say I was not a fan when she showed up at our house. She mocked my
spelling. (This seems to be a theme with me!) And she was a pain in
the ass. But she grew on me. And I was the matron of horror at their
beautiful wedding. They split up for reasons that were, I think, out
of their control. They remained co-parents of their amazing kids.
Sadly, the kids have kind of aged out of my spectacular godparenting,
but someday they will have children of their own and I will be
waiting with a pocket full of butterscotch candies and a used tissue
tucked in my sleeve to begin my grandgodparenting.
A few years after their marriage ended,
Mo started talking about this guy. Just a friend. But she talked
about him a lot. And she showed me a picture. He looked just like Mal
Reynolds, captain of the Serenity! And - like any sensible person
would do when they met someone who looked like Captain Mal and was a
trained chef and was an excellent father – she married him. Now she
is married to her second feminist husband. I am not saying that this
makes her twice as smart as my other friends, but you do the math...
My husband, el Guapo as he is known
around these parts, gave me the stink-eye when I asked him if he was
a feminist, way back when. “What do I look like, an idiot? Of
course I am...” My mom told me when I was a teenager that if I
wanted to have a happy marriage, I should marry a man who is smarter
than me. I joke that el Guapo was the closest I could find. Fine. He
is CLEARLY equally as smart as I am. I will admit that he knows way
more science and how to fix things, but I kick his ass at Jeopardy
and I will never stop.
I would amend my mother's advice – to
have a happy marriage, you should, of course marry a smart person if
at all possible. But also make sure that they believe that,
regardless of gender, marriage, any marriage, is the coming together
of equals. There must be a word for this, but I can't for the life of
me remember what it is...
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