Yes, wearing makeup can be a feminist act. Wanting to appear feminine and femininely put-together can be a feminist desire. I never meant to imply otherwise. What I meant to say is that wearing makeup is not always a feminist act. Sometimes, it is a demonstration of internalized oppression, a desire to hide flaws, an act of objectification and submission, a nod to the system. When I wear makeup and skirts and pink and feel I’m doing that as a feminist act, I call that femme. I feel feminine, beautiful, brilliant, and powerful. I feel in control.
Doing femme means simultaneously critiquing and celebrating femininity in a variety of forms. It means embracing the aspects of femininity and female-focused culture that I find empowering and pleasurable in conjunction with embracing aspects of myself that totally clash with traditional conceptions of what it means to be feminine and womanly. Femme is about embracing contradictions, strengthening personal agency, and having a whole lot of fun. At least, that’s what femme means to me.
My last post was also about embracing contradictions. This contradiction: my decision to wear makeup does not only come from a place of femme desire and personal agency. It also comes from a place in which I feel I need to be girly in order to be accepted, in which I fear rebellion at risk of my own comfort and privilege, in which I yearn to achieve that standard of prettiness that I see held up as the ideal. Yes, that girl exists inside of me. Those fears and insecurities are a part of who I am.
Those fears and insecurities don’t make me any less femme and fabulous. Or do they? To be honest, I had not thought about it much until this week. I had associated doing femme with the times and places in which I feel truly free and empowered to be myself, to live and breathe and show off my own contradictions, to push boundaries. I had associated doing femme with weekends, vacations, or those days that seem so stressful that my best coping mechanism is to break out the red dress and black lace tights and go for it.
Until now, I had not thought to associate femme-and-fabulous with that place of insecurity and fear. When I chose to wear makeup at the wedding, I knew I could be radical and choose not to; but I still felt pressured by a desire to conform to mainstream practices of female beautification. Because I felt this pressure, this strong influence and pull that would, in the end, be a strong element of my decision, I didn’t feel I was doing femme. If it wasn’t totally free, it couldn’t be femme, right?
I realized today (through a conversation with a glorious femme friend) that not only had I been holding myself up to a ridiculous and damaging ideal, but I had also been holding up femme to an ideal that restricted it. I was trying to protect my femme identity from my own imperfections. I was protecting my femme identity from the parts of me that feel insecure, disempowered, and scared. But that’s not fair. What will it take to free my femme identity and let it flourish?
Femme can be imperfect. The reality of my inner experience is that, at this point in my mind-twenties, I can proudly and strongly embrace of my own power and beauty and brilliance. I am quite femme-confident. AND. And I have a good chunk of that internalized-female-oppression that entails a constant questioning of whether I am measuring up or not. I have both. And I bet a lot of other people do, too! And that’s okay. And that’s difficult. And it’s real. And yes I am using the word “and” over and over again on purpose to demonstrate that finding personal agency includes this process of embracing over and over again the contradictions of our own desires. And we can find beauty in these contradictions. And we can find power. And we can find feminism.
We can find these things, if we’re willing to risk looking for them.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Three lessons about decision-making I’ve learned from wedding-planning: A guest post
When I told my partner about my series for this month on wedding planning, he asked if he could contribute. So here is his guest-post! Check out his writing on secular spirituality at his blog, The Empty Throne.
1) If you really want to choose something, first consider not choosing it.
When we were first discussing getting married, Mimi told me how, in college, she did not to think of herself as someone who would definitely get married someday. While at first I found this distressing, I later found strength and comfort in her explanation that her more recent decision to get married was made that much more confidently… clearly, she wasn’t getting married instinctually, by default, or out of societal expectations. By being able to feel whole in herself without marriage, she was consciously and confidently able to take on marriage as a life choice.
With all of the stress around wedding-planning, I recently realized that I myself had never considered not being married, but moreover, I had never considered not having a wedding. I attempted to imagine not having one, and how I would feel about that, and very quickly I felt far more confident in my choice—I’m happy about marrying Mimi, and I want to share that happiness through celebration. Pretty simple stuff, but it became much clearer after I attempted to consider not-wedding scenarios.
2) If you really want to choose something, make the choice a few times before announcing it.
My waves of excitement at having a wedding have many times now run aground on the frustrating politics of managing family and friends. If I could do it all over again, I would make more decisions with my partner before sharing them with the outside world. And I would mull over those decisions for at least a week. Given that I have never had a wedding before, my hopes for it and visions of it have changed over and over again, making my previous decisions seem short-sighted.
3) If you really want to choose something while in a partnership… be as open as possible.
Early on, I warned my partner against using the term “my wedding.” The loving/crushing reality continues to be that it is “our wedding,” and joyously/tragically the “our” often includes family and friends. A wedding is a minefield of decision-making, and I never seem to know when my hopes and dreams are about to run head-on into someone else’s. I have learned, as much as I can, to tread lightly. This one event seems to have many meanings for each person involved, and anxieties can be triggered by both the content and the process of making a wedding. I never realized how isolating it can be to throw a party celebrating a union. Because, of course, it is still “my” (own, child’s, etc.) wedding to many of the people involved—including myself. The powerful process of collective decision-making makes and breaks us.
These have all been hard, and terribly important, life lessons for me. In the Babylonian Talmud (Tractate Berachot), there is a list of this-worldly items that are “1/60th” of an other-worldly item, such as Sleep:Death, Dreams:Prophecy, Sabbath:World-to-come, etc. To this I add that love between two people is 1/60th of the messianic age—the arduous process of learning to effectively love oneself and another, we get a taste of what is necessary to make peace for the whole world. Life and love together is made of all of this decision-making, and we need all the practice we get in order to get better at it!
1) If you really want to choose something, first consider not choosing it.
When we were first discussing getting married, Mimi told me how, in college, she did not to think of herself as someone who would definitely get married someday. While at first I found this distressing, I later found strength and comfort in her explanation that her more recent decision to get married was made that much more confidently… clearly, she wasn’t getting married instinctually, by default, or out of societal expectations. By being able to feel whole in herself without marriage, she was consciously and confidently able to take on marriage as a life choice.
With all of the stress around wedding-planning, I recently realized that I myself had never considered not being married, but moreover, I had never considered not having a wedding. I attempted to imagine not having one, and how I would feel about that, and very quickly I felt far more confident in my choice—I’m happy about marrying Mimi, and I want to share that happiness through celebration. Pretty simple stuff, but it became much clearer after I attempted to consider not-wedding scenarios.
2) If you really want to choose something, make the choice a few times before announcing it.
My waves of excitement at having a wedding have many times now run aground on the frustrating politics of managing family and friends. If I could do it all over again, I would make more decisions with my partner before sharing them with the outside world. And I would mull over those decisions for at least a week. Given that I have never had a wedding before, my hopes for it and visions of it have changed over and over again, making my previous decisions seem short-sighted.
3) If you really want to choose something while in a partnership… be as open as possible.
Early on, I warned my partner against using the term “my wedding.” The loving/crushing reality continues to be that it is “our wedding,” and joyously/tragically the “our” often includes family and friends. A wedding is a minefield of decision-making, and I never seem to know when my hopes and dreams are about to run head-on into someone else’s. I have learned, as much as I can, to tread lightly. This one event seems to have many meanings for each person involved, and anxieties can be triggered by both the content and the process of making a wedding. I never realized how isolating it can be to throw a party celebrating a union. Because, of course, it is still “my” (own, child’s, etc.) wedding to many of the people involved—including myself. The powerful process of collective decision-making makes and breaks us.
These have all been hard, and terribly important, life lessons for me. In the Babylonian Talmud (Tractate Berachot), there is a list of this-worldly items that are “1/60th” of an other-worldly item, such as Sleep:Death, Dreams:Prophecy, Sabbath:World-to-come, etc. To this I add that love between two people is 1/60th of the messianic age—the arduous process of learning to effectively love oneself and another, we get a taste of what is necessary to make peace for the whole world. Life and love together is made of all of this decision-making, and we need all the practice we get in order to get better at it!
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
The Social Construction of Desire
I have a confession: I am getting my makeup done professionally for the wedding. Well, let me qualify that confession: A close friend of one of my best friends is a makeup artist and has offered to come to my parents’ house to do my makeup and the moms’ makeup. I am really happy to be supporting a friend (financially), and I am really touched that she wants to be a part of this process. However, I am still letting her paint my face.
I went back and forth with this decision for a while. I had a very explicit conversation with one of my best friends in which she told me that getting professional makeup was completely optional, that I could choose to do my own makeup the simple way in which I do it before I go to work or before I go to a party. I could choose not to wear any makeup, but I probably wouldn’t, since I do enjoy wearing some simple makeup items (especially eyeshadow). So I knew I had a choice. And my friend-in-common with this makeup artist brought me over for a trial run, and I actually thought it was pleasant enough and that my face still looked natural enough with makeup on. And, as yet another friend pointed out, it will be one more thing that someone else will take care of on the day of the wedding, I will not be in charge of my own makeup. I will have support in that task as I will in many others, and this support is something I have deeply cherished throughout the process of this wedding.
I am sharing this story not because I think my makeup is that important, but rather because it illustrates the clashing and crashing of so many different desires, some that come from my feminist values, some that come from my aesthetic preferences, and some that I know are socially constructed from my two and a half decades of living and breathing in a materialist patriarchy. This clashing and crashing has been incessant throughout the planning process. The kicker is, all of the desires are real, they are all strong emotions that I experience and with which I need to cope. I cannot have everything I want because so many of the things I want conflict with other things I want.
I want to not care about how I look. I want my appearance to be a mere detail in the exciting and spiritual proceedings of the day. I want to not have to edit, adjust, and cover up my natural physical states in order to show that I can rise to the occasion.
But I also want to look good. I want to feel pretty, I want to be happy with how I look in the pictures, and I really want my mother to be happy with how I look in the pictures. And I want to express physically the glowing joy and ecstasy I feel emotionally about the commitment and partnership that this day is meant to celebrate.
Mostly, I want to not feel self-conscious. I want to not be wondering if others are judging me for different choices I have made about my appearance. But that’s not an option. Just as it’s not an option for me to make a decision that I myself won’t have a way to judge, it’s not possible for me to make a decision that others won’t be able to judge.
I need to ask for acceptance, and I need to ask for forgiveness. I need to ask for these things from myself, and from my partner, my friends and my family. I need acceptance of my strong, complex and often-conflicting desires. I was, am and will be inconsistent, but passionately so.
I went back and forth with this decision for a while. I had a very explicit conversation with one of my best friends in which she told me that getting professional makeup was completely optional, that I could choose to do my own makeup the simple way in which I do it before I go to work or before I go to a party. I could choose not to wear any makeup, but I probably wouldn’t, since I do enjoy wearing some simple makeup items (especially eyeshadow). So I knew I had a choice. And my friend-in-common with this makeup artist brought me over for a trial run, and I actually thought it was pleasant enough and that my face still looked natural enough with makeup on. And, as yet another friend pointed out, it will be one more thing that someone else will take care of on the day of the wedding, I will not be in charge of my own makeup. I will have support in that task as I will in many others, and this support is something I have deeply cherished throughout the process of this wedding.
I am sharing this story not because I think my makeup is that important, but rather because it illustrates the clashing and crashing of so many different desires, some that come from my feminist values, some that come from my aesthetic preferences, and some that I know are socially constructed from my two and a half decades of living and breathing in a materialist patriarchy. This clashing and crashing has been incessant throughout the planning process. The kicker is, all of the desires are real, they are all strong emotions that I experience and with which I need to cope. I cannot have everything I want because so many of the things I want conflict with other things I want.
I want to not care about how I look. I want my appearance to be a mere detail in the exciting and spiritual proceedings of the day. I want to not have to edit, adjust, and cover up my natural physical states in order to show that I can rise to the occasion.
But I also want to look good. I want to feel pretty, I want to be happy with how I look in the pictures, and I really want my mother to be happy with how I look in the pictures. And I want to express physically the glowing joy and ecstasy I feel emotionally about the commitment and partnership that this day is meant to celebrate.
Mostly, I want to not feel self-conscious. I want to not be wondering if others are judging me for different choices I have made about my appearance. But that’s not an option. Just as it’s not an option for me to make a decision that I myself won’t have a way to judge, it’s not possible for me to make a decision that others won’t be able to judge.
I need to ask for acceptance, and I need to ask for forgiveness. I need to ask for these things from myself, and from my partner, my friends and my family. I need acceptance of my strong, complex and often-conflicting desires. I was, am and will be inconsistent, but passionately so.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Stamps of Sexism
As much as we try to have a feminist, egalitarian wedding, we are still participants in the heterosexist patriarchy. We grew up in it, we are getting married in it, and we can only hope that we will do all we can to work so that future generations do not have to also suffer under it. The intention of this post is to render visible the stamps of sexism that are leaving their mark on our wedding, with hope that through making these visible, through acknowledging and understanding the effect of the patriarchy even on this careful couple, we can develop the communal awareness necessary for working together to repair this broken world.
10 stamps of sexism (among many) in our wedding and in the wedding, in the order in which they appear:
1. My Tisch.
In traditional Judaism, only the groom has a tisch (which means table in Yiddish). The Tisch is the time right before the wedding ceremony. There is a specific ritual in which the men distract the group while the bride is supposedly getting ready. Well, the Tisch now takes place after photographs have been taken, so I will already be ready. So I am also going to have a Tisch, except there is no tradition for a bride’s Tisch. So I will be making up my own thing, while my partner participates in an old, old tradition.
2. My hair and makeup.
This is not a Jewish tradition. This is an American tradition. Let me know if you need me to explain further.
3. My dress.
I didn’t want to wear a dress. I wanted to wear a skirt. I was told, by various sources, that I needed to wear a dress. My partner was not told he had to wear a dress. In fact, when he told people what his (untraditional) wedding outfit will be, no one told him he was wrong or not taking this seriously enough.
4. My kittel.
It is traditional for the Jewish groom to wear a kittel, a white robe, during the wedding ceremony. My partner and I will both be wearing one. See #1 regarding the contrast between his participation in an ancient tradition while I, going through almost the exact same motions, will be doing something unusual, surprising, shocking, and possible upsetting to others.
5. The opening blessing.
We are going back and forth with our officiant to try to figure out a version of the opening blessing that feels good to all of us. The traditional opening blessing references the distinction between sanctioned and unsanctioned sexual unions, and I just can’t stand the fact that we would open the ceremony with even the implication that we were implying that marriage is necessary to sanction our sexual relationship. If that’s not patriarchy, then what is?
6. The Hebrew versions of the blessings in general.
My partner and I grew up in Conservative synagogues and youth programs with lots of Hebrew prayers. As such, our ceremony includes Hebrew prayers in their original form, although they will be followed by English feminist-humanist interpretations of the meanings of these prayers. As such, there is a ton of sexism and patriarchy hidden in all that sneaky Hebrew.
7. Signing the Ketubah.
The Ketubah is the Jewish marriage contract, signed by me and my partner and our two witnesses. They will sign in English and in Hebrew, and one’s Hebrew name generally consists of one’s first name, one’s gender, and then one’s father’s name. We will go out of our way to ask our witnesses to sign also using their mother’s names to identify themselves. But should I really have to ask?
8. Stepping on the glass.
For logistical reasons, we could not come up with an egalitarian version of this ritual. My partner will be stepping on the glass. That’s a piece of patriarchy for you.
9. The dads toasting.
Our mothers will be offering toasts at the rehearsal dinner, and our fathers will be offering toasts at the wedding reception. I fully respect their decisions, but I am allowed to find it noteworthy, right?
10. Partner dancing.
My partner and I have been taking dance lessons in the hopes that we will do more than just hug for our first dance. While I have been finding the dynamics of power and consent in partner dance quite interesting, I am clearly the follow and he is clearly the lead. I guess this relates to #8, in that I am not a huge fan of taking on something myself just because it is traditional for him to do it. But I still find myself feeling feminized in a way I don’t really enjoy.
I hope this post doesn’t get me into trouble.
10 stamps of sexism (among many) in our wedding and in the wedding, in the order in which they appear:
1. My Tisch.
In traditional Judaism, only the groom has a tisch (which means table in Yiddish). The Tisch is the time right before the wedding ceremony. There is a specific ritual in which the men distract the group while the bride is supposedly getting ready. Well, the Tisch now takes place after photographs have been taken, so I will already be ready. So I am also going to have a Tisch, except there is no tradition for a bride’s Tisch. So I will be making up my own thing, while my partner participates in an old, old tradition.
2. My hair and makeup.
This is not a Jewish tradition. This is an American tradition. Let me know if you need me to explain further.
3. My dress.
I didn’t want to wear a dress. I wanted to wear a skirt. I was told, by various sources, that I needed to wear a dress. My partner was not told he had to wear a dress. In fact, when he told people what his (untraditional) wedding outfit will be, no one told him he was wrong or not taking this seriously enough.
4. My kittel.
It is traditional for the Jewish groom to wear a kittel, a white robe, during the wedding ceremony. My partner and I will both be wearing one. See #1 regarding the contrast between his participation in an ancient tradition while I, going through almost the exact same motions, will be doing something unusual, surprising, shocking, and possible upsetting to others.
5. The opening blessing.
We are going back and forth with our officiant to try to figure out a version of the opening blessing that feels good to all of us. The traditional opening blessing references the distinction between sanctioned and unsanctioned sexual unions, and I just can’t stand the fact that we would open the ceremony with even the implication that we were implying that marriage is necessary to sanction our sexual relationship. If that’s not patriarchy, then what is?
6. The Hebrew versions of the blessings in general.
My partner and I grew up in Conservative synagogues and youth programs with lots of Hebrew prayers. As such, our ceremony includes Hebrew prayers in their original form, although they will be followed by English feminist-humanist interpretations of the meanings of these prayers. As such, there is a ton of sexism and patriarchy hidden in all that sneaky Hebrew.
7. Signing the Ketubah.
The Ketubah is the Jewish marriage contract, signed by me and my partner and our two witnesses. They will sign in English and in Hebrew, and one’s Hebrew name generally consists of one’s first name, one’s gender, and then one’s father’s name. We will go out of our way to ask our witnesses to sign also using their mother’s names to identify themselves. But should I really have to ask?
8. Stepping on the glass.
For logistical reasons, we could not come up with an egalitarian version of this ritual. My partner will be stepping on the glass. That’s a piece of patriarchy for you.
9. The dads toasting.
Our mothers will be offering toasts at the rehearsal dinner, and our fathers will be offering toasts at the wedding reception. I fully respect their decisions, but I am allowed to find it noteworthy, right?
10. Partner dancing.
My partner and I have been taking dance lessons in the hopes that we will do more than just hug for our first dance. While I have been finding the dynamics of power and consent in partner dance quite interesting, I am clearly the follow and he is clearly the lead. I guess this relates to #8, in that I am not a huge fan of taking on something myself just because it is traditional for him to do it. But I still find myself feeling feminized in a way I don’t really enjoy.
I hope this post doesn’t get me into trouble.
Monday, June 6, 2011
My favorite parts of wedding planning
3. Creating our song list
It was challenging. Actually, quite challenging. There was probably more yelling than necessary, and some tears of frustration might have just about surfaced. But let’s face it, my partner and I love music, and we totally love dancing. We wrote the first draft of our song list within a week of getting engaged and then, a year later, when we actually needed it for practical purposes, could not find it. No problem; we started over. I think that creating the songlist was quite emblematic of a lot of the wedding planning process because it required an extremely delicate mix of considering my tastes, my partner’s tastes, what will please our parents, what will rouse our guests, and what will be most in line with our values (which in this case, include dancing, and lots of it). I think I am also still quite nervous to see how it will play out since, now made, this list is literally in the hands of our DJ.
2. Making the seating chart
Seriously, the seating chart was one thing I have been most excited about since the beginning of the process. I just couldn’t do it until now because I didn’t know exactly who was coming and who was not coming. I love making the seating chart because I love all the people who are coming to the wedding. I am having the wedding in the first place because I want these people to come celebrate with us. Making the seating chart is the one task in which I get to bask ahead of time in the glorious presence of all these friends and relatives. Each person matters, each person needs their seat. Furthermore, I can see the networks that we have supporting us, the webs of people that become so important to my decisions about who will sit where and with whom. It appears a pretty easy task of counting to ten (as in, ten seats at a table), but as I complete this task I am filled with joy at the physical promise that all of these people will be in the same room together, dancing with me.
1. (Re)writing our ceremony
Tonight we met with our friend the rabbinical student who will be officiating our wedding ceremony. Designing the wedding ceremony has been by far my favorite part of the entire wedding planning process. My partner and I are very verbal people—words mean a lot to us. Jewish tradition and liturgy also has meaning for us, but in a very complex way. In planning the ceremony we have carefully and critically considered each gesture, each blessing, each process. We are taking into account Judaism, feminism, humanism, our families’ tastes and our personal styles. It feels like us, like the core of what all this fuss is about. (Re)writing the ceremony is the one part of the wedding planning process that draws on our strengths as writers and as people actively engaged in reimagining spiritual and symbolic practices.
It was challenging. Actually, quite challenging. There was probably more yelling than necessary, and some tears of frustration might have just about surfaced. But let’s face it, my partner and I love music, and we totally love dancing. We wrote the first draft of our song list within a week of getting engaged and then, a year later, when we actually needed it for practical purposes, could not find it. No problem; we started over. I think that creating the songlist was quite emblematic of a lot of the wedding planning process because it required an extremely delicate mix of considering my tastes, my partner’s tastes, what will please our parents, what will rouse our guests, and what will be most in line with our values (which in this case, include dancing, and lots of it). I think I am also still quite nervous to see how it will play out since, now made, this list is literally in the hands of our DJ.
2. Making the seating chart
Seriously, the seating chart was one thing I have been most excited about since the beginning of the process. I just couldn’t do it until now because I didn’t know exactly who was coming and who was not coming. I love making the seating chart because I love all the people who are coming to the wedding. I am having the wedding in the first place because I want these people to come celebrate with us. Making the seating chart is the one task in which I get to bask ahead of time in the glorious presence of all these friends and relatives. Each person matters, each person needs their seat. Furthermore, I can see the networks that we have supporting us, the webs of people that become so important to my decisions about who will sit where and with whom. It appears a pretty easy task of counting to ten (as in, ten seats at a table), but as I complete this task I am filled with joy at the physical promise that all of these people will be in the same room together, dancing with me.
1. (Re)writing our ceremony
Tonight we met with our friend the rabbinical student who will be officiating our wedding ceremony. Designing the wedding ceremony has been by far my favorite part of the entire wedding planning process. My partner and I are very verbal people—words mean a lot to us. Jewish tradition and liturgy also has meaning for us, but in a very complex way. In planning the ceremony we have carefully and critically considered each gesture, each blessing, each process. We are taking into account Judaism, feminism, humanism, our families’ tastes and our personal styles. It feels like us, like the core of what all this fuss is about. (Re)writing the ceremony is the one part of the wedding planning process that draws on our strengths as writers and as people actively engaged in reimagining spiritual and symbolic practices.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Navigating Family Dynamics
When my partner and I first got engaged, I went to my hometown public library and checked out three books on Jewish weddings. I read only one of them, and had to return it before I got the chance to write down and follow-up with any of the ideas it gave me. One particular piece of wisdom in this book, a suggestion that seemed forced and unnecessary at the time, I now regret ignoring. This wisdom was found in the section of the book addressing family dynamics.
One of the most difficult and inaccurate myths about weddings (in my humble opinion) is the idea that “this is your day.” A lot of well-meaning, earnest, and excited people have explained to me some variation on the idea that the wedding is all about me and my partner and that we should get what we want out of the day. They have said this to me maybe to encourage me to voice my desires, or maybe to comfort me that all the hard work and stress will be worthwhile because in the end I will have something that is completely mine, or maybe just because they had heard it said before and figured it might be a nice thing to say.
I rarely had a good response when people said that to me in the past. But now I say to all of them: That’s not true. The day is not just about me, or just about my partner and me, or just about our relationship. It’s about who we are, where we’ve come from, and the people who have been our role models, our guides, our sources of encouragement and support, and, in no small ways, our lifelines. It is about us; it is about our parents; it is about family.
And by “family” I mean everything so often meant by “family”: love; mess; drama; complex family histories; collaboration and conflict across political, religious, and aesthetic divides; yelling; crying; and still a whole lot of unconditional love.
The book I read on Jewish weddings recognized that parents and families are an important part of the process. The piece of advice that the book offered (that I foolishly ignored) is this: Sit down with your parents early on in the wedding planning process for a “visioning” conversation. The couple could sit down with all their parents at once if possible, or different parents at different times. Start by inviting everyone to share some feelings about the wedding planning process. Then have people share what they are most looking forward to—what elements of the wedding are most important to them. From there, a conversation about details can develop. What specific parts of a wedding does each person really want, or really not want, or really want to do a particular way? Everything shared during this conversation can be adjusted, reconsidered, and changed; but everything must be heard. I can see now, from my vantage point at the near-end of this process, how powerfully such a conversation could open up the lines of communication and create a collaboration of mutual respect and care.
Although we did not sit down with our parents for the purpose of such a crafted and carefully facilitated family conversation, many of the intentions of this conversation did inform our wedding planning. We tried to respect each others’ desires, identify points of contention and ways to compromise, and understand that no one person and no one couple had to have everything go their way.
But at this point of the process, I am struggling to find a way to compensate for the lack of extreme openness and, clearly, that certain element of touchy-feely-ness that the above conversation might have precipitated. A few ideas float through my head, the most prominent one is this: What if I try to facilitate an analogous conversation on the Friday night before the wedding (two nights before our Sunday wedding)? We will be having a small family dinner, mainly parents and siblings and us. While simply sitting together for a small, intimate meal will, I hope, help us develop a family connection that we will build on throughout the weekend, the facilitator/community-leader in me wants to come prepared with some go-round questions, for example, asking everyone to share what they are most looking forward to for the wedding weekend, or one hope they have for the weekend, or one thing they have been thinking about most in the week leading up to the weekend. Any suggestions would be welcome!
One of the most difficult and inaccurate myths about weddings (in my humble opinion) is the idea that “this is your day.” A lot of well-meaning, earnest, and excited people have explained to me some variation on the idea that the wedding is all about me and my partner and that we should get what we want out of the day. They have said this to me maybe to encourage me to voice my desires, or maybe to comfort me that all the hard work and stress will be worthwhile because in the end I will have something that is completely mine, or maybe just because they had heard it said before and figured it might be a nice thing to say.
I rarely had a good response when people said that to me in the past. But now I say to all of them: That’s not true. The day is not just about me, or just about my partner and me, or just about our relationship. It’s about who we are, where we’ve come from, and the people who have been our role models, our guides, our sources of encouragement and support, and, in no small ways, our lifelines. It is about us; it is about our parents; it is about family.
And by “family” I mean everything so often meant by “family”: love; mess; drama; complex family histories; collaboration and conflict across political, religious, and aesthetic divides; yelling; crying; and still a whole lot of unconditional love.
The book I read on Jewish weddings recognized that parents and families are an important part of the process. The piece of advice that the book offered (that I foolishly ignored) is this: Sit down with your parents early on in the wedding planning process for a “visioning” conversation. The couple could sit down with all their parents at once if possible, or different parents at different times. Start by inviting everyone to share some feelings about the wedding planning process. Then have people share what they are most looking forward to—what elements of the wedding are most important to them. From there, a conversation about details can develop. What specific parts of a wedding does each person really want, or really not want, or really want to do a particular way? Everything shared during this conversation can be adjusted, reconsidered, and changed; but everything must be heard. I can see now, from my vantage point at the near-end of this process, how powerfully such a conversation could open up the lines of communication and create a collaboration of mutual respect and care.
Although we did not sit down with our parents for the purpose of such a crafted and carefully facilitated family conversation, many of the intentions of this conversation did inform our wedding planning. We tried to respect each others’ desires, identify points of contention and ways to compromise, and understand that no one person and no one couple had to have everything go their way.
But at this point of the process, I am struggling to find a way to compensate for the lack of extreme openness and, clearly, that certain element of touchy-feely-ness that the above conversation might have precipitated. A few ideas float through my head, the most prominent one is this: What if I try to facilitate an analogous conversation on the Friday night before the wedding (two nights before our Sunday wedding)? We will be having a small family dinner, mainly parents and siblings and us. While simply sitting together for a small, intimate meal will, I hope, help us develop a family connection that we will build on throughout the weekend, the facilitator/community-leader in me wants to come prepared with some go-round questions, for example, asking everyone to share what they are most looking forward to for the wedding weekend, or one hope they have for the weekend, or one thing they have been thinking about most in the week leading up to the weekend. Any suggestions would be welcome!
Friday, June 3, 2011
“I promise we will not get in a huge fight over your wedding”
I have great friends. The wedding-planning process has made me realize lots of things, including this fact.
Before getting engaged, I also knew that my friends are great. But planning this wedding has made me feel so vulnerable in so many ways, and this vulnerability has really allowed me to new explore aspects of my friendships. Maybe it’s that my fears and anxieties feel so strong and so urgent that I am voicing them more often. Maybe it’s that my communication skills are getting both strained and strengthened in many ways on a regular basis. Maybe it’s that my friends are kind, insightful, generous, loving people. (Yes, you!) Whatever it is, I have really benefited from all kinds of support from my friends during this process.
The “promise” at the title of this post is just one example of such support. As I told a friend about my anxieties regarding the “social politics” of the wedding process, she stopped the conversation and firmly committed to me that she would not fight with me through the process of wedding planning or over something occurring at the wedding itself. She just said it. She took responsibility. And it made so much sense to me. It was such a comfort. She wasn’t saying it descriptively—it was not a guess or a hope. This particular friend and I certainly conflict on occasion, so it was not unimaginable that we might fight over the next several months (it was March at the time). She was assuring me that she would actively take steps to not get into a fight with me. Of course, that does not mean I am being careless with our friendship. On the contrary, I feel a heightened commitment to enhancing the positive aspects of our friendship and enjoying the positive roles she is taking in the wedding process.
Living free from the fear that those closest to me might put our friendship on the line at any moment has been incredibly empowering. I could describe many other examples of the ways in which my friends have expressed forgiveness, understanding, and genuine support for my personal decisions even when they disagree, even if they disagree avidly. All in all what it comes down to is this: I can throw myself into wedding planning (and, in thirty days, the wedding itself) with the freedom to embrace vulnerability, explore anxiety, respect fear, and feel empowered that whatever goes right or wrong, those who love me will continue to love me, and I will continue to have their support.
And they, I can assure you, will continue to have mine.
Before getting engaged, I also knew that my friends are great. But planning this wedding has made me feel so vulnerable in so many ways, and this vulnerability has really allowed me to new explore aspects of my friendships. Maybe it’s that my fears and anxieties feel so strong and so urgent that I am voicing them more often. Maybe it’s that my communication skills are getting both strained and strengthened in many ways on a regular basis. Maybe it’s that my friends are kind, insightful, generous, loving people. (Yes, you!) Whatever it is, I have really benefited from all kinds of support from my friends during this process.
The “promise” at the title of this post is just one example of such support. As I told a friend about my anxieties regarding the “social politics” of the wedding process, she stopped the conversation and firmly committed to me that she would not fight with me through the process of wedding planning or over something occurring at the wedding itself. She just said it. She took responsibility. And it made so much sense to me. It was such a comfort. She wasn’t saying it descriptively—it was not a guess or a hope. This particular friend and I certainly conflict on occasion, so it was not unimaginable that we might fight over the next several months (it was March at the time). She was assuring me that she would actively take steps to not get into a fight with me. Of course, that does not mean I am being careless with our friendship. On the contrary, I feel a heightened commitment to enhancing the positive aspects of our friendship and enjoying the positive roles she is taking in the wedding process.
Living free from the fear that those closest to me might put our friendship on the line at any moment has been incredibly empowering. I could describe many other examples of the ways in which my friends have expressed forgiveness, understanding, and genuine support for my personal decisions even when they disagree, even if they disagree avidly. All in all what it comes down to is this: I can throw myself into wedding planning (and, in thirty days, the wedding itself) with the freedom to embrace vulnerability, explore anxiety, respect fear, and feel empowered that whatever goes right or wrong, those who love me will continue to love me, and I will continue to have their support.
And they, I can assure you, will continue to have mine.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Focus on the Marriage, not the Wedding
I had a moment this afternoon that justified my decision to spend one month writing about weddings on a blog that is dedicated to explorations of sex education. I was at a meeting of people who work as sexuality educators in various capacities around the state, reviewing Sex Ed curricula. The leader of the group, who has spent decades working as a sexuality educator and advocate, was talking about the need for education that is inclusive of students who come from a variety of backgrounds, including, in this case, conservative Christian backgrounds with abstinence-until-marriage values. As advocates of comprehensive sexuality education for all students, we need to learn to reach those students also, she explained, and in a way that respects and builds on the strengths of their cultural backgrounds. Then she commented about how even individuals who do pursue abstinence until marriage have the right to learn how to have a healthy romantic and sexual relationship during marriage.
Then she brought up weddings. With all the focus on weddings these days, she asked, who is focusing on the marriage? The young couple is caught up in a storm of wedding planning, and then after the wedding, are they prepared for the marriage? Are those people who helped them plan the wedding and enjoyed the colors and flowers still around to help them navigate the challenges of partnership and the pursuit of shared life?
I started nodding vigorously as this woman and another colleague sitting next to me both elaborated on this point. Eventually she noticed my nodding, and I felt the need to explain, “I am getting married in 31 days.” And I was relieved that my disclosure was not the conversation-stopper it sometimes can be. She picked right up on the theme—
“Have you and your partner thought about what life will be like after marriage, and how getting married will have an impact on your life?”
Have we? Will it? How am I supposed to know if we are prepared for marriage, and what that would even mean?
To be fair, we have had many conversations about life after the wedding, the meaning of marriage, and the specific and serious nature of the commitment we are making to each other. But this woman, herself married for possibly longer that I have been alive, was talking about something I can only now imagine.
I consider myself pretty well-versed in the language of relationships, but the more life experience I get, the more I realized how many vital topics are so often left out of high school sex ed.
Marriage. So much more than just a wedding.
Then she brought up weddings. With all the focus on weddings these days, she asked, who is focusing on the marriage? The young couple is caught up in a storm of wedding planning, and then after the wedding, are they prepared for the marriage? Are those people who helped them plan the wedding and enjoyed the colors and flowers still around to help them navigate the challenges of partnership and the pursuit of shared life?
I started nodding vigorously as this woman and another colleague sitting next to me both elaborated on this point. Eventually she noticed my nodding, and I felt the need to explain, “I am getting married in 31 days.” And I was relieved that my disclosure was not the conversation-stopper it sometimes can be. She picked right up on the theme—
“Have you and your partner thought about what life will be like after marriage, and how getting married will have an impact on your life?”
Have we? Will it? How am I supposed to know if we are prepared for marriage, and what that would even mean?
To be fair, we have had many conversations about life after the wedding, the meaning of marriage, and the specific and serious nature of the commitment we are making to each other. But this woman, herself married for possibly longer that I have been alive, was talking about something I can only now imagine.
I consider myself pretty well-versed in the language of relationships, but the more life experience I get, the more I realized how many vital topics are so often left out of high school sex ed.
Marriage. So much more than just a wedding.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
My June Journey: 30 Days of Blogging, Working and Wedding Planning
June has 30 days, and I have decided to write a short blog post for all 30 of them—or at least to write one post for every day during which I have Internet access. Why? These are the 30 days leading up to my wedding. The wedding ceremony will be on July 3, so July 1 marks the day the families start arriving and conjoining and, in addition, the day I go to the mikveh, where I will immerse myself in water to mark the transition.
Throughout the past months, when June was mentioned in a conversation, I would think to myself (or remark out loud) that I have little imagination for what June 2011 will be like, feel like, entail. Excitement? Insanity? Overwhelm? Calm? I’m curious. Slightly nervous, but mostly really curious. I also feel that June might go by so quickly, with so much jumping from one thing to the next, that as the next months come and go, I might not remember what June felt like. And I want to remember—partly because I am grossly enthralled by this phenomenon of bridedom and wedding prep, and partly because I want to pursue a way to feel centered during this time. I hope that introducing this daily opportunity to write will give me a structure in which to reflect, to be with my emotions and to contextualize them.
I want to add that during the 30 days of June, I will not only be blogging and wedding planning, but also working as a research assistant and serving as the Health Education intern at a local public school district. I will likely be feeling a lot, and a lot of different feelings, throughout this month.
This month on my blog I will be trying lots of different things. For one, I have never before tried to blog daily. I imagine that blogging every day will mean that the content of my posts are very different. I am entering this process in order to record my thoughts and feelings in the moment, which is clearly a much more personal endeavor than my previous posts about my job, volunteer work, and opinions on current events. I hope that you, as a reader, will find some of these posts interesting and, above all, that you will comment. The words of my friends, families, colleagues, and allies have been a source of motivation, inspiration, and hope for me throughout my life and especially during the wedding-planning process, so I expect June to be no different. I look forward to hearing from you.
And with that, let these 30 days begin.
Throughout the past months, when June was mentioned in a conversation, I would think to myself (or remark out loud) that I have little imagination for what June 2011 will be like, feel like, entail. Excitement? Insanity? Overwhelm? Calm? I’m curious. Slightly nervous, but mostly really curious. I also feel that June might go by so quickly, with so much jumping from one thing to the next, that as the next months come and go, I might not remember what June felt like. And I want to remember—partly because I am grossly enthralled by this phenomenon of bridedom and wedding prep, and partly because I want to pursue a way to feel centered during this time. I hope that introducing this daily opportunity to write will give me a structure in which to reflect, to be with my emotions and to contextualize them.
I want to add that during the 30 days of June, I will not only be blogging and wedding planning, but also working as a research assistant and serving as the Health Education intern at a local public school district. I will likely be feeling a lot, and a lot of different feelings, throughout this month.
This month on my blog I will be trying lots of different things. For one, I have never before tried to blog daily. I imagine that blogging every day will mean that the content of my posts are very different. I am entering this process in order to record my thoughts and feelings in the moment, which is clearly a much more personal endeavor than my previous posts about my job, volunteer work, and opinions on current events. I hope that you, as a reader, will find some of these posts interesting and, above all, that you will comment. The words of my friends, families, colleagues, and allies have been a source of motivation, inspiration, and hope for me throughout my life and especially during the wedding-planning process, so I expect June to be no different. I look forward to hearing from you.
And with that, let these 30 days begin.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
My first Giant Academic Conference: The Society for Research on Child Development
This post is my attempt to summarize some of my recent thoughts on directions for research with the potential to transform the way we design and implement sex education. I just got back from spending three days in Montreal with lots and lots of developmental scientists. At the conference, I found many sessions that could help me think about—and connect with others who are thinking about—adolescent sexual health and its role in normative, positive development.
Among variables that help us measure adolescent sexual development, age at first sex gets a lot of attention. One aspect of this discussion is whether or not “onset” of sexual activity in middle adolescence can be healthy as opposed to inherently risky. The average age of first sex in the United States is 17, so that means many teens have had sex before age 17, too. Discussing this question in one session gave rise to a magnificent group insight: What if we look at the content of adolescents’ sexual experiences, the meaning they make of sex and the thoughts and feelings they have before and after sex, instead of judging them for engaging in a behavior that can have such a myriad of situation-dependent positive, negative, and neutral consequences?
So the next question is, as researchers, how do we do that? Here are some ideas I had while in Montreal:
1. We need to start asking about the nature of consent in adolescent sexual experiences. I saw many interesting studies that gathered detailed information from college students about their sexual activity and other factors such as body image and sexual satisfaction, for example. However, I did not see any studies that asked college students whether of not the sex they had was consensual—whether they had wanted it, or whether they felt pressured. I want to know.
2. We need to study sexual activity as if it takes place between two people, as if two people are doing it together. I saw some great research on sexual behavior, and some great research on romantic relationships, but not a whole lot of attention paid to the fact that much sexual behavior takes place in the context of a romantic (or sexual) relationship. Not necessarily a committed, long-term relationship, but some kind of interpersonal dynamic. And that dynamic—the emotional and social content of the interaction between those individuals—is an important part of the immediate context that can directly influence the healthfulness and hurtfulness of sexual activity.
3. We need to study the effects of gender roles and gender socialization on adolescents’ sexual identities and behaviors in more and more complex and nuanced ways. I went to sessions on the sexualization of girls, and I went to sessions on masculinity, and I went to sessions on racial socialization. All the sessions address intertwining themes, but most of the research presented missed some very important points: mainly, what the other researchers were discovering. Extensive collaboration can allow us to study the effects of the systems of power and privilege that structure today’s society. We will need to reach outside of the field of sexuality and sexual health in order to return to these issues with a new perspective and a transformed vision for change.
What else do you think sexual health researchers need to consider? What questions would you like to pose regarding the developmental course of adolescent sexuality?
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