Welcome, dear reader, to the Premature Love editionâour second themed issue of the year. We donât publish over reading break so this is the closest we get to Valentineâs Day, and seeing as this is the Other Press, we never like to do things exactly by the book. So, issue before Valentineâs Day… Love/sex themed⌠Premature Love. Logical.
My major difficulty when it came to this paper was coming up with a relevant Lettitor that did something other than ramble on about the contents youâre better off simply flipping to. Fortunately, there are many tangents one can run away on. I settled on weddings and the conditioning about them.
Some friends of mine are getting married and all of the women involved are strong feminists. That hasnât changed the fact that the women are essentially doing most the work for the wedding. Invites, decorations, the website, planning, etc. If there were a group of people who were going to do something differently, Iâd have put a large bet on this squad. But they didnât. And these people are the type who donât give a ratâs ass what you think about them or their leanings. If they feel attacked, theyâll let you know. If they feel inclined to change the system, they will. We donât have to tell them that itâs their obligation to do so.
Yes, women may be socially conditioned to be ga-ga about wedding plans, but complete conditioning is something that canât take place without at least some initial leaning. The person has to have a personal yearning beyond the supposed forced nature of it all. I mean, some women will do it begrudgingly to be a good friend, but the ones who are truly excited must be interested beyond just âsociety says so.â And even if this is false and women have no actual desire of their own free will to have a great interest in weddings and their related âwork (i.e., invitations, decorations, etc.,),â what does that matter if they still want to do it? You want to tell a woman, a feminist even, that she canât do the wedding invitations because sheâs actually just been conditioned to do so and what sheâs feeling is an impressed devotion to something men didnât want to do? Regardless of how theyâve come to be this way, many women legitimately enjoy the wedding-related work.
So what am I saying? This really isnât anything more than an observation. People are quick to cry âbloody murderâ when they see women supposedly oppressed in any way, but they often fail to consider all the facts. Donât immediately play defence if youâre not sure what game youâre playing yet. A great deal of jobs, especially when it comes to higher management, are boysâ clubs. Objectification of women happens on the daily. But weddings? Why take something thatâs genuinely enjoyed by many women and try and put a negative spin on it? There doesnât always need to be a fight over every single picky perception. Women who want to do âfeminineâ things shouldnât be told that itâs bad to do soâinstead, freedom of choice for women should be celebrated, not shamed.
Danke danke,
Eric Wilkins
