A Feminist Wedding? An Intro

Even if you only knew me from reading this blog, you probably already guessed that I identify as a feminist (I think I may have mentioned it in my first post on this blog actually!). Gender equality and rights for women are extremely important to me. They pretty much always have been, although my views have evolved over time and I have definitely become more aware of subconscious bias against women over the years. That's one reason (among several, including that I want to write more, I like having a project, and I just get bored sometimes) that I'm writing this blog in the first place.

By Tim Gould, used under a Creative Commons License, available on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/gambort/5838670372/

I am really damn excited about getting married. I was super happy to get engaged. But part of me feels like, by being excited, I'm letting down feminism. Part of me feels like by letting John propose (something he was quite set on, I should note - I would have been totally fine and gung-ho about proposing to him, but he really didn't want to do that), I have failed somehow. All the big feminist writer names I know are so cool about their weddings. They start out with intros about how they never really thought about their weddings before they got engaged, or never thought they'd get married at all, or how their proposal was totally a conversation and agreement among equals and nothing out of the ordinary.

For example, in "My big feminist wedding" for The Guardian, Jessica Valenti said, "As a kid, I wasn't sure that I would ever get married - I was not the kind of little girl who played at being a bride. My parents have a wonderful marriage, but they have been together since my mother was 12, married when they were just teenagers and are barely ever separated. They even work together. As a result, I have always thought of marriage as involving the loss of a certain amount of autonomy. Not to mention that, as feminist as our household was, I grew up seeing my mother do the majority of the domestic work and her paid day job to boot. That did not exactly sweeten the deal."

Me, however? It's embarrassing to admit, but I, uh, was that little girl. I have honestly been dreaming about my wedding since I was a little girl (cultural norms are very powerful!). I clearly remember drawing a picture of me in a wedding dress and a veil marrying my kindergarten sweetheart (named Jordan or Justin or something...there were a few J named boys I enjoyed chasing on the playground at age 5). I've actively dreamed about specific dresses and music since I was a freshman in college, when my sister got married and I gleefully borrowed all her wedding magazines. I believe that was also around the time I started reading Offbeat Bride, which I've been pretty obsessed with ever since (Sidenote: I literally think being a regular reader of Offbeat Bride and its associated websites has changed my life and made me a better person, but that's a story for a future blog post). 

So I'm not exactly your "good feminist" when it comes to weddings and marriage. I am admittedly not schooled in feminist ways of thinking. I've never taken a class in gender theory. I have never read The Feminine Mystique, or the Second Sex (although I really really should). I feel a little shame about that because clearly my life as a woman isn't hard enough and I must feel badly for not being more educated in feminism and also for being excited about something society has told me will be the "best day of my life" for my entire life (NO PRESSURE AMIRIGHT). But I also just don't believe that weddings and marriage, at least as they exist today in modern society, are incompatible with feminism. 

Because I am the person I am, I of course am looking for evidence to back up that belief and also evidence that might refute it. I want to learn about everything to do with both weddings and marriage as I plan one and enter into another. I want to know what all these traditions are, where they came from, what they mean. I want to determine what role they will play in my wedding and my life with my eyes fully open. For me, at least, an unexamined wedding is not worth having (props to Socrates, although really, that statement is much darker in its original context than how we usually use it now).

*(I should note now that literally no one has to agree with me on this. If you don't want to overly analyze weddings and marriage after getting engaged, that is your prerogative and I wish you very well! That's just not my personality. I wish I didn't have to state so often how extremely okay and non-judgmental I am about people making choices different than mine, but people get very touchy about wedding and marriage traditions sometimes, so I think it bears repeating.) 

Though there's an extent to which this entire blog is really about investigating whether it's possible to have a feminist wedding, this particular series of posts will go into it a bit more in depth and look at several articles and podcasts on this specific topic. They won't come out consecutively all the time, but I'm looking forward to working on it anyway.

Marriage Protest of Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell

(May 1, 1855)

While we acknowledge our mutual affection by publicly assuming the relationship of husband and wife, yet in justice to ourselves and a great principle, we deem it a duty to declare that this act on our part implies no sanction of, nor promise of voluntary obedience to such of the present laws of marriage, as refuse to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, while they confer upon the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority, investing him with legal powers which no honorable man would exercise, and which no man should possess. We protest especially against the laws which give to the husband:

1. The custody of the wife's person.

2. The exclusive control and guardianship of their children.

3. The sole ownership of her personal, and use of her real estate, unless previously settled upon her, or placed in the hands of trustees, as in the case of minors, lunatics, and idiots.

4. The absolute right to the product of her industry.

5. Also against laws which give to the widower so much larger and more permanent interest in the property of his deceased wife, than they give to the widow in that of the deceased husband.

6. Finally, against the whole system by which "the legal existence of the wife is suspended during marriage," so that in most States, she neither has a legal part in the choice of her residence, nor can she make a will, nor sue or be sued in her own name, nor inherit property.

We believe that personal independence and equal human rights can never be forfeited, except for crime; that marriage should be an equal and permanent partnership, and so recognized by law; that until it is so recognized, married partners should provide against the radical injustice of present laws, by every means in their power.

Sourced from http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/stoneblackwellmarriageprotest.html

How Important is Your Name In Getting Job Interviews?

In today's edition of "I am really grossed out that this is probably still a thing," several studies show that a foreign sounding surname or first name may affect your chances of getting a call for a job interview. This may be an especially relevant data point to the marital surname decisions of people were either born with or are considering changing their names to those that are traditionally more "white" or "African-American," regardless of your own ethnicity.

"Are Emily and Brendan More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal: A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination" found that when they sent out nearly 5,000 resumes in response to "over 1300 ads in Boston and Chicago newspapers in the sales, administrative support, clerical and customer services fields," resumes with "very White sounding names" elicited about 50% more callbacks than "very African American sounding names."  The researchers typically sent out 4 resumes in response to each ad, two high quality and two low quality resumes, with one of each randomly assigned an "African American sounding name." The study also noted that while the high quality resumes with "white sounding names" received a 30% improvement in callbacks over the "white sounding names" low quality resumes, this bump did not occur for resumes with "African American sounding names." For what it's worth, this article was published in 2002, so it's entirely possible that this information is slightly out of date. 

photo: thedailyenglishshow.com CC BY

Two more recent studies came to different conclusions on what role names play in employment decisions.

A 2012 study, "Indiscriminate Discrimination: A correspondence test for ethnic homophily in the Chicago Labor Market" found a similar but less marked bias in favor of "white sounding" names (which this study referred to as "Anglo-Saxon," which I have quibbles with as a history major, but that's an issue for another time). This one found that resumes with "Anglo-Saxon" names generated nearly 33% more callbacks than identical resumes with either African-American or "foreign" names (the "foreign" names were designed to be of an unidentifiable ethnic origin to most Americans). 

A study published last year found that resumes with a variety of traditionally "white" (Anderson and Thompson),  "African-American" (Washington and Jefferson), and "Hispanic" (Hernandez and Garcia) surnames were not treated in a manner that indicated systematic employer preferences for applicants from particular race groups. However, the researchers themselves acknowledged to the Chicago Tribune that last names may be a weak signal of race. "Though 90 percent of people with the last name Washington are black and 75 percent of those named Jefferson are black, 'there is the fair criticism that maybe no one knows that,' Koedel said."

So does this sort of racial bias still exist in hiring? It's hard to know, but it seems likely. As a white woman myself, I'm never going to discount another person's stories of racial discrimination. That's not my job in this case; my role is to listen and learn and be the best ally I can be. As an article in Forbes pointed out, "'We're not claiming that employers engage in discriminatory behavior consciously, or that this is necessarily an issue of racism,' wrote Marianne Bertrand, a researcher on the 2002 study. 'It is important to teach people in charge of hiring about the subconscious biases they may have, and figure out a way to change these patterns.'" So hopefully these are trends that can be changed and fixed with effort and work. 

Podcast Review: Queens of England

As mentioned previously, I'm a little obsessed with Renaissance English history. I've recently expanded that interest to medieval English history as well, through the excellent Queens of England podcast.

The hilarious and dry-witted James Boulton starts back around 1031 with Matilda of Flanders and just keeps moving through medieval times to the War of the Roses and now is slowly working his way through the many wives of Henry VIII. He also has several supplemental podcasts analyzing the queens of literature and TV, such as Queen Guinevere of the Arthurian legends and the queens of Tolkien and A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. 

Matilda of Flanders. Legit Badass who defied her husband to provide financial support to her firstborn, not once, but twice!

My favorite section of a podcast ever is when he relates an incident in the life of Matilda of Flanders where she pleaded with her husband (who you may have heard of - William the Conquerer?) for forgiveness for providing support to her traitorous first son by noting:

"This is absolute gold for historians. It shows a queen both acknowledging the perceived weakness of her sex but also her power. It shows how a queen could use her own wealth to pursue her own goals, but also how important it was for this to be sanctioned by her husband, further confirming that queens had real power and authority, but this had to be granted from the king. William, ignorant of all the excitement of all the modern historians around him, heard only his wife's shocking defiance of his wishes."

"But Rachael," You may ask. "What does this have to do with marriage?" I'm glad you asked. Though the podcast itself is not specifically dedicated to marriage, by definition, it's almost completely about married women, Queens Consort (there are a few supplements dedicated to mistresses and there was really only ever one unmarried Queen Regnant in the form of Elizabeth I). The host in each episode looks at several characteristics desired in an English Queen to determine how successful the queen actually was: fertility, piety, financial or social advantage from her own background/family, and her steadying influence on the king and his court. It's really quite fascinating. 

And frankly, plenty of these women were total badasses. They had to work within the limitations of their gender at the time to achieve their goals, and many of them were absolutely fierce. See: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Matilda of Boulogne, and Margaret of Anjou. Listening to this podcast is absolutely inspiring!

Eleanor of Aquitaine. Badass queen twice over (of France, then of England) who went on Conquest when it wasn't cool for women to do that, gave birth to two Kings, survived 15 years in captivity, outlived almost everyone around her, and generally was the best

You can find Queens of England podcast anywhere you find podcasts as well as on the podcast's website and Facebook.

Cute Bride Apparel, Whether You're Changing Your Name or Not

I actually don't know if that last one counts as bride themed, but it mentions diamonds and I love unicorns, so I'm including it. :D

There are a ton of fun other items over on etsy as well. I think I may do occasional blog posts to highlight such fun things! Maybe monthly at most to avoid getting TOO consumery. 

Book Review: Lucy Stone - An Unapologetic Life

What is this book about? 

This fantastically well researched and written book is a biography of Lucy Stone, a badass woman who graduated from college at a time when the vast majority did not accept women and made her living as a public speaker on the topics of abolitionism and women's rights when women generally weren't allowed to speak in public and both topics were incredibly controversial. She's mostly known today for being the first married American woman that anyone knows of that deliberately kept her own last name. This is due in part to her own stubbornness in refusing to give interviews to journalists and in part to a feud with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; she's barely mentioned in a lot of important works on women's rights activists/suffragettes and has alas, become much less known these days than Anthony and Stanton, even though they were all rather famous during her lifetime.

Who would love this book?

Anyone who stands for women's rights or is interested in learning about the history of that movement or abolitionism. Lucy was heavily involved with both, and this follows a lot of the conversations and divisions in each movement during her lifetime. It's also just really well written and interesting, with just enough spice to keep things moving along. I read a lot of it while spending almost an entire day in various lines relating to the Yayoi Kusai: Infinity Mirrors art exhibit in DC, and I was able to speed through it and stay very absorbed in it despite all the crowds, noise, and screaming children around me.

My Favorite Parts

Lucy Stone was so incredibly fierce. I love reading all the different sources' descriptions of her lectures, and how her tiny, feminine presence and high, gentle voice contrasted with her powerful words. I also admire how the author doesn't hold back from illustrating Lucy's faults as well - her general lack of humor and her stubbornness to a fault on some issues, among them.

On a more humorous note - her husband Henry Browne Blackwell is described throughout as a bit of a spacey dreamer, jumping from job to job. It made me crack up to read of the many many times throughout his life he ran off and tried to start a sugar beet refinery. It seemed like every 10 pages, old Blackwell was off messing about with sugar beets again. It really was admirable of him, as it was all part of an industry trying to move people away from slave farmed sugar cane,  but it still was pretty hilarious.

Does it talk about marital surname changes at all?

Yes! The story of her husband's pursuit of her (which led to her decision to keep her name) is really quite adorable. She basically refused Henry Brown Blackwell (the brother of the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, Elizabeth Blackwell) constantly for two years until she finally gave in. They wrote a delightful public letter called their "Protest" of Marriage protesting the massively sexist marriage laws of the time, read it at their wedding ceremony, and published it afterward. Lucy kept separate bank accounts and property from her husband for her entire life. She briefly changed her name to his for about a year, then after consulting with lots of lawyers and judges, changed it back to Stone after realizing it didn't break any laws for her to keep her own name. 

Her dedication to keeping her own name was so intense that the ONLY time she had the opportunity to vote in her life in a minor local election, she walked away from voting after the administrators refused to let her vote under Lucy Stone, saying she could only vote under Lucy Blackwell.

The Lucy Stone League, a women's rights organization dedicated to name rights formed in 1921, took its name from Lucy. "Lucy Stoner" even became a descriptor for anyone who advocates that a married woman should be allowed to keep and use her own name. The group is not super active right now, but it sounds like there are chapters of larger Women's groups that operate under the name Lucy Stone. I myself belong to an awesome private Facebook group called the Lucy Stone League. The members often commiserate on the still often archaic views on women's last names in the world today. 

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Lucy-Stone-Unapologetic-Sally-McMillen/dp/0199778396/

To Change Your Name (A Poem)

A very wise person once wrote that it’s
The choices we make that define the person we are.
The decision you’ve made to change your name
Is one of the most important choices you’ll ever make —
Something no one else can do for you.

Photo by Mike Timberlake (metimbers2000). Used under a Creative Commons License. Available at www.flickr.com/photos/metimbers2000/1409236433/

Just like the butterfly that emerges from the chrysalis, 
Changing your name heralds a new stage in your life.
Like the butterfly, may you go out into this world
With pride, with courage, and with the certain knowledge that
Your new name has added meaning and purpose to your life. 

Sharon L Norris

Source: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-change-your-name/

Podcast Review: Renaissance English History

Aside from marriage and wedding culture and history, I'm fairly obsessed with the English renaissance. I have a Henry VIII teddy bear (purchased at the Tower of London!) and a Henry VIII coffee mug (featuring 6 disappearing wives when you put a hot beverage in it!) hanging out in my office. My friends know me so well that they regularly send me texts such as "Henry VIII and Charles Brandon = OTP" and pictures of tapestries featuring a cat Henry VIII.  

My obsession has recently moved to podcasts! Particularly the Renaissance English History Podcast, hosted by the charming Heather Teysko since 2009. She's covered a huge range of topics, from cosmetics and makeup to the iron industry, to music, theater, and witchcraft, along with the more typical biographies of monarchs and the people around them. I'm still combing through her archives and imagine it will take me a while longer to really be caught up.

Most relevantly to this blog, she did an episode several years ago on Love and Betrothal that can be found under Episode 20 in the social history archive, or can be downloaded wherever you find podcasts (for me, it's the podcasts app on my iPhone). She also recently did a fantastic Women's History Month themed mini series on several inspiring women from the time. This particular project included a fun Facebook page for discussions! The topic of marriage and its various intricacies also come up often in other episodes, particularly in biographies of women.

Basically, if you like history or want to learn more about it, go listen to her podcast! It's amazing. 

Book Review: Weddings - Dating & Love Customs of Cultures Worldwide

What is this book about? 

This is a gorgeous and super detailed book full of black and white photos, explanations of customs and cultures, and scripts of ceremonies and vows from around the world. It also includes a small section on weddings of royalty at the back (I love that they included JFK and Jackie in that definition).  

It's basically like an encyclopedia of weddings. It's very well organized, easy to navigate, and  thorough, with lots of thank yous to various people and sources cited throughout. The author clearly reached out to a ton of people, including several embassies, and read just stacks of books for this. It's pretty darn impressive. I'm sad I didn't get to read this one as in depth as I might have liked (I'm actually turning it in late to the library after renewing it three times as it is. Oops. My books-I-want-to-read eyes are bigger than my actual-time-to-read stomach.)

Who would love this book?

This would be super useful for a student doing a project on any sort of wedding wedding comparison, or a wedding professional who wants to have a good broad knowledge of a variety of ceremonies and traditions at hand. It's also great for a school or library setting. Really, 

My Favorite Parts

It really goes very into depth on the individual ceremonies of lots of different religions and cultures (Many of which I hadn't even heard before!). We get so in our own heads about the way things are done in the U.S. sometimes that it's easy to forget the beautiful differences out there. Cambodian, Navajo, Myanmar Buddhist, Laplander, Druze, Rural Campesinos, Ngoni, Chagga - I really enjoyed looking through them all!

Does it talk about marital surname changes at all? 

Not that I could find! I didn't read every single word on every single page though, alas.

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Weddings-Customs-Cultures-Worldwide-Including/dp/0961382325

About that Mrs. Thing

I've never particularly liked or understood the reason for using different lead-ins for women based on their marital status. It seemed to be very old fashioned to me, even when I was fairly young. In my previous life as a journalist, I interned a semester at a newspaper in London. Their practice there was to use honorifics on the second reference to a person in a news article; so if John Doe is mentioned once, on the second time, he'd be Mr. Doe. I always hated having to ask women interviewees whether they were married or not just to figure out what honorific they'd use, so I ended up defaulting to using Ms. a lot of the time. In retrospect, I could probably have just asked "What's your preferred title, Miss, Mrs, or Ms?" but I was 21 and awkward and sometimes the simplest solutions don't occur to you until 8 years later when you're in a completely different career.

Made by DefineDesignEtc on Etsy. Available at https://www.etsy.com/listing/491089913/miss-to-mrs-canvas-makeup-bag-bride-gift

So honestly, because of my own personal dislike for the practice, I'm unlikely to start using Mrs after getting married. However, it's almost certain that at least some people will call me that anyway, whether or not I change my name. People have a nasty habit of assuming such things. I've gotten called "Mrs" on several occasions just in my regular life; once even when a boyfriend and I went to a very fancy restaurant when I was only 18! I got it most recently at a doctor's office. This makes me believe that a considerable number of people don't actually know the difference between the different titles and particularly don't understand its historical context.

"In the middle of the eighteenth century, 'Mrs' did not describe a married woman: it described a woman who governed subjects (i.e., employees or servants or apprentices) or a woman who was skilled or who taught. It described a social, rather than a marital status. 

Mistress is also the basis of another 'title of politeness' (as the OED terms it): 'Miss', which we use to designate an unmarried woman. Miss is almost as old as Mrs as an abbreviation of mistress and, like Mrs, it was applied only to those of higher social status. Unlike Mrs, which has changed from a social to a marital meaning over time, Miss always designated the marital status of being unmarried. But until the eighteenth century it was only applied to girls, never to adult women." - Mistresses and marriage: or, a short history of the Mrs, by Cambridge University historian Dr Amy Erickson. (This paper is really fascinating - Dr Erickson looked at a ton of old records to see what titles were being used over time)

The use of Mrs for women in authority can also be seen in the use of Mrs for "Mrs Hughes," the housekeeper in charge of all the servants on Downton Abbey, taking place around the time of the first World War. Dr Erickson also notes that the appropriate title for single business women in the 19th century was also Mrs.

Quick sidenote: I've been reading some Jane Austen lately, and this paper also describes the naming conventions used there. 

"Where Miss was used, it followed the conventions of Mr for sons. Where the father was 'Mr Cibber', his sons were 'young Mr Cibber' or 'Mr Theophilus'. With daughters, the eldest unmarried daughter was 'Miss Cibber' with no first name, the younger daughter was 'Miss Charlotte Cibber', or just 'Miss Charlotte'. When she married she became Mrs Charke, or Mrs Charlotte Charke to distinguish her from any other contemporaries who were also Mrs Charkes, notably her mother-in-law"

Surprisingly, the "tradition" of calling a wife Mrs. "Husband's First Name Husband's Last Name" is actually fairly new. Dr Erickson's paper continues snarkily, "Through the early modern period, where Mrs was used and the woman was married, the title was followed by her own first name and her husband's last name. The total annihilation of wifely identity which assigned a woman not only her husband's last name but also his first name only appeared around 1800." 

Awesome Dr. Shirt available over at https://www.amazon.com/Miss-Mrs-Shirt-Funny-PhD/dp/B01FRGK47U

Here's the thing: Is it actually appropriate for someone to call a married woman who hasn't changed her last name Mrs? According to several sources, such as Miss Manners and Offbeat Bride, no, as Mrs in this instance literally means "wife of" and actually only makes total sense when used with the husband's complete name.

So since I don't plan to legally change, it sounds like I will not be partaking of any of the fabulous and often glittery "Mrs." themed garb out there. Oh well. There's still plenty of other ways for me to engage in blatant wedding themed consumerism.

Sidenote: I really wish I could find some fabulous MS. NOT MRS. merchandise out there. When I searched for "Ms. T-shirt" I just found a ton of stuff for Multiple Sclerosis.

Anyway, I'll leave you on this note: