When Jessica Valenti of the Feministing blog announced her engagement earlier this year, it touched off a firestorm of comments about such an outspoken feminist entering the instution of marriage: patriarchy, wearing of white, changing of the name, hyphenating kids' names, father giving her away, marriage as slavery, heteros marrying when homos aren't allowed, and so on and so forth.
She responded to those concerns and announced further wedding plans on Wednesday, which predictably sparked plenty of scuttlebutt in response in the comments, on Salon's Broadsheet and elsewhere, where the National Review online broke out the dreaded term "bridezilla."
I think that giving consideration to the many different angles of your wedding hardly constitutes being a bridezilla. But does everything really need so much analysis? When I got engaged last year and found myself showing off my bling while visiting the offices of BUST, I felt the need to joke, "I'm still feminist, right?" But when you break it down, I don't care. I doubt many facets of my life would hold up to the scrutiny some commenters can do online from the comfort of anonymity.
I think of my upcoming wedding as a short ceremony followed by a longer party. To me, getting married as a feminist is a case of, if you try to please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody. Also, any talk of a feminist getting married is bound to bring the misogynists out of the woodwork (oh and it has, in the comments on the above-linked posts) and reinforce the stereotype that "feminism" and "fun" are mutually exclusive terms. Case in point on the latter is this comment: "Not to be a wet blanket, but lame is a really awful ablist term. :o( " (Cue the sad horns/ Debbie Downer sound effect.) But whatevs. That's how the internet goes.
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