How do we resolve a problematic institution like marriage? Rooted in a less than ideal history of married women once being equated with chattel, anti-miscegenation laws and its current state of being only universally available to heterosexual couples, marriage still endures to mean something unique within our society. So, does one participate, hoping to reform the institution from within its confines? Does one abstain and protest for a society without such constructs? Where does love enter in? What does desiring to waltz down the aisle in a white ball gown, resplendent with lace, in front of 250 friends and family members say about one’s commitment to feminism and individuality? And how do these issues become compounded and made more complex when there are two brides instead of one? Here Come the Brides!: Reflections on Lesbian Love and Marriage attempts to answer these questions by illustrating an array of thoughts and feelings lesbians have about marriage in the wake of a rapidly changing political landscape, which has made the matter of ‘I do!’ or ‘I don’t!’ all the more real and pressing.

In this anthology edited by Audrey Bilger and Michele Kort, we are treated to a variety of viewpoints from a cross-section of lesbian voices that generally skews towards the middle-class and highly educated (academia is very well represented within these pages.) Bilger and Kort have done well to include a racially, ethnically and biologically diverse group of women – refreshing for a tome about weddings, as such enterprises often seem more white-washed than the featured cakes and dresses. The editors endeavored and succeeded in culling essays, poems, plays and comic strips from across the spectrum of beliefs about same-sex marriage and marriage in general. The individual writers render impassioned accounts of their personal love stories, replete with surprise proposals, supportive families and public validation. Others offer stories of their traumatic heartaches over divorces and separations, made more complicated by the patchwork of legal frameworks that validate a marriage between two women in one state but not another, and definitely not federally. Some tell us why the institution is too fraught with peril and shackled in oppressive history to seem at all tantalizing or desirable; these authors fight for the notion of radical queer feminism, worrying that the ideals of reforming society are being lost to an ever-growing marriage equality movement – that smashing the patriarchy is being discarded in favor of assimilating into a heteronormative society. There are also those who had mixed feelings towards marriage and all that it entails and implies, but, in the wake of same-sex marriage and civil unions becoming legal, were awakened to the possibility of affirming a long-standing commitment, or began to contemplate what it might mean to have access to a right long denied them.

Throughout this book, there is the inescapable backdrop of legality, feminism and homophobia – both internal and external. Kate Kendall of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Phyllis Lyon (who with her late partner founded the first US lesbian organization, and was the first woman to be married by then mayor Gavin Newsom in San Francisco in 2004) and Heather Purser (who advocated for same-sex unions to be recognized by the Suquamish tribe in Washington State) have directly influenced the lives of many lesbian women seeking to marry, and it is a pleasure to read their words. Helen Zia, former executive editor of Ms. magazine, educated me about the banner of support for marriage equality in the Bay Area’s Asian/Pacific Islander communities. For each voice advocating marriage, there is often the nagging concern of, “Should we?” and it is interesting, though at times repetitive, to read another author’s justification for getting married. Perhaps for a more seamless work, there needed to be fewer voices and definitely fewer poems and plays (sorry to all my open-mic-night-loving sisters at the womyn’s coffeehouse). But which voices to silence? Whose story should have hit the cutting room floor? I am at loss to choose. Here Come the Brides! is survival literature that seeks to illuminate the panoramic panoply of thought within the lesbian community. As sculptor Patricia Cronin notes in her essay, “Women’s history gets erased all the time. Lesbian history is often not written at all.” Audrey Bilger, Michele Kort and all the authors included in Here Come the Brides! triumph in making history, reminding us with each essay at just how political the personal truly is.

Patrice Rankine is a healthcare professional who has long been a member of NOW and the NYC Dyke March. She sporadically blogs at This Lobster Loves You, tweets from @PatriceIsHere and tumbles only in the privacy of her own home.

Photo credit: Ara Lucia via the Creative Commons License.

So a couple of days late and multiple dollars short, I finally got to watch the first episode of Lena Dunham’s new HBO show. Unless you’ve been living under a rock – in which case you’ve missed being gleefully assaulted by all the marketing and preemptive opinion pieces about what exactly Ms. Dunham is trying to say about women in their early 20’s – you know the drill. Dunham and her merry band of co-stars, the titular girls all being the daughters of famous people in real life, explore and exploit the Bright Lights, Big City aspect of living in New York. This is a world that’s part-Woody Allen, Larry David & Jerry Seinfeld, Whit Stillman, Jay McInerney and of course, Candace Bushnell. A world where people spend a lot of time talking about doing things they then don’t do; where no one shows up on time to dinner parties thrown in their honor; and where it is acceptable at twenty-five to wheedle money out of your parents to support your artistic fancies while calling an unpaid internship ‘work.’ In short, this is the life of the upper-middle class liberal arts college graduate set adrift in a major metropolis. Picture Miranda July twenty years ago but with less whimsy.

Based on only viewing one episode, I can safely assert that Ms. Dunham has a sharp wit and casts a gimlet eye towards the pitfalls of being young. Most of the bloggers and writers casting aspersions on the lack of romance in the show probably have either never lived in New York, where many young new inhabitants engage in a sort of courtship (that seems at times to border on paraphilia) with the city, or have forgotten, maybe never experienced, the fumbled sweaty interludes, a heady mixture of desire, daring and wanting to be wanted, that can make up the bulk of early sexual experiences. Personally, I know that it takes a while to believe in one’s own self-worth, to make sound decisions, to start showing up on time for dinner. I think it was Kurt Vonnegut who bemoaned the lack of a maturation ritual in American life; he posited that the dearth of such a rite essentially extends adolescence, allowing us to wallow in juvenility long past its sell-by date. So with that, I’d like to offer a few short missives to the women of ‘Girls’. Think of it like texts or something.

Marnie: Your boyfriend is gay. Or should be gay? I think he’s gay. Dump him. Also he never knocks before coming into the bathroom, what is that about?

Hannah: Get a job, girlfriend. Maybe get a real boyfriend? Definitely stop whining.

Jessa: “I’m pregnant” is not an appropriate reason to be late for dinner. Also, use that excuse once and you can never use it again. Just saying.

The one who wears a lot of pink: Any person who doesn’t think that Sex and the City is incredibly depressing needs to see an analyst. Also, maybe less pink?

And finally to Ms. Dunham, kudos on being a twenty-five-year-old woman who has written, directed, produced and starred in her own television show. Thanks for providing such honest dialogue that sounds like people I know, and being smart enough to call your show ‘Girls,’ because these people are definitely not women yet. I hope that you can also begin to populate your world with people who look like people I know, even me for example. Anyone who doesn’t realize that women of color have also graduated from college with seemingly meaningless degrees, had unfulfilling sexual experiences and worried about money is almost determinedly myopic in their outlook. We exist, Lena Dunham. We exist! Also, you maybe get a pass on whatever that homeless African-American character was supposed to be about, but for a show whose initial episode displays a crippling lack of diversity, having the only other non-White actor with a speaking part play a homeless man does not bode well. I realize that there’s a lot of pressure riding on you, Lena. Of course this is a direct by-product of there not being enough representation to go around. We want ‘Girls’ to be all girls everywhere, and of course it can’t be. By the same token, please recognize what a unique space you’re occupying in our cultural conversation. As Sondheim once wrote, “Give us more to see.”

This post originally appeared on This Lobster Loves You, and is cross-posted with permission.

Photo courtesy of HBO.

Hey, ladies, how are you planning to spend March 14^th, 2012? Won’t you join me in being repulsed by misogyny’s latest invention, Manentine’s Day? Manentine’s Day is the latest in a long line of ordinary words that have been reclaimed by men (I’m thinking of guyliner, mantyhose, and mansplaining as only some of the examples that cause me to wretch) and essentially stands as a Take Back the Night, or in this case Valentine’s Day, for men. As opposed to Valentine’s Day, where men are required to treat the women in their lives with some sort of exalted praise vis-à-vis stereotypically romantic claptrap that may or may not appeal to the lady in question, Manentine’s Day is men’s turn to play princess and get what they truly desire.

And what do men truly desire? You might think that answering this question requires talking to actual men, or at least one man, perhaps the one that you will be taking to a ‘manly’ restaurant (rule #5 of the ‘Official’ Manentine’s Day top ten list). However, you’d be wrong. The men and/or advertising agency who created Manentine’s Day believe that they can solve your romantic problems without you having to so much as open your mouth. If you do plan to talk on this all-hallowed day, for heaven’s sake, stop being such a sniveling harpy. Stroke his big ego, enthuses rule #9. This lame middle-school double entendre actually means that March 14^th is the one day of the year that you should compliment your man, really listen to him (as opposed to all that pretend listening you’ve been doing for the last 364 days), and believe in his infallibility. For on March 14^th your man is like the Pope, which means that you shouldn’t correct his grammatical errors (actual advice!) or nitpick when he makes mistakes in relating unimportant information. You know how you’re always recounting frame-by-frame recaps of last night’s episode of “Gossip Girl” and then you get all mad when he can’t remember whether Blair was wearing Chanel or Dior at the masquerade ball? Well, cut that out for one day.

I’d share more of the official rules, but frankly the whole concept really sickens and discourages me. At the root of all of this misogynistic, patriarchal, and heterosexist advice is an idea that is beneficial to everyone with regard to romantic relationships, which is to be a responsive partner. If your partner likes to eat, then maybe it would be nice to go out for a meal or cook one at home. Perhaps you don’t need to do both in the same day, as is suggested by the Manentine’s Day masterminds, because you don’t have that much time on your hands, nor are you dating Fred Flintstone. And if you are, how is life in Technicolor cartoon land? Also, what’s Betty’s number? She always seemed like fun. However, this egalitarian relational ideal gets disguised and buried under mountains of sexist nonsense, and as with all sexist drivel ceases to make any functional sense. If women are so terrible and awful, what with their talking and never feeding you enough or being athletic (rule# 4 – Do Something Sporty), then why date them? Also, what about the man to whom none of these rules apply?

This is how patriarchy hurts men as well: by subjecting them to false standards of masculinity that are so stringent that it’s hard to carve out a space just to be an individual. I know plenty of men who are as uninterested in sports as they are in being presented with a beef jerky bouquet (rule #3 – Present a Man Bouquet). These men are in bands, write for television, are former Marines, and one is a pretty bad-ass carpenter. These dudes know plenty of useless trivia, all of which makes them pretty interesting to those of us who have never seen the floral possibilities of dried meat. Not to mention, what happens in gay relationships? Which person plays the put-upon partner? Who gets to be the wretched ball and chain?

Being a responsive partner requires communication, grounded in the knowledge that all parties are valuable and worthy of both love and understanding. These lofty goals are at the core of feminism and healthy relationships and can’t be attained by excessive displays of consumerism (which is essentially the point of Manentine’s Day) or by false victimization. Men, snap out of it. As a wise person once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Women, don’t believe this nonsense for a second. Real romantic connection relies heavily on communication and respect, neither of which is likely to be found in a beer bouquet (unless that’s what your partner really wants).

Patrice Rankine is a healthcare professional who has long been a member of NOW and the NYC Dyke March. She sporadically blogs at This Lobster Loves You and tumbles only in the privacy of her own home.

Photo credit: Sifu Renka via the Creative Commons License.