The Happy Feminist

SCAREDY-DOG

Fiercesome though he may appear, my corgi is actually afraid of many things, including:

-- Thunder

-- The wind

-- The car wash

-- The vacuum cleaner

-- semi-closed doors

-- sliding closet doors, even if they're closed

-- kitchen counters

--our four foot tall felt Santa on a wooden frame

THE ROLE OF ACADEMIC FEMINISM? THE ROLE OF EMOTION IN FEMINISM?

The Geeky Feminist and Poppycock write about the difficulty of talking over issues with other feminists who have an academic background in feminism. I have to admit that my academic knowledge of feminism is negligible.  I have only read the following books about feminism or gender issues (none of which I am necessarily endorsing):

-- The First Sex by Elizabeth Gould Davis (my view on this book can be found here).

-- The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

-- Most everything Camille Paglia has written (I have lots to say about her so that will follow at some point, I promise.)

-- Deborah Tannen's books about how men and women communicate differently

-- Who Stole Feminism? by Christina Hoff Summers

-- The Frailty Myth by Collette Dowling

-- A jumble of stuff by Mary Daly, Carol Christ, and a number of Jewish, Christian, Muslim and pagan feminists in the one and only Women's Studies class I took, a course called "Feminist Theologies."

-- Stuff in popular publications like The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, and the like.

Other than that I know virtually nil about feminist theory.  It took me a long time to figure out that the term "patriarchy" does not actually refer to an imagined cabal of sinister white men controlling everything from the top.  I don't know too much about the "male gaze" so I just don't talk about it one way or the other. I also don't know about the critiques of feminist academic theory.  But I don't think that you need to have to be perfectly acquainted with every academic idea out there to be effective in discussing feminist issues.  I simply start with my basic feminist axiom (that ensuring women's freedom and equality of opportunity in all spheres of life is a crucial priority) and work from there. 

In the blogosphere, I have learned a tremendous amount from feminists with an academic background, feminists who are just ordinary women, and non-feminists.  I evaluate what I hear in terms of my axiom and, while I feel that academic feminism contributes immensely to the discussion, we ordinary folks have a lot to add too.  I doubt anyone would question that. 

Feminism is a big tent.  While I think the academic perspective is valuable, feminism would quickly become a sterile discussion if it were closed off to voices of women who are shaped by real world experiences outside of academe.  In my experience, feminists are generally welcoming to a number of different voices-- from the professor to the housewife to the factory worker to the non-western woman to the religious woman to gay, bisexual or transgendered women to sex workers to male feminists and to anyone and everyone else who cares about women's equality.  Yes, some feminist groups and movements have been guilty of focusing on only certain types of women, but I think feminists have been receptive to that criticism and have or are working hard to change that.  And yes, some feminists may at times criticize certain women's choices-- like sex work (when it is a choice) or being a homemaker (when it is a choice)-- while other feminists may exalt those as valid choices.  But it is a big tent with room for everyone who cares about women's freedom and equality. 

The Geeky Feminist touches on another issue I have been thinking about a lot-- the role of our emotional responses in shaping our feminism.  The Geeky Feminist feels that she can identify injustices but at times doesn't have much to add beyond, "#*(!*!)!"  The academic feminist discourse seems intimidatingly cerebral to her, and she also worries about losing credibility by responding to issues in too impassioned a way.

I have, I think, a fairly cerebral approach to things, but I have learned to listen to and then assess my emotions as well.  As I have said frequently, I am passionate about feminism.  Feminist issues are deeply emotional because they go to the core of how we live our lives, the degree of respect we enjoy, the degree of freedom we enjoy, and the equality of opportunity we enjoy.  When someone makes an argument or takes an action that we perceive as impinging on our dignity and freedom, well yeah, duh, of course, we're going to feel heated about that.  I don't think there's anything wrong with that.  I don't think there's anything wrong with venting or having a blog that says, "#*()!*#)!*)!#*!)"

But I do think that we should all be able to take a step back and assess our emotional responses because, if we don't, then we are at risk of losing personal credibility.  After all, the anti-feminists of various types are plenty emotional too -- so emotion doesn't solve the question of who is right.  That having been said, I don't think discounting emotion is wrong either. 

I have strong emotional responses to all sorts of things in my personal life and things that I read about on the news.  I used to discount my emotional responses.  But now I listen to them and assess them.  I will say to myself, "Gee, I have a visceral reaction to X. Why do I feel this way and am I correct to feel this way?"  Listening to my emotions has, I think, given me a lot of insight.  For example, the Larry Summers transcript made me angry (and no I don't want to rehash that debate on this thread, I bring this up to show how I deal with emotion in my thinking). When I was younger, I would have said to myself, "Happy, you're being unreasonable.  Even if you don't like it, he has a right to an opinion."  The older me says, "Happy, is there a reason that you feel angry at Summers and is it justified?"  And when I re-read the transcript, I realized that what bothered me wasn't that he was broaching a possibility I didn't like but that he was endorsing a conclusion prejudicial to women without seeming to know much about the topic.  There have been other times when I have concluded that, "Gee, Happy, you're overreacting.  There's another side to this."  But I no longer simply discount my emotional responses.  Usually, my emotional response is a first indicator of a valid point view, even if it may not turn out to be the point of view that should prevail.

I don't think you need an academic degree in feminism to be able to place your emotional responses to things in proper context.  And it's also important to remember that a blog is not an academic journal.  If you want to use a blog to talk about your personal experiences and impressions, I think that's great.  After all, the feminist movement gained power in the U.S. in part because discontented suburban housewives stopped saying, "I guess I'm just neurotic," and started examining the broader societal issues that affected their lives in ways that caused those initial emotional feelings of unhappiness and discontent. 

THE ETERNAL TUG O' WAR OVER THE WOMB (TOO BAD IT'S ATTACHED TO A HUMAN BEING!)

I am not sure I will have a chance to write a real blog post today, so I thought I would share this back and forth between me and Darren from this thread.  For those familiar with the feminist blogosphere, I think these issues have been treated far more thoroughly and intelligently than I could hope to do here.  (Grrr...I cannot seem to find Lauren's brilliant post at Feministe.)

But here's the back and forth so far (edited slightly for clarity):

DARREN mentions a thread on his blog here on the man's right to choose and then goes on to say: Happy Feminist, I'm concerned about equality before *the law*. Right now you get what you *his* loss. Again, not a penalty, but a choice.  Neither wants the child? Vacuum it out --superiority before the law. Justice tilts the scales in favor of the women. Like Anonymous/Dan said [on Darren's thread], if the woman wants to have a child and the man doesn't, he should be able to dissociate himself physically, emotionally, and financially from the child. For the woman that's not a *penalty*, that's a *choice* that she accepts. Both have had a choice in this situation.  If the man wants the child and the woman doesn't, Anonymous Dan posits that the woman can abort the child but must pay financial restitution to the man for t out.

The second a feminist (or anyone else for that matter) wants to hide behind "the best interest of the child" I wonder why the child has to actually be born before they make that argument. And why that argument only works to a woman's advantage.

You want equality? I offer it to you here.

HF responds:

It sounds to me like you're proposing special rights for men. As citizens of this country , men and women have the right to control our own reproductive systems. That is, you have the right to decide whether to have sex and whether to use a condom, just as a woman has the right to decide whether to have sex or use the contraceptive methods available to her. Because you are a man, you are not burdened by pregnancy.

Women are burdened by pregnancy. It is through the hard, risky and draining work performed by the woman's body that a baby is created from the fertilized egg. Your demand to be consulted if she chooses not to undergo that burden would be a special right for men, above and beyond the bodily autonomy that we all enjoy. You are demanding that she either give her body for nine months to the service of creating this baby or, in the alternative, that she pay you off for your "loss." Your loss would apparently be that she did not put her body and potentially her health (pregnancy and birth being a rather risky processes) at the service of the result you would want to see. Either way, under your proposed scenario, the woman is under your control because she had sex with you and has to "pay" in some way either by abiding by your wish that she undergo the pregnancy or by giving you restitution. I fail to see how this can in any way be considered "equality."

While the fact that you yourself cannot create a baby and give birth is indeed also lack of equality, that is a biological reality, not something feminists or the law did to you. Trust me, if we could have you men undertake pregnancy instead, we would.

Your question about child support is a completely separate issue from the question of whether a woman can be forced to undergo the physical burdens of pregnancy and childbirth-- and frankly I don't really see the connection to the issue of whether a woman has the right to choose an abortion on her own, unless you are somehow proposing that you should have the right to choose to force her to abort? The sad fact is that the child has the right to have its physical and other basic needs met once it is born. If I understand the law correctly, the woman may not necessarily have the right to waive the child's right to support if it turns out she herself cannot support the child.

Unfortunately, basic biology burdens both men and women unequally. It isn't the law that favors women in being able to control whether a child results after conception -- it's biology. To give a man the right to control or get restitution for that decision would be to give the man special rights over the woman's body. Sorry, but them's the breaks.

*****

More HF:  Actually re-reading your comment, Darren, it is actually amazing how you could possibly view your proposed scenario as "equality" in any way, shape or form. Suppose a man and woman engage in mutually consensual act and conceive :

-- Man wants baby and woman wants to abort: She has to pay resitution to him.

-- Man doesn't want baby and does: She has to pay all child support.

Either way, you want the woman to "pay" while the man either gets restitution for his "loss" or gets to wash his hands of all responsibility. Sounds nice.

NOTE:  I don't mean to belittle the very real emotion a man may feel about a pregnancy he helped to cause.  I use the term "loss" in quotation marks because I don't think it is a loss that can be compensated in market terms.  That doesn't mean a man might not feel a sense of emotional loss.  Ideally, of course, I would hope the kind of scenarios raised here would  be rare-- that people would practice responsible contraception, that the contraception would work, and that in the event a pregnancy did occur, the parties could work out any conflict in a mutually acceptable way.  Cumbayah!

UPDATE:   I should point that in the post Darren's talking about, Anonymous/Dan tries to resolve the inequity I point out here, by proposing that the woman would have to pay the man if she chooses to abort against his will, but the man would have to pay the woman if she carries the child that she doesn't want.  Somehow, this doesn't make it "equal" in my book -- either way the woman would always have some sort of burden in this scenario, while the man could walk away from an unwanted child. 

The sad fact is that biologically, we are woefully unequal in terms of reproduction.  And while I know it is frustrating for a lot of men that they are not the primary decisionmaker regarding the fetus during pregnancy, there is not presently any way to fix that without unjustly burdening the woman. 

I have started to consider the futuristic (but I suppose potentially real possibility) that we could create wombs that exist separate from the mother and which would allow the mother to wash her hands of the fetus while the father could choose to take the zygote/embryo/fetus and raise it as a single father.  I am going to ponder that for a while.  Meanwhile, color me cynical, but somehow I can't picture too many men lining up for single fatherhood right out of the gate.   

LIVE FREE OR DIE

Via TangoMan's comments in the last thread, I have discovered an interesting blog, Right on the Left Coast: Views from a Conservative Teacher by a blogger/teacher named Darren.  I was intrigued by his link to an article (actually a blog post, I guess) about New Hampshire's state motto, "Live Free or Die." According to the post:

Liberals hate "Live free or die."  They hated in the late 60s and early 70s, and they hate it still.

I am very surprised to hear that, because I am a liberal and I think it's the coolest state motto ever.  It's so blunt, direct, and in-your-face, and it exalts "freedom" as a top priority.  What's not to love?

As a passionate feminist, this motto has always reminded me of a specific incident from my childhood.  When I was about seven or eight, I was lying on the carpet and tracing its patterns, while my dinosaur-like father held forth to my mother on what life would be like if we were to revert to an anarchic Mad Max-like society, where might makes right and the weak die.  He postulated that, in such a society, women would naturally abandon any feminist leanings and accept male protection and authority with alacrity.  To this day, I have no idea what his point was, but I remember thinking quite clearly: "That would not happen to me because I WOULD RATHER DIE."  And I feel the same way to this very day.   

Liberals should indeed lay claim to slogans like "Live Free or Die," or "Give me Liberty or Give me Death."  (Patrick Henry College is a recently founded ultra-conservative Christian college.)  It is the liberals who should be shouting these values of our Founding Fathers from the rooftops.  I do!   

THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS I LEARNED IN COLLEGE

The two most important things I learned in college are:

--  how to identify what I DON'T know

--  how to figure out why I know what I think I know

These two skills are, I think, the essence of critical thinking, which is what college should be all about.  Sure, I learned a lot of facts too-- stuff like what the Peloponnesian War was about, or what the Bhagavad Gita says, or how a mitochondrian is structured.  But, despite all the facts I might be able to spew forth to impress people, I am well aware of all the things in the world about which I know nothing or very little. The key things with which a person should emerge from college are habits of intellectual honesty, intellectual rigor, and intellectual humility.  These habits derive from the practice of constantly being aware of what one doesn't know, and of identifying how one knows what one thinks one knows. 

These habits should, ideally, become ingrained by the constant process of having professors tear apart the papers you write or by having professors or other students question your assumptions when you speak in class.  (It is amazing how much you can learn about yourself and your thought processes when a professor writes in the margin of your paper, "How do you know this?")  You also learn a lot about the methods by which knowledge is derived.  You learn about the scientific method, how to assess primary historical texts, and the philosophy of epistemology (which is literally the study of knowledge).  You also learn what things can only be known through religious faith, such as whether there is a God and, if so, what God's nature is.   I should stress, however, that even if you haven't gone to college or don't know about things like the scientific method, you can still ask yourself the key question, "How do I know this?" I should also stress that I don't necessarily think that college is the only way to become a rigorous thinker in this regard, but it's probably the easiest way. 

I am not perfect in this regard.  I get caught out making unwarranted assumptions all the time-- that's human nature.  But I do my best to identify my sources of belief, whether I am yapping on this blog or working out an issue on my own, and I try to make sure that you all know why I think what I think.  I may be telling you my impressions based on my own personal experiences moving through life as a straight, white, American professional woman.  Or I may share with you ideas I have derived by reasoning from my basic axioms, my axioms being those principles which I accept on faith and which you can read about here and here. Or I may pick apart someone's words and their implications (as in the Larry Summers debate) or I may, at times, examine an historical event or a study (as I did here). 

Those with a more slapdash, polemical, or humorous style are probably better at  persuading others or popularizing ideas, and I think that's important.   But I also think that every person, when thinking ideas out for herself or himself, should take the time to identify his or her basis of knowledge.  It is amazing what insights can result. 

SUNDAY QUOTATION BLOGGING: WISDOM FROM THE SWAMI

Do you not remember what the Bible says:  "If you cannot love your brother whom you have seen, how can you love God whom you have not seen?"  If you cannot see God in the human face, how can you see him in the clouds, or in images of dull, dead matter , or in mere fictitious stories of your brain?

I shall call you religious from the day you begin to see God in men and women and then you will understand what is meant by turning the left cheek to the man who strikes you on the right.  When you see man as God, everything, even the tiger, will be welcome.  Whatever comes to you is but the Lord, the Eternal, the Blessed One, appearing to us in various forms, as our father and mother and friend and child; they are our own soul playing with us.

As our human relationships can thus be made divine, so our relationship with God may take any of these forms and we can look upon Him as our father or mother or friend or beloved.  Calling God Mother is a higher idea than calling Him Father, and to call Him Friend is still Higher, but the highest is to regard Him as the Beloved.

The highest point of all is to see no difference between lover and beloved.  You may remember, perhaps, the old Persian story, of how a lover came and knocked on the door of the beloved and was asked: "Who are you?" He answered: "It is I," and there was no response.  A second time, he came and exclaimed: "I am here," but the door was not opened.  The third time, he came and the voice asked from inside:  "Who is there?"  He replied: "I am thyself, my beloved," and the door opened.

So is the relation between God and ourselves.  He is in everything.  He is everything.  Every man and woman is the palpable, blissful, living God.  Who says God is unknown?  Who says He is to be searched after?  We have found God eternally.  We have been living in Him eternally.

-- Swami Vivekananda 

ROUND-UP OF HOT FEMINIST LINKS!

I have found myself thrilled virtually every day this month by all the wonderful posts I am reading around the "femosphere."  There have been SO many wonderful posts that I can't keep track of them all, but here are some that I can think of and find right now.

Reproductive Rights

-- Dr. Violet Socks at the Reclusive Leftist publishes some shocking statistics (provided by the lovely Will, a frequent commenter here) regarding the paucity in the U.S. of facilities where abortions are performed.  I should note, per my prior post regarding my preference for women OB/Gyns, that this is one area where we don't necessarily have the luxury to choose a female over a male doctor.  I say hear, hear to all the doctors who are brave enough to risk violence and picketing and censure and other hassles in order to provide this service that is so necessary to the freedom, autonomy and dignity of women.    

-- Twisty crystallizes the nature of the debate on choice:  It is incomprehensible that politicians . . .  have the slightest say in the manner in which a private citizen decides to dispatch a clumps of cells infesting her own personal bodily tissues.

-- Amanda at Pandagon (who has been a major influence on my thinking about abortion) sums it all up here.  I especially like her discussion of late-term abortion, which is an issue I haven't focused on sufficiently:

Late term abortions provoke quite understandable anxiety, which would be why they are quite rare and performed mostly because the pregnant women are sick or the fetus is dead or dying, and continuing the pregnancy is a very bad idea. But the anti-choice campaign about late term abortions was about grossing people out by lingering over the details and then implying that evil women and doctors actually seek out this procedure out of some sort of sick baby hatred.  But the main purpose behind the late term abortion ban had nothing to do with saving babies, especially since so many of the babies invoked were already dead or had brains on the outside or something. The main purpose behind getting the law passed was to challenge the health exception clauses in abortion restrictions, the hope being, I suppose, that by distracting the public with alarming stories of late term abortion parties, they would be able to hide the fact that they are actively fighting for laws that make it so even “good” women who want to have babies should have an option if their pregnancies are going south and quickly, because they know full and well the American public doesn’t support forcing women to give childbirth against their will, and it’s fairly easy to argue that a woman who’s fixing to die or go blind or give birth to a stillborn should be able to terminate.

-- Nick Kiddle (a new mother herself) at Alas (a blog) answers the question "What if your mother was pro-choice?" (Mine was and is, by the way.) 

Larry Summers

-- Ampersand at Alas (a blog) posts a variety of thoughts about the conservative squawking over Larry Summers, including a round-up of links that critique the Larry Summers transcript.  Ampersand's post goes beyond the specifics of Larry Summers to talk more generally about different styles of debate.  Great stuff!

Islamic Feminism rocks  (Hat Tip: Mind the Gap!)

-- At Known Turf, Annie Zaidi, a Muslim from India, questions the conventional wisdom (in Islamic circles) that Islam is the best possible deal for women.  (My two cents:  I also grew up hearing that Mohammed was a feminist in that he advocated vast improvements in women's roles and rights.  The problem is we're talking vast improvements given the situation fifteen hundred years ago!  Unfortunately, the view of women's rights in much of the Islamic world has remained stuck in that time period or has even regressed.)

-- At Nzhinga's soap box, an American Muslim woman living in Saudi Arabia insists that she should have the right to question and criticize misogynist and sexist rulings by Islamic clerics.

-- The Religious Policeman takes down the Saudi Parliament's refusal to act to allow Saudi woman to drive.  (Yes, you read that correctly.  Women are not allowed to DRIVE in Saudi Arabia.)

Sexual Harassment

Feministe calls out a dirty old man, 84-year old Maryland Comptroller William Donald Schaefer for publicly humiliating a 24-year old woman assistant based on her sex.  More disturbing to me than this guy's failure to see this woman as a human being with a right to some dignity (after all, he is quite elderly and therefore the product of another era that I like to think is dead) is the fact that members of the audience laughed and the governor of Maryland failed to acknowledge the problem. 

bell hooks

I have to admit that there are very few feminist thinkers with whose work I am familiar-- and bell hooks is one of those with whom I am unacquainted.  I have also had a slight prejudice against her because she doesn't capitalize the letters in her name-- and yes, I know that's dumb of me.  But Hadhifa Sofia's posts on a recent lecture hooks gave at Reed College made me realize that I need to learn more about hooks. See the excellent blow-by-blow of the lecture here and here.

A place for men in feminism

Holly at Self Portrait As . . . discusses the role of men in feminism: No righteous cause (and I use that term advisedly) ever truly succeeds until even those who benefit from an unjust system begin to work to overthrow it. Slavery would still exist were it not for the efforts of those who were NOT slaves.  She also touches on what men shouldn't do during a feminist discussion (i.e. derail it). 

Some of the reasons Hollywood is irritating

Peacebang takes on the oh-so-cute habit public figures have of manhandling women stars in Hollywood.  She then critiques the ugliness of the recent Vanity Fair cover featuring a nude Scarlett Johannssen, a nude Keira Knightly, and a fully-clothed Tom Ford.  At least, Scarlett feels comfortable displaying her non-anorexic nude body, so that's a silver lining of sorts. 

Gosh, I could go on and on. I haven't given a shout-out to my pals at The Galloping Beaver or Lawyers, Guns and Money or Cellar Door lately, and I have also been meaning and meaning and meaning to update my blogroll (I hope next weekend).  I am a BAD citizen of the blogosphere.  Enjoy!

CHURL POWER TOO SUBTLE FOR PUNY ANTI-FEMINIST BRAIN

I don't want this blog to turn into the Richard-and-Happy Show, but this is just too delicious not to highlight.   In this thread, Richard began complaining about feminist bloggers and, sucker that I am, I took the bait:

HF: . . . You persistently read complaints regarding bad male behavior and the ways in which certain cultural pressures encourage same as feminists saying ALL men are bad.

Richard then responds, "I'm reading the plain meaning of the words, and the words embrace all men."  He then quotes a number of snippets from around the blogosphere including a gem from this post at Pandagon:

PANDAGON: There is a little known fact that male dominance and the biological reality of men are one and the same thing, due to a curse laid on half the human race by the wicked Witch Mispenasa. It’s said that if ever women should achieve equality with men, men will cease to exist altogether.

One would think the reference to a non-existent WITCH would tip him off, but oh no.  I guess we feminists have an obligation to always state what we mean with absolute literal precision so newbies like Richard won't get confused and hurt-- which of course means we can never ever ever indulge in verbal irony.

By the way, the full context of the statement is a debunking of "Feminist Myths 101" including the myth that "Feminists Hate Men."  Here is the full paragraph:

Feminists hate men.

This myth is frequently trotted out by the exact same people who think that we think we are men. That said, there is a little known fact that male dominance and the biological reality of men are one and the same thing, due to a curse laid on half the human race by the wicked Witch Mispenasa. It’s said that if ever women should achieve equality with men, men will cease to exist altogether. So if feminists are fighting against male dominance, we have no choice but to believe they are out to destroy men themselves. 

HOW A FEMINIST MARRIAGE WORKS IN PRACTICAL APPLICATION

In the comments thread to this post, my friend Mrs. B poses the following excellent question regarding marriage:

I have a question for you HF. In a situation where neither person is in charge, what happens when you both vehemently disagree with how to handle something....who gets to make the final decision? I realize that in some things compromise might work but in some decisions it wouldn't. For instance, in a post several months ago you mentioned that you went to boarding school and think it is a good thing but your husband detests (your word) them. If you had a child, who would get to make that decision and why?

I guess what I don't understand is that in every other sphere of life, *someone* is in charge. All companies have a hierchy, the military does....every other facet of life does (can you imagine a company being successful when everyone has EQUAL decision making power?) I can almost anticipate your repsonse of 'so why does it have to be the man?'....would you be willing to admit that even if it's not the man that there *is* someone in charge in all relationships? If that is the case then it's not an 'equal' relationship....meaning equal in power.

This is something I have thought about a lot because my very authoritarian father constantly said the same thing to me when I was growing up  -- that someone has to be in charge in every marriage.  I disagreed with him then and I disagree now after having been married myself for over eight years. 

I do value hierarchies in many situations -- like coordinating a military operation, trying a court case, or running a Fortune 500 company.  But marriage is not like those things. Its aims and goals are far more diffuse than merely winning a battle or making a profit.  Also, marriage lasts a lifetime, unlike military or corporate leadership where the junior members can look forward to supplanting the leaders when they retire.  And finally, marriage is small-scale enough that constant negotiation and concensus can and does work.   

First, I will talk about some issues where my husband and I have not seen eye to eye and how we resolved those issues, and then I will derive some general principles from these examples.

-- When we first became engaged, my husband really wanted me to change my last name to his.  I really didn't want to.  Bottom line, it was my name we were talking about so I had the last call.  I kept the last name I was born with and have never regretted it.  My husband has fully accepted my decision.  When we're in public (in the grocery store for example), he'll often call me "Attorney _______."  It's cute and I feel very loved when he does that.

-- My husband also wanted a large wedding with all his friends and relatives, whereas  I would have preferred to elope, go out for lunch afterwards, and perhaps avoid going bankrupt in the process.  But my husband had very strong feelings on the matter so we put together a large wedding.  I'm thrilled that he got his way on this.  I've done a 180 from not caring that much about weddings to now being a wedding junkie-- and I'll always look back fondly on the period when we planned the wedding together (our first joint venture!) and celebrated the exchange of our vows with everyone we knew.  (We clashed at times during the wedding planning process.  I had strong feelings about not signing up for a gift registry so we didn't.  He had strong feelings about not wanting to cut the cake, so we didn't.) 

-- My husband would have preferred me to give up my county prosecutor's job much sooner to start making some real money to pay off our educational debts and save for a house.  But I was having a ball and learning a lot in my job and it was my career we were talking about.  I didn't leave my county prosecutor's job until I was good and ready, until it struck me as a wise professional move to switch to a private law firm. My husband understands and values the decisions I made even if the years I spent making little money put a dent in our finances.

-- I probably would have preferred that my husband not take a substantial pay cut in order to work for a non-profit.  It would be nice to have his full law-firm salary so we could put our house together sooner and make more of a dent in our loans.  But I didn't even question it when my husband announced that he wanted to give up 50% of his pay in order to represent indigent people with disabilities.  After all, it's his career.  And the fact is, it is more important to me than anything that he be happy with what he is doing professionally.

-- When we happened to wander into a pet store one day, we both fell in love immediately with the same corgi puppy.  My husband wanted to buy him immediately, but I didn't want to make a hasty decision.  I didn't think that we could manage to care for the puppy properly with the 12-hour work days we were both putting in at that time.  I insisted that we go to lunch and talk it through.  Over lunch, my husband assured me that I wouldn't have to worry about a thing, that he would take full responsibility for ensuring the proper care of the puppy.  On that understanding, we bought our corgi that afternoon-- probably the best decision we have ever made.  Of course, I was so in love with our corgi that I wound up contributing equally to his care.  We worked out an arrangement whereby the corgi came to work with me one day a week, we each worked from home one day week, and we paid for daycare on the other two days!  Now my husband always teases me about how I "didn't want" the dog. (And yes, I know we shouldn't patronize pet stores because the dogs come from puppy mills, but we couldn't help it -- it was love at first sight.)

-- My husband is in charge of planning the house we are going to build (he has more time and more friends who are builders) so he gets to make more of the decisions related to that.  I have been in charge of planning the trips we have taken so I have had more control over that.

So what general principles govern our marriage? Well first, I should note that we actually clash very rarely.  This is due in part to the fact that our values and preferences are very similar to begin with.  I would not have married someone who was (for example) not career-oriented or who hated dogs or was anti-feminist, because such a person would be against the things I hold most dear.  I believe that if a husband and wife are on the same page about core values and try in good faith to compromise when differences arise, everything can be worked out. 

It is also important that we are both laid-back and not controlling -- our disagreements when we have them never turn into a battle of wills.  I don't go into a disagreement with my husband determined to "win," but to reach a mutually acceptable result.  A mutually acceptable result could mean I get my way, or it could mean he gets his way, or it could mean some sort of middle-ground. 

When we have disagreed, the person who feels most strongly or who is most affected by a decision prevails.  We each have the absolute last word regarding our own careers regardless of how those careers affect the other.  (We have committed to staying in this locality so there will never be a clash where one of us finds a plum job in another part of the country.)

Sometimes certain tasks or goals like building a house or planning a vacation get delegated to one person or another. That person is "in charge" but the other person is consulted and has veto power. 

Having kids, of course, would be a major test of our relationship because there would suddenly be the well-being of a third person to consider.  Fortunately, both of us are strongly opposed to spanking but in favor of setting boundaries and refusing to tolerate bad behavior by children -- so I think we will be on the same page with regard to discipline.  We have discussed the boarding school and the Catholicism issue which are where we would suffer a major values clash. (My husband is a cultural Catholic who would like to bring up his children as Catholics.)  We have agreed to try to make boarding school an option for our child and to expose our child to Catholicism (as well as to my criticisms of Catholicism) via discussion and occasional church services (ha! I'll believe it when I see it -- a church-goer my husband is not).  Ultimately, we're not going to force our child to go to boarding school or become a Catholic-- or prohibit him or her from doing so.  The final decision will be the child's.  We both believe strongly as a general matter in nurturing rather than controlling our child's emerging preferences (within some obvious limits -- obviously we're not going to nurture a child's growing interest in drugs or pornography!). 

CAVEAT: I should note that we are not perfect human beings (at least, I'm not!) so I don't want to imply that we've never been angry or frustrated with each other, because, of course, we have!  But on the whole, I think we do a pretty good job of accommodating each other's desires and needs while accomplishing things like reducing our debt and nurturing our careers. 

HTML NOW PERMITTED IN COMMENTS

A number of people have been trying to use italics in their comments on this site and have been unable to do so.  I think I MIGHT have fixed this problem by selecting an option that allows HMTL in comments.  I haven't been able to test whether this works because I personally have no idea how to put things in italics in the comments . . . but give it a try and see if it works. 

I may be a hip, cutting-edge blogger but I am technologically fairly clueless.