Sister Wives from a Feminist Twist
My way of thinking on Sister Wives are convoluted. I'm a sucker for feel-good stories about big families with cute dwell on, so my first ambiance to the show was positive. Activist, I indication, polygamy is patriarchal-but so are a lot of equipment. I wrote on the feminist blog a few months ago, For me, what it comes down to is that virtually all women (and men, too) make decisions that are set in in bigot or patriarchal standards. For example, I dislike to abandon my residence without at minimum powder and meat on, I nourishment, and I convey high heels. I bow to that these norms stem from prejudice, and are, maybe, bigot in nature, but I'm only one person, and this is my life and my body. At the end of the day, I'm leave-taking to keep crumb my depths and comment my application. I'm not leave-taking to prank myself into thinking that these equipment are empowering or that "I do them for myself", but acquaint with are only so heaps battles I can grip.
As feminists, it's in actual fact unsophisticated that we bow to the patriarchy/misogyny grave in and durable by our and distant grassroots measures. But that doesn't mean judging people-- in particular women-- on an accept level for the choices they make...The Sister Wives are entirely choosing to live a definite lifestyle for themselves-- they're not readily pushing it on distant people. Square even if I would never make the give to be in a polygamous marriage myself, and I in actual fact don't think it's empowering (in fact, it has a establishment of commodifying women), I'm suspicious to typecast the Sister Wives as brainwashed or stupid. Hope wearing a hijab, dieting for decorative reasons (as contrary to for robustness), or crumb your pubes, being in a polygamous relationship is just innovative coveted women make. It is what it is.
Who am I to call out distant women for wholesale into bigot standards and traditions? Am I so liberated? The Wives semblance smart and aware, and I wasn't smug loads to insist on that I knew what was best for them. I grew on impressed with the Darkness family in the pristine result in which they go to Boston for a put in the bank meeting on polygamy. Their clarity of the gay college scholar, George, was, forthrightly, moving. I transfer lofty respect for their ability to put up with distant "excellent" lifestyles.
All that being aimed, it would be ridiculous to learn Sister Wives from a feminist tilt without pointing out some of the unpleasant flaws in their married prop up. Core and key, the ridiculous double cattle of Kody being able to get hitched diverse wives nonetheless the wives can only transfer one husband. As I wrote a few weeks ago,
Seeing that disturbs me...is the speechifying of trouble with which Meri, Janelle, and Christine talk about polygamy. Meri, in character, and to a youngster scale Janelle, take away the handy jealousy they experience a sort of test of consortium. As Janelle put it, "It makes us better people. We tabled ourselves." They status anger at Kody for playing favorites with his most up-to-date spouse, Robyn, but rage it with a sort of "Fitting, I'll learn to get over it" attitude. They conflagration their jealousy as greed, a touch to grasp.
Hardship is a big part of heaps religions. From fasting arrived Yom Kippur to self-flagellation, denying oneself entertainment or inflicting throb on oneself is seen as an act of theology. It is a tribute to one's consortium. Both men and women individual in these types of activities. But the type of trouble that comes with polygamy is unfriendly for women only. All in all, it is the wives, not Kody, who transfer to tabled themselves, suck it up, be happy.
The unpleasant difference surrounded by, say, self-flagellation and the Sister Wives' movement is that the former is over and done with with the full hint of tender oneself, at the same time as jealousy and heartache are just bi-products of polygamy. And yet, these bi-products become in themselves a avenue of proving one's consortium, such that discontent happening a polygamous marriage (at minimum the Browns') is framed as unruffled an objectionable destiny and, to the same extent vanquished, a good venture. It makes the wives "better people." It is virtually simply the wives' blunder to do the proud. To be a woman is to experience.
Examination Meri, Janelle, and talk about how they need to suck it up and get over their jealousy makes me sad. Establishment is so hard by. Why make it turn harder? I'm not reproving their lifestyle, but I reject the ideas that people-- in particular women-- need to experience in order to pleasurable themselves. To be human is to experience, yes. But why be required to this be any on so for women?
Unlike heaps of the commentators on this blog, I don't think that only brainwashed women with low drive would enter into a polygamous marriage. I do, however, concur that the receipt of altruism it takes on the part of the wives to soak the marriage is omnipresent and, yes, wicked.
All in all, Sister Wives has unproductive to wave me that polygamy is good for women. Activist, the wives aren't underage girls living in compounds, but the weight located on them are ridiculous. That being aimed, part of being a feminist, for me, is allowing women to make their own decisions-even if I don't frozen with them. Neutrality comes with a price, and I respect women loads to hold tight they can ambition it.
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