Are straight people just boring? A plea about gender and weddings

This week, it’s one from the archives! And by the archives, I mean that file on my laptop I have of things I’ve written that I’m too scared to show anyone. So here I am showing it! I wrote this early in the year when I was in the midst of wedding planning, and feeling highly frustrated by all the sameness of the “rustic country wedding” Pinterest boards I was seeing. There was only a limited number of barrels and bird cages filled with flowers, light up letters spelling "Mr and Mrs" and varying shades of beige and cream I could see before I was seeing red. It’s basically a rage-filled rant, but hopefully containing some actually worthwhile insights about gender boxes and weddings. Enjoy!

I am writing this from the perspective of a straight, white, cisgender woman. And what I mean by straight and cisgender is not that I’ve never wanted to explore my sexuality or gender more deeply. I mean that both my sexuality and my gender are close enough to what society expects them to be that it is much easier for me to slot into those categories than to define myself differently from straight and cisgender. By which I mean that simply staying in the lanes society carved out for me regarding sexuality and gender never caused me any psychological harm.

This is a massive privilege.

We know that suicide attempts among transgender people are approximately 40%. Even if we had nothing else to go on, this would be enough to know that the practice of assigning gender to newborns instead of letting them define their own as they grow up causes serious psychological harm to those who do not fit their assigned gender. In an ideal world, we would not have the concepts of cisgender and transgender, as the practice of assigning gender based on genitals would not exist.

I believe that most people do not fit perfectly in their assigned boxes. However, the price to pay for not staying inside them is so great in our current society that only the people who feel very deeply about the discomfort of their assigned boxes will venture out of them. Even though I enjoy occasionally pushing the boundaries of my boxes, I will not identify as queer because I am simply too privileged to do so. The boxes are too comfortable for me.

However, we can and should all learn from queer people.

Every time I bounce between groups of predominantly queer people and groups of predominantly straight people, I am made aware of the fragility, tension, anxiety and just plain ridiculousness that surround the straight, cisgender identity. One of my male friends laughs at another for ordering a cranberry long island instead of a coke long island because it’s… pink (???) One of my female colleagues who eats like a horse when there aren’t men around always paces herself behind them when we are in a mixed-gender group. Two female friends discuss the fascinating concept of men waxing their legs. And there is no shortage of ridiculously gendered products that lead to oft-reblogged pictures of them with the caption, “masculinity so fragile” or "Are straight people okay?" Or this - apparently it's "gay" to want a rose-gold iPhone (??? Seriously, are we okay?)

But I am also frequently made aware of how many straights would like to have more freedom to explore themselves or simply make different decisions if there would be no social censure as a consequence. At home, my boyfriend often walks around with a cloth around his waist instead of pants. He finds them much more comfortable. He has said a few times that he would like to wear skirts, he just doesn’t because people would make fun of him. Personally, I felt a sense of relief when I realized I actually didn’t have to wax my legs or shave my armpits. Of course, the way these pressures assert themselves on men and women are different because of the nature of patriarchy, but we are all guilty of policing each other’s gender. And the extent to which we do this isn’t even visible until you’ve spent time around people who have broken out of the plastic “gender roles” packaging.

The main thing that brought on this frustrated rant was browsing through Pinterest and wedding websites. Yes, I’m doing that ultimate of heteronormative acts. I’m getting married (to a man). The main reason I’m doing it is so he can get a visa to come live with me in Japan, but that’s beside the point. I’m doing it, and I’m excited, but also apprehensive because weddings are one of the most ridiculously gendered spaces on the planet. And although we are a straight, cisgender couple, I don’t want my wedding to be like that. I don’t think of us as having different roles in our relationship based on our gender, so I don’t want our wedding to present us in different roles. (I do want to look like a fairy princess, but that is neither here nor there). I am also apprehensive of getting married at all due to the very heavy gender baggage that it carries in society, so I am determined to make our wedding our own. I spent much time googling ‘feminist wedding’ and was quickly awash with websites suggesting things like ‘why not keep your last name?’ and ‘ditch the bouquet toss’ and ‘have a mixed-gender bridal party’ as ways to make your wedding ‘feminist’.

??? Really? Are we so attached to our evolved and somehow cemented concept of weddings that the most subversive you could be on your ‘big day’ is to not through your bouquet over your shoulder for your lady friends to scrap over? Is no one having ideas about doing the ceremony differently, incorporating chosen family and platonic love or getting rid of aisle walking altogether? How about destroying the concept of ‘bride’ and ‘groom’ as differing roles, the bride as ‘beautiful’ and the groom as ‘lucky’? (As my father pointed out, brides get A LOT more attention than grooms at weddings, which is not really what happens in the rest of their lives). Is no-one thinking about how the language around weddings even came about? Thankfully, there is some content around the financial/capitalist aspect of weddings which to be honest seemed to me to be the most feminist discussion of weddings I could find in mainstream media.

I’m not saying that a traditional white wedding can’t be feminist. I’m not saying everyone needs to add anarchy to their wedding day to make it worthy and interesting. But I want to see some varied ideas SOMEWHERE! Weddings are fun and beautiful but imagine how much more fun and beautiful they would be if they weren’t all the same!

I’m really not trying to throw shade on anyone’s wedding. I also know that many people have expectations from family and weddings tend to be very family oriented events so if doing it the way they want makes you happy there is nothing wrong with that. It would just be nice to have something to gather ideas from to make our wedding a reflection of us over a reflection of the idea of ‘brideandgroom’. The one wedding I found online that I found genuinely really interesting and beautifully quirky was, unsurprisingly, a queer wedding. Of the two brides, one wore a white dress, one wore a gold jumpsuit, and their guests all sat on the floor of their Brooklyn studio on silver cushions. Their ceremony was performed by friends, a couple of whom one is a soundscape artist and one is a celebrant. This is the kind of fully personalized, non-commercial event that makes me excited about planning a day for the two of us to celebrate our love, our past and our future.

If you are going to get married, think about each aspect of the wedding and what it means to you. Yes, question bouquet tosses and walking down the aisle with your father. But you don’t have to stop there! Question the idea of women wearing wedding dresses and men wearing suits! Question the idea that your décor has to elegantly match! Question the idea of bouquets, rings, aisles, first dances, flower girls and ring bearers! Question the idea that it has to be the best day of your life! Question the idea that it has to cost R300 000 or even R10 000! Question the idea that it has to signal monogamy! And certainly, question the idea that it has to happen at all. And by question, I don’t mean necessarily do away with anything that could be construed as traditional, but think about whether you are doing it because you really want to or just because it’s how weddings are done. And if all this seems too tiring, don’t challenge it. But if the idea of making the day your own in this way gets you excited, please write about how you did it and post it somewhere so that future couples can see that it is an option! If nothing else, challenging gender roles at your wedding can make it a more welcoming space for those on your invite list who do identify as queer. And the more queer-welcoming spaces we have, the more freedom everyone has to be themselves. I’m not saying that having a non-traditional wedding is going to change the world. But allowing yourself to think outside of the box when it comes to things like weddings, is one way you can begin to relax the constricting binds of gender roles, and make more comfortable places for everyone to play and express themselves.

Cishets, we are the oppressors. We cannot design the post-gender world nor take a central role in creating it. But we can support it and actively fight for it, we should put queer voices at the forefront of this fight, and we MUST shut up and listen to queer people. Not just for their benefit, but for our own. Because a world in which our gender, who we love, how we act, what we wear and what we drink (I will never get over that) is not defined by our genitalia, is a world which would be better for

us all, with the possible exception of etiquette coaches and gym teachers. It would be more interesting, more fun and ultimately safer and more affirming for everyone than the world we live in now. At the very least, weddings would have a little more spice and variety!

#weddings #queer #genderroles #feminism #gender #weddingplanning