Feminist analysis of the royal wedding

[DontdoitKatie]

This is one of the times when you realise how very lonely seeing things through a feminist lens can make you.

Patriarchy in all its glory.

"particularly since we know that now the media etc will really go for Kate now and she will have to start paying"

at the truth in that statement

the royal wedding makes me sick, for all the reasons pointed out here, and i am a man.

I don't know how important people think it is really. There are clearly lots of people in our own society who don't think genetic monogamy is important. After the second world war, when many fathers had been killed, women married other men, and those couples brought up children from the new relationship and children from the previous relationship. There were also many men who came home to find their wives pregnant by someone else, and raised the children. There were also many children raised by grandparents because being a single mother was frowned upon.

All of this still goes on now, in various ways. Two fifths of marriages are second marriages. I think our society has made a big thing about social monogamy. It is still considered odd to want to be a single parent, or single anything, or to want to be in a romantic relationship with two or three people rather than one. I don't know why that is. But I don't think many people in the UK really think there is anything shocking about having more than one sexual partner over the course of your life, or having children by more than one partner. But for some reason many people think that serial social monogamy (married, kids, divorced, remarried, more kids) is more responsible and socially acceptable than genetic monogamy (never married, single mother, kids by same father).

True enough about serial monogamy....in fact that is almost an expectation nowadays

... but if you are not part of a 'pair', people do get all distressed and worried about it being a problem.

This makes depressing reading. I couldn't watch after being annoyed with the build up all week. I also didn't want dd watching. Luckily we are in Scotland and folk just aren't excited about it up here so we had a nice day out.

Things that annoyed me during the build up:

Invitations being addressed to Mr and Mrs Husband's Full Name
Kate being described as a "giddy schoolgirl" practising her new signature (where do I start?)
The obsession with what the women would be wearing.
The discussion over whether she would obey - it is 2011 ffs.
The phrase 'bag a Prince'.

The reason why the patriarchy want people to 'pair' up has a lot to do with money. It uses a couple's marital status-no I go further, it does not just use people's formal marital status because unmarried cohabitation counts, too- to save money.
It is simply cheaper for the government if people pair up- not having to give benefit money to people who have a 'partner' they live with, saving money by having sahps supported financially by their spouse.
THAT is why the government wishes to encourage people to pair up. It has eff all to do with tradition, sorry but it does not.

Monogamy is not a natural state, anyway; people with sex drives have to fight hard to stop themselves wanting to sleep with other people.

She isn't obeying him

I agree with you, dittany, but there's no reason why BOTH our explanations can't be correct.

Yes, so no need to have discussion after discussion about it then. It should be default that there is parity in the vows.

William will have had some proper feminist education as part if his geography degree at St Andrews. He did the MA and I'm sure they didn't skimp on feminist geography just because he was there.

annoyingdevil - The reason there are only men in the choir is because men's voices (especially boy's) are deemed to be of a "better quality" or a better timbre than women's. That is why Aled Jones and the like are so popular when 10 yo. Men and boys together can also cover the full range of voices required which dispenses the need for women at all in a choir.

My brother was one of those with a "special" voice which apparently was better than any female chorister. Didn't understand it (or believe it) when I was child, still don't now. It's bollocks - it is purely what some men at some point in history deemed to be attractive. Glad to hear Gloucester Cathedral is a bit more progressive though.

I thought the male choir thing was a throw back to the anarcic days before free education when boys were sent for schooling and girls were not considered worthy of a proper education. Times when charity and church looked after the poor but I can't remember if I read that or assumed it.

I don't think there's any biological difference between boys and girls voices until puberty. It's just another example of "tradition" being used to justify some old cobblers.

I read this thread earlier with great interest and many nods. Have just been driven back here in horror at the sheer spite displayed by posters on another thread towards the female guests. It has depressed me more than I can say to read such vicious comments, made by women about women, about their fucking clothes fgs. Reading that thread and then reading the links provided to the DM coverage was genuinely depressing because there was so little between them. I expect it from the Hate Mail, but not so much from everyday people

Particularly depressing because it absolutely demonstrated the polarisation of m/f roles discussed earlier in this thread: the men get to do all the work; the women are just there for show (and can be pilloried accordingly).

Wrt the religious aspect of the service, I had a good chuckle at the 'whom god has joined together, let no man put asunder' bit. The knowledge that Charles and Di must have heard that too and nodded solemnly along before getting divorced by earthly powers some years later makes the whole thing sound like a load of bollocks ring rather hollow.

Was also shocked at the actual physical passing of hand from KM's dad to William and the lack of wedding ring for him.

"For richer, for poorer"! Ha! Still laughing. Thrilled to report I know 1 of the 3 arrested in Brockley for mock execution street theatre! Go anarcho-pensioners!

am watching Laurie Penny & Billy Bragg on C4 news; there have been one or two brief nods to the feminist issues but they're talking about Britishness rather than gender, unfortunately.

Dittany's earlier line about it being a big bit of propaganda for the patriarchy is what has stuck with me.

female helicopter pilot though.
but i missed that bit as i went back to bed.

quite proud of dd1 though - we got up at 3am to watch it and she was utterly baffled about the male choir and the only one ring thing. we made tea during the talky bits.

I thought she admitted her error and forswore burlesque.
Please don't tell me she's not a proper feminist. I don't think I could cope with how few there would be in the media if we didn't count her

no, it was ages ago, maybe I've got confused with articles about how great burlesque is.