Susan Hated Literature

So there is a bit of a debate between Fiona from Mental Meanderings and United Irelander at, wel, United Irelander over an article written by Ronan Mullen in The Examiner. The article in question has to do with marriage, and gay rights, and conventional marriage and all that sort of stuff.

But while I was over at UI’s I started to wonder what exactly is a family?

Mullen says that a traditional marriage works best, that children raised by a mother and a father fair better.

There is a wealth of information and analysis out there to show that children do better with the traditional family model. That children should ideally enjoy the society of their biological father and biological mother throughout their formative years should not be seen as an outdated concept when study after study is bearing it out.

But you know what? This traditional family that is being mentioned, it isn’t really all that traditional at all. Does the average family of today resemble the family of 100 years ago? Or even 50?

Maybe on a superficial level, but is it the norm for the father to work, and the mother to stay at home, minding the kids, totally dependent on her spouse for everything?

Is it still okay for a man to demand his conjugal rights?

Are fathers still expectd to play no real role apart from that of enforcing discipline in the family?

After all those are all traditional values too aren’t they? Tradition doesn’t mean right, doesn’t even mean a good way to do things. All it means is that this is the way previous generations have done things.

But if you look closer you’ll see that maybe the previous few generations have acted that way, but before that things were different. It used to be traditional for three generations to live in the one house. In some cultures it is traditional for parents to arrange marriages.

As far as I’m concerned the limiting the definition of what a family is to the modern nuclear family is pointlessly restrictive. What about aunts, uncles, cousins, the extended family?
Family is what you make it. And that means you can’t legislate what a family is, and you certainly can’t legislate what a family isn’t.

Which brings me on to marriage, and what exactly marriage is for.

Is it a public declaration of love and faithfulness between two people? Or is it simply a legal way of ensuring who next of kin is, and all the rights married couples get? Or is it to provide a partnership to bring up children?

And no matter what your answer, why exactly does the sex of the people matter?

And, most important of all, why do I keep typing marraige when I mean marriage?

So many questions, I look forward to your answers.

ETA: participants in the debate: Progressive Ireland | Disullusioned Lefty | Sicilian Notes | For All We Know | Realitycheck(dot)ie

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Okay, all joking aside lets look at the feminist debate going on at the moment.

I wouldn’t proclaim myself a feminist. But that has more to do with my dislike of labels than with any dislike of feminist theories.
As a 21st century woman, living in Ireland, it goes without saying that the feminist movements of previous decades have meant I have a vastly different life to what I would have lived even 50 years ago. But, from where I’m standing, feminism means too many things to too many people. For some it means nothing more or less than equality of opportunity. To others it means man-hating lesbians. Slight bit of a difference there I think.

In a way I suppose Sinead kicked the whole debate off, wondering about how many female Irish bloggers there are, and why aren’t there more. Saying that it’d be nice to see as many women blogging as men. And I agree, but^[1] I’ve never really paid attention to the sex of people I list in my links, nor those I visit. Many people take gender neutral handles, and so the question only really arises when I’m leaving a comment and don’t know whether to say he or she in reference to another blogger. At the moment the default assumption, out in blogland, does seem to be that if you don’t know, go male. But that doesn’t bother me, you can always correct someone later.

But what has really interested me is the reaction to UI’s post because I saw it as nothing but humour, and took no offence at his “anti-penile hysteria” and “Feminazis” simply because I read it as a joke^[2] But Sinead has a point in her recent post, that the language used in blogging about this online discussion is dismissive.

And I suppose I’m guilty because of yesterday’s “war” post. But then again, surely if you are confident enough in who, and what you are, then you can joke about it, and take terms that were once derogatory and offensive, and turn them into just words?

I reminded of when I was studying English at college and we were discussing some poetry^[3] which used very harsh terms to describe men, but if similar terms had been used about women, or a minority group, it would not have been acceptable. Not because of any PC issues, but because of the history behind the words.
They have baggage. The way whether you say Londonderry or Derry has baggage in other laces.

This, I think, is where the dislike of certain terms comes from. In the past women have been oppressed and the labels used then still have those connotations, they bring an assumption that women are not quite equal.

But if we are to truly be equal then we shouldn’t bring all that up. We should have the confidence to be able to accept it as nothing more than humour. Doesn’t mean you have to enjoy the humour. Just don’t take it so personally. There are far too many things in the world to get irritated over, why waste the energy.

Still, this whole debate, scattered over the web does make for very interesting reading.

Some of those participating: Realitycheck(dot)ie | Babblogue | Mental Meanderings | Broccoli for Breakfast | Sigla mag

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Isn’t it strange how dreams can be so vivid for those few moments after you wake, but 20 mins (or3 hours later) and you really can’t remember anything about them? Cause last night I had a great dream, but now I don’t remember anything at all about it. So instead I bring you this pic:

you can get your own dream picture here, (via Ten Miles Beyond the City)

It appears that war has broken out on the bogosphere^[1] The first skirmishes involved discussions of feminism and why some people were looking for more female Irish bloggers, and others declared they weren’t feminists and others said don’t be silly, of course you are, it is just your definition that is wrong.^[2] And then humour was brought into the equation, although other people didn’t appreciate the humour.

So now, the only solution is a WMD accusation must be levelled at one of the antagonists, so all the others can unite in disapproval. We can even have sanctions^[3] before one goes over the top and launches a unilateral hack-attack against a different blog, removing a random despot from their position as blogger and installing a pupp-a-blog.

Well, thats the only solution I can see.

Totally unrelated now, but who didn’t smile at the news that Man U lost last night. I’m not an ABU, in fact I’ll often vaguely cheer Man Utd on, but lately there has been so much crap going on there that I’m glad they aren’t doing too well.

And the budget was yesterday^[4] Must find out how it impacts on my taxes.

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