Reply to Men: would you be willing to purchase an engagement ring for a woman?

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Reply to "Men: would you be willing to purchase an engagement ring for a woman?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
OK, so what was the point of your post, OP?  You would clearly never be interested in the kind of woman whose values tend to align with being bought an engagement ring  by her huband-to-be.

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Just sad seeing what my friends are coerced into because they feel they have no choice.[/quote]

They DO have a choice: they could choose to date the kind of woman whose values DON'T align with an expectation that her husband-to-be will buy her a ring; they could date a woman like the one you chose.

YOU had a choice, and you are happy with your choice.  Your friends--who do not choose women like your wife--are most likely very happy with what they get in comparison, just as you are happier with your own choice than with how you imagine you would feel with what you see your friends are choosing.

See how that works?  Do you understand how offended you would feel if one of your friends, who chose a straight with stereotypical feminine qualities, wrote a post asking why anyone would want a woman with the qualities YOUR wife has (and then named some of the qualities your wife has, which are NOT stereotypical straight, feminine qualities)?

Or...maybe you AREN'T so happy with your own choice.  [/quote]

OP -  the freedom to choose is a key part of modern feminism.  We feminists are fighting to determine for ourselves what it means to be a woman or have a gender or how gender and life roles are defined, practiced, etc.

You seem to get this in terms of defining for yourself what it means to be a man, a feminist, a polyamorous person, etc.  You also seem to insist that your wife have the power to define herself as straight vs queer vs lesbian, etc.  That's great and that is part of the promise of choice in feminism.

But, where I think you are going astray is you seem to want to impose your non-ring buying definition of feminism on others.  That is not "feminism" IMO (recognizing here that no one has appointed me the arbiter of feminism ...)

Beyonce is a feminist, even though she wore fuck me Barbie candy pink stripper platform heels to the basketball game with her man.  I would never wear those as I attach them to the imposition of all kinds of sexist norms.  But, more power to Beyonce for rocking the world however she sees fit.

Your friends can buy rings and be feminists too.  The symbolism of the ring is determined only by your friend and his fiance, and frankly I doubt you have have deep enough knowledge of their relationships and psyches to accurately pass judgment on whether their ring purchase comports with "feminism" which anyway you do not get to define for others.

Feminism to me is about equality.  But, we do not need to be identical to be equal.  Since ideas about what it means to be a woman (or a man) in today's society are becoming more flexible, I think the best that we can hope for is that people are able to discuss and negotiate gender roles openly and find a person (or people) who agree with our ideas.

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