Criticism and answers to twelve questions about love and marriage - answers from a heterosexual feminist couple

I am a 1C and my husband is a 1M. We were born in mainland China in the 1980s. We are a heterosexual couple who have been in love and married for more than ten years. We are both feminists.

1M's responses to this questionnaire are recorded by 1C under 1M's authorization.

We feel that some of the questions in this questionnaire are impolite and will add our own criticism to the responses.

Because an ideological movement involving all mankind is destined to fail if it intentionally or unintentionally excludes 50% or more of the world's population from the right to practice due to differences in innate reproductive systems. We do not believe that feminism is such an ideological movement, and we do not want it to create this impression among the general public. Hope our answer helps.

#Marriage, Love and Feminism Twelve Questions

Q1: What role does your mother play in the family? Will this affect your choice of marriage?

Q2: What is the role of your father in your family of origin? Will this affect your marriage choices?

1C answer: My mother and father have always lived together, and it is difficult to separate their influence on me, so I answer the two questions together.

My mother and father got married freely after being introduced to each other in the 1980s. I was the only daughter and took it for granted. There was no preference for sons over daughters.

My father often travels for long periods of time, and my mother controls all of my father's salary and does most of the household labor. When my father is at home, he basically only spends time with his family and does a lot of housework. They had a good relationship, and sometimes they would argue over trivial matters, but they never mentioned divorce, and they were always on the same page when it came to scolding me. Aside from the fact that my mother and father had absolutely no interest in understanding me and kept telling me that I was only worthy of being raised if I was good, they were a close couple and reasonably good parents.

My mother’s influence on my marriage and relationship made me become a pro-infertilityist since I was in the lower grade of elementary school. She made me think of children as stupid, willful, unreasonable, privileged, and of no use to adults until they reach adulthood. It was in my 30s that I finally said goodbye to infertility, but that’s a topic for another time.

My father's influence on my marriage and love is that I am unlikely to accept a man who does not have the advantages of my father in the family but has more shortcomings than him as my life partner.

1M answer: It’s a similar situation to 1C, so answer both questions together.

My parents got married freely after being introduced by my grandfather in the 1980s, and I only have one son. They all lost a lot of opportunities because of their poor background as defined by the CCP. They have low academic qualifications, but they are all very intelligent, optimistic, hard-working and kind-hearted. They do not favor boys over girls. I have been taught since childhood that boys and girls are the same, but they have to take care of the weaker girls.

When I was in elementary school, my father was unemployed for a while, so he devoted himself entirely to my education and family work. At that time, my mother was also very hard-working and had to work two jobs outside to support the family. This experience had a profound impact on me. On the one hand, it made me determined to take care of my family like my father and be personally involved in the education of my children. On the other hand, it also convinced me of the power of women in the workplace.

My parents have a very good relationship and are full of love for me. Our family's financial situation is not good, but I have never felt inferior or lacking. It was only after I became an adult that I realized that they were the rare type of parents in China who could fully give their children love, understanding and respect.

The influence of my parents on my marriage and love is that I decided very early on that when looking for a life partner in the future, "smart" would be the first trait. It’s not about studying well or anything like that, but having wisdom in life. In addition, since I was a teenager, I have thought about how to be a father in the future: not to give my children the best material conditions or to force them to practice hard, but to accompany them and give them love, understanding and respect.

Q3: Is "love brain" a stigmatized term? How to stay sober while loving sincerely in an intimate relationship?

1C Answer: Of course. What I understand as "love brain" means "thinking only about falling in love and nothing else", or "losing oneself or reason as soon as one falls in love, and making many mistakes in love that are unthinkable to others or oneself in hindsight." Something like that. This word may be used to make fun of oneself as a matter of personal freedom, but if it is used to comment on others, the most polite response can only be "minding your own business."

As for the second question, my love for my life partner 1M has been constant for more than ten years. I am very sober and sincere. I feel that he loves me too. (For specific information, please refer to the two articles I wrote previously discussing open relationships and gender-equality marriage , which coincidentally reflects how "sober and sincere" I am)

The simplest principle for how to be "sober and sincere" is Chizuru Ueno's "Don't fool yourself".

Specifically: figure out what you want to do, what you want, and what emotions you have. Don't expect the other person to understand you better than you do, and don't expect yourself to understand him or her better than the other person. After you understand yourself, talk to the other person. First understand whether the other person is a person who can understand you. If so, then discuss the needs of both parties.

For example: If you want to know about the other person’s past relationship history, what is the purpose? Is it to satisfy curiosity without considering the consequences and respecting the other person's privacy, or to prove one's own importance, to master the legendary privileges that the current lover should have, or to better understand the other person's character and values? In fact, the first three are not your real needs, at least they are not the needs of respecting the relationship and the other person. If the purpose is the last one, then it will naturally appear more sincere and the other party will be more receptive. Even if you don't accept it, there will be a more sincere explanation instead of disgust, coping or deception.

1M answered: I have never heard of the term "love brain". After hearing 1C's explanation, I felt that the person who invented this term was sick and was being very lenient.

Answer the second question with an example. When the person you like is in a low mood, you have to analyze the reasons clearly so that you can sincerely prescribe the right medicine to help the other person.

Q4: As a woman, what do you think of the view that feminists entering into heterosexual relationships are "choosing chocolate from the shit"?

1C Answer: Wrong and impolite. If a feminist is talking about herself, she is belittling herself and the people she likes. If you were talking about others, it would be that you didn’t learn well in kindergarten.

If you decide from the beginning that heterosexual relationships are shit as a whole, it is equivalent to saying that you are pigs, flies, dung beetles and other animals that like to chase smelly animals, and you don't understand the meaning of such an attitude that harms others and yourself.

With good intentions toward women, I can understand the reasoning behind this view: some women’s feminists come into contact with and learn about men who seem so unlovable or even annoying that they feel like they’re starting from a sea of ​​bad men. It is so difficult to pick out a good man worth loving.

Say a few words about this thought. I think the perspective when looking for a romantic partner is completely different from the perspective when pursuing social justice. When you're in a relationship, there's no need to focus on how many unsuitable people there are, because the goal is to find the very few people with whom a relationship is possible. If you feel that there are only inappropriate people in your field of vision, it means that you have not really thought about what kind of people you attract and what kind of people attract you.

Another thing that needs to be reminded is that if you can't even respect other people and treat them as people who others will love even if you don't love them, it's best not to endure your nausea and risk your choice. The other party is also likely to notice the insult caused by this mentality, so the possibility of "gaffe" will naturally increase. Do you have to prove that the other person will lose his temper by insulting him? I don’t understand the point of using a “self-fulfilling prophecy” to make both sides suffer.

1M answered: I am a male, so I won’t answer. But if I could say one thing, it would be a dirty word. I will not respect anyone, regardless of gender, who fires a map cannon to scold me.

Q5: In a romantic relationship, if you are the one with weaker social status and resources, how can you understand and accept the kindness/resources/help from your partner while trying to maintain independence in all aspects?

1C Answer: My income has been many times lower than 1M for more than ten years, so I should be very qualified to answer this question. From my personal experience, this issue is a value issue. If two people attach great importance to their lover's social status and resources, which affect the lover's charm in their own minds, then obviously the greater the gap, the harder it will be to get along as equals; but if the two people's values ​​​​believe that social status and resources are not the other's, As part of a lover's charm, it's good to have it, but it doesn't matter if you don't have it. Then it's possible to get along equally even if there's a big gap.

Values ​​have no meaning to outsiders. As long as you think clearly and don't fool yourself, it will definitely be more natural and simpler to fall in love according to your own values.

1M answered: When I was dating 1C, I quit my job and moved to her city. The week after I submitted my resume, I asked her: What if I can’t find a job? She said: I will support you! This sentence touched me particularly. It was the first time she touched me. Because her salary is so low and she has a hard time living alone, she is still willing to support me.

Of course, women no longer like to hear this sentence, and they all think it is insulting. At first I just felt moved. When I asked 1C what she thought, she said: I just think that if you have money, you can live a life of wealth, and if you don’t have money, you can live a life of no money. There is nothing you can’t live with. And you’re not someone who can’t find a job. Just believe in your own abilities.

We are very lucky, now I am doing what I love and 1C is doing what I love. I believe that what she is doing is more likely to be a huge success than mine, and I am just waiting for the day she succeeds to appear in her credits.

Q6: How do feminists define the boundaries of "running in", "giving" and "patience" in intimate relationships? How do you see the "love" and built-in power pull brought about by the power relationship game in love?

1C Answer: My experience is that being a good person and finding a good person can save this kind of mental internal friction to a large extent. For details, see my article “Heterosexual Feminist “Good Guy” Marriage” .

I have only one experience that I can call a break-in, which was when my child had a sudden depression when he was 6 months old. At that time, I overestimated my ability to bear it, and I was not alone for too long. One morning, I suddenly fell into despair and almost lost the ability to speak. I immediately let 1M know about my situation, and he immediately took over the child and left me alone for eight hours. My depressive symptoms disappeared on their own after crying and never reappeared. Later, we reestablished the routine of children, housework, and work, and so far we have no new running-in problems.

I think the game of power relations is related to whether two people fully understand and practice an equal relationship. As a feminist woman, I know very well that it is impossible for me to be a partner with someone who is not in an equal relationship. 1M, who I have chosen in both directions, also dislikes unequal partnerships, so once there is some kind of inequality between us - For example, the trigger for my sudden depression was the lack of alone time I arranged for myself during our division of labor with the baby. At that time, 1M had time to go for a run for the first time after the birth of the child - he would immediately face the problem, and he would Achieve new equality through communication.

1M Answer: I think there is no adjustment and patience. As for giving, that is what I should do as a husband and father. Family life is a very important experience in my life. How can I experience it without being involved in it? On the contrary, I find it difficult to understand those men who don’t get along with their children and don’t care about family affairs. What are they doing? If you don’t raise your child personally when he is a child, should you wait until he reaches puberty or become an adult and teach him how to behave as a father? That would definitely lead to a disastrous loss.

I don’t have any additional requirements for 1C as my wife, I just hope that she will make wiser choices as a creator. I will observe what she needs from me and try my best to get her to tell me.

As for the power relationship, I feel that we are trying to be equal as possible, and I don’t feel that there is any power game between us. Some couples may hold back and not communicate or communication cannot solve the problem, but I will not accept this quality of marital relationship.

Although 1C has always said that I do more housework, here’s what I think: when I’m not doing housework, I can do what I like as a break, but she can’t do what she likes for a long time because she left China and had a baby. There is no such opportunity for adjustment, so I can't let her bear too heavy a burden.

Q7: Is there any behavior of your partner that makes you feel uneasy? How do you think you can make your partner feel safe in an intimate relationship?

1C Answer: When I fall in love with someone I know is not suitable, I often feel uneasy because I can't fool myself. So, my answer is don’t fool yourself. Knowing that it is inappropriate, trying to persuade yourself to look at the bright side will only prolong the pain.

After being reminded by 1M, I remembered something: Ten years ago, when the interest rate on a certain financial product was extremely high, 1M told me that he wanted to invest all his savings in it. I am very opposed to putting all eggs in the same basket. I cried when the two of us were arguing. I forgot that he calmed down a few hours later, apologized to me, and admitted that my awareness of risks was correct and that he would not invest everything. deposit. Later, our financial management concepts never had any differences.

That incident made me feel uneasy, but we immediately reached a consensus through communication.

Regarding the second question, I really like communicating with my lover, but I hate socializing. The people I like are very confident in myself and respect me. It seems that there is no chance of making my partner feel insecure... After talking about it, I found that this is also a problem. Kind of an answer?

1M answered: I was worried that 1C would go back to China for a business trip for her career, and then be madly pursued by a young girl who admired her, so she would abandon me and my children who were far away. This bloody drama played out in my mind for about half a minute, and I told her about it. She laughed on the spot because I acted too much, so she couldn't be so successful (there seems to be something wrong with the negative point?)

To be serious, I think that after the two of us have our own true love as a partner, we will no longer regard other people we know as opposite sex or potential sexual objects, and we will not want to have anything more with each other than just ordinary acquaintances. relation. Coupled with social common sense, it feels like it’s impossible for anything to happen that could upset your partner.

Q8: Have you ever experienced "manipulation" or "being manipulated" (also known as "PUA" in Chinese popular slang) in dating/relationship/marriage? How do you define and identify such behavior?

1C Answer: Looking back, the closest experience I had to PUA was when my mother manipulated me and suppressed me until I reached adulthood. If I continue to cooperate with her, I'm afraid it will continue. After all, when I lost my house key in the second grade of elementary school, her way of criticizing me was to tell me that robbers would pick up the key, enter the house at night, kill the whole family, put them in sacks and throw them into the river, and I would kill the whole family. She also said that I didn’t care about her at all and didn’t take her into my heart, so I threw away the keys that she had repeatedly warned not to lose, but I valued my favorite toys and books and would not lose them. These kind of comments are the only way my mother educates me.

Therefore, I have been very "self-righteous" since I was a child, and I know that I cannot believe everything that people who claim to love me say about me, but I have to think about how to be a good person and prove it. After years of thinking and studying, I have become extremely confident in my own heart by the time I reach adulthood. It is impossible for anyone who belittles me to cause verbal harm to me (I will only feel in my heart: You know nothing about me), and it is absolutely It is impossible to have an intimate relationship with someone who puts me down. Including my mother, her relationship with me has become much more peaceful since she decided not to be as close to her as before and to fight back every time she belittled me.

As for manipulation and being manipulated in love, around 2007 and 2008, in order to understand what boys think when they are in love, I accidentally found the originator of today's PUA, which is the Paoxue forum. As a result, my mystery about boys was unexpectedly eliminated. and fear.

The most repeated question on that forum is whether I can get my girlfriend through PUA. But all the dating masters who claim to have slept with multiple girls will say that this is not a way to get a girlfriend, but a way to sleep with girls.

I read the subtext in this question and answer: Even for boys who go to the school forum, most of them don’t just want to have a one-night stand with a girl, but they want a girlfriend but they really don’t know how to get her, or they fail too many times. Too much and feeling hopeless. The so-called masters are actually just thick-skinned enough, have tried enough times, and can use their words to temporarily deceive girls who don’t care much about the men they have sex with (some of these girls simply like multiple sexual partners) , but most of them are poor people who lack love and have low self-esteem and keep repeating bad relationships). This kind of person will not respect the girl he sleeps with and does not regard the girl he sleeps with as a girlfriend; in fact, the girl he sleeps with may not I am really obsessed with him, but I am just hurting myself by "throwing my body into the gutter".

In short, only a scumbag can become a successful person in a school. On the other hand, as long as a man does not regard himself as a scumbag, it will be difficult for him to use a school. And most people think that they are good people, or at least not scum. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many people asking how to fall in love normally in places like this. Therefore, I suddenly lost my sense of mystery and fear towards boys who wanted to fall in love. I just felt that some of them were really weak and ignorant.

My current view is that for conscious PUA to be successful, it needs to be based on the psychological state of both parties being highly pathological. PUA or being PUA is not necessarily their biggest problem. They are not aware of their own pathology or fail to heal it. Yes; and what is more common in life is unconscious PUA, such as the one my mother treated me. The simplest way to prevent it is to maintain mental health. At most, it is enough to understand the psychological knowledge related to manipulation.

1M Answer : I don’t think I have ever had this experience. 1C reminded me: Do you still remember? We have a friend who feels that your idea that you should do more housework is not your own idea, but that I have trained you well enough that you don’t even know you have been trained.

In fact, 1C and I have had a very clear discussion about the feminism of housework allocation. It doesn’t matter if that friend wants to think that I am a traditional good man who “dotes on his wife”. There is no ill intention anyway. That is her freedom.

My knowledge about the concept of PUA comes entirely from 1C’s sharing. My idea is that PUA women and men are scum, worse than prostitutes. If someone like this attacks my female relatives and friends, I will definitely let them%¥#. (1C: 1M’s violent fantasy is basically “drive a Gundam and crush them into scum”, but fortunately, I haven’t had the chance to practice it yet)

Q9: How do you treat women who have different views on marriage and love than you do? Is "respecting the blessing" the best answer?

1C Answer: I used to think that most of the marriages of my generation should be based on "making sure the other person is truly in love", because if not, they are fully qualified to stay single or get divorced. Later, after reading more marriage examples around me and on the Internet, I realized that this kind of marriage is still a minority. 1M and I are rare lucky ones.

For women who have different views on marriage and love from me, I treat them as equals to me, and respecting them is the same as respecting anyone else. As for blessings, I am an atheist who respects religion. I don’t know whether it is appropriate to say the word “blessing” when I don’t believe in its effectiveness.

Of course I hope that everyone will be happily married and in love, but this goal is the same as all other important goals in life. Hope is useless. A lot of study and hard work plus a little luck are useful.

In addition, "respect and blessing" has almost become a sarcastic comment among some people who like to discuss other people's views on marriage and love, which is equivalent to "it's none of my business if you are stupid" and "waiting to see you admit defeat", which I did not expect. For someone who uses the words "respect and blessing" like this, I think he is not polite.

1M Answer: Why should we treat it? It has nothing to do with me. We are all adults, and marriage and love are our own business.

Q10: How to understand the legal relationships/rights (such as visitation, immigration, property inheritance) and benefits (such as tax deductions, house purchase and childcare subsidies) that are bound by default to the marriage system?

1C Answer: The situation of each country is different, so it is difficult to generalize. Generally speaking, the protection for women and sexual minorities is not reasonable enough and needs to be improved.

I just want to explain that currently, as long as forming a family based on long-term intimate relationships is a relatively common human need, monogamous marriage in the legal sense is not the worst system (refer to Churchill who said that democracy is not the worst system principle). It is not perfect, but it is better than other marriage institutions in human society, and all current new forms of marriage that try to overcome its shortcomings have brought more disadvantages.

I think that homosexuals in developed countries are pursuing the legalization of same-sex marriage. In a sense, it proves that in the world we live in now, there is no legal relationship that is better than the monogamous marriage system and can better protect hope. Rights of people with long-term single partners.

Of course I hope that the institution of marriage will disappear in the future, but I am wary of opposing this institution at this stage. The road to hell is often paved with good intentions, I believe everyone understands that.

1M Answer: I am only interested in the part of this question that is closely related to me. I have nothing to share.

Q11: If you are a woman who has actively chosen not to have children, will you have less empathy for women who choose to have children? How do you view families with children? If your life circle is far away from families with children, how can you achieve this "understanding"?

1C Answer: I am not, but I have insisted on not having children for 20 years, and my mentality at that time is still vivid in my mind. I had my menstrual period later than my peers. I once thought that I controlled my body with my mind and could kill my fertility, so I was very depressed when my menarche came.

But when I was infertile, I could not only imagine myself adopting a child, but I also cared about respecting women who chose to have children. Especially after reading Fei Xiaotong's "The Reproductive System", I understood more clearly that if I did not bear the responsibility of "reproducing at the expense of myself and others," What social responsibilities should we bear?

The passage in "The Fertility System" makes it very clear. Those who have children do not owe anything to those who do not have children. On the contrary, those who do not have children very much need children to provide younger members of society for their old age. Even from a purely self-interested perspective, infertile people should be concerned about the well-being of the next generation of society members, lest when they become old and weak, the whole society will be filled with young people who lack education and lack of job opportunities, threatening their lives and property security. .

So I don’t quite understand the so-called “understanding”. Who wants to forgive whom? This is a terrible choice of words and is unfoundedly condescending.

I can only try my best to understand it as kindly as this is the infertile people trying to be friendly to the childbearing people. Well, start by not complaining about the normal range of crying in infants and young children on planes, trains, etc., and not blaming preschool boys for having to enter the women's restroom in public restrooms that do not have family bathrooms or gender-neutral restrooms. It is not my intention here to educate you on the psychology of children or the laws governing the use of public facilities by children, because relevant knowledge is very easy to obtain. If everyone in society can understand before criticizing, I believe many unnecessary conflicts can be resolved.

1M Answer: This is another question that only women can answer. I really want to complain about whether the designer of the questionnaire thinks that male feminists do not exist? Even if "understand" is in quotation marks, it still seems strange. Who needs to forgive whom? Do those who do not have children have enmity against those who have children? Where does hatred come from?

Q12: Can women maintain and implement feminism in marriage, childbirth/motherhood? If so, how can it be done? (If you have not entered into a marriage relationship, you can think about it)

1C Answer: I can, I did it.

I have already discussed this issue in another article, the summary is as follows:

I have been a good person in my marriage and family life, and I have also found a good person. Together, we have maximized the benefits of monogamous marriage and minimized its disadvantages.

The so-called being a good person and finding a good person may have countless understandings based on different values; but two people who become partners must have the same understanding of what a "good person" is.

As a feminist, my understanding of a "good person" is that both parties to a marriage can cooperate fairly in the internal work of marriage such as finance, housework, childbirth, and parenting, and the motivation for this cooperation is not one party's compromise or charity to the other party. It is not even simply the love of one partner for the other, but is determined by the mutual values ​​​​of marriage between the two parties, and is carried out under a similar interest in family life.

A more specific explanation is that before my partner and I got married, we confirmed the following facts through years of living together and communicating: We both believe that our shared family economic level and arrangement are gender equal and in line with our common aspirations. Money Concept;

The two of us arrange housework fairly, and neither of us has high requirements for housework, but we don’t think housework is a burden, we don’t find fault with each other, and we don’t assign work to each other. We mainly complete it according to our respective division of labor, and one person can do it all when necessary;

The two of us have completely identical views on parenting, and both of us insist on being hands-on. We are firmly opposed to widowed parenting and help-based parenting. We do not consider sacrificing family life for work or personal interests, and we will not feel anxious about not working hard or having chicken babies;

We can each handle the relationship with our original family and not let our original family affect our own life decisions, which also includes the internal affairs of our new family;

We rarely quarreled, never serious enough to want to break up, and both the necessary apologies and frequent compliments came from the bottom of our hearts.

1M Answer: This is another question that male feminists cannot answer. It is recommended that the questionnaire designers should not intentionally or unintentionally divide the "own people" and "opposites" and limit the circle of own people to such a small size.

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The questionnaire is over. The answers for two people are very long. Thank you to those who have the patience to read this. Reprinting with the author's name and original text information retained is welcome.