The Chosen Ones
Why cute little aliens remind me of women waiting for a ring.
If Tracee Ellis Ross started a cult I would need to remind myself it is still a cult, and I probably should not join. But I would be tempted. Like, really tempted. I mean, you know her cult would have very chic robes. And shoes.
This was the dialogue in my head after my-future-cult-leader-Tracee said the below on Glennon Doyle’s podcast, We Can Do Hard Things:
"... my job as a woman is to learn to be choosable. Having nothing to do with who I am, what makes my heart sing, floats my boat, makes me feel safe, makes me feel comfortable, makes me feel good, makes me feel powerful, makes me feel smart. Any of those things. But really it's more about how I might be seen, so that I might be chosen so that my life could mean something as a chosen woman who then gets to have a child and then be a mother."
Tracee speaks to how society has misaligned women's value with motherhood, but I believe the damaging choosability she refers to is a symptom of the traditional, heterosexual, western marriage proposal that, in its inherent symbolic nature, perpetuates the notion that women are chosen and men do the choosing. Placing men in the active role of deciding their future, and women in the passive role of accepting.
Yes, marriage proposals often occur after couples privately discuss marriage and agree to wed, but that intimate, mutual conversation is not what is splattered across social media, depicted in movies, or recounted at cocktail parties. Instead, we continue to uphold the fairytale narrative of a man choosing a woman.
So many traditional marriage customs have adapted to modern society. Prenups have replaced dowries, couples cohabitate before marriage, women are financially independent due to established careers, weddings themselves have moved out of religious structures and into barns and pastures where mason jars pass as acceptable containers for a bevy of beverages. And yet, only about 2% or proposals are made by women.”
Psychologists often theorize that who you choose to marry is the biggest factor in determining your life’s success and happiness. I find nothing wrong with a man proposing to a woman. I simply ask, if this is the biggest factor in determining one’s life happiness then why, in heterosexual couples, do we consistently see only one gender actively choosing? And what effects might that narrative have on our society as we continue to act out our gender roles through passive reflex versus active interrogation?
What is shocking to me is 77% of heterosexual women never even thought to propose, even though 98% view themselves as completely equal to their partner. Women are consistently told to be more assertive across various aspects of their lives, but being assertive in the romantic sphere is still largely frowned upon. There is one day (albeit every four years) that the Irish deem acceptable for a woman to propose, on February 29th, known as Bachelor’s Day.
From Wikipedia:
The tradition is supposed to originate from a deal that Saint Bridget struck with Saint Patrick. In the 5th century, Bridget is said to have gone to Patrick to complain that women had to wait too long to marry because men were slow to propose, asking that women be given the opportunity. Patrick is said to have offered that women be allowed to propose on one day every seven years, but Bridget convinced him to make it one day every four years.
This was deemed a problem in THE FIFTH CENTURY, Y’ALL!
What’s worse, when the tradition made its way to the United States, it became “the the butt of jokes about unmarried, romantically aggressive, women. Cartoons were published mocking the concept in various forms, commonly depicting women discussing the use of aggressive measures like nets and guns to capture unwitting men.”
Flip that on its head and take a passive role as a woman, and wait for a proposal as you are told to do, and whispers begin. Or, if you’re the future Queen of England, you are unfortunately dubbed, “Waity Katie.” Not only bruising the individual, but sending a clear message to young women everywhere, you can’t win.
There is a scene in Toy Story that I like to think of as a satirical jab at traditional marriage proposals. It takes place in an arcade, where Woody and Buzz Lightyear are trying to outrun Sid, the vicious kid. They find themselves hiding amongst a hundred identical three-eyed aliens in The Claw Machine. These aliens are stripped of all agency as they wait to be chosen by the machine’s mechanical claw, which they revere with god-like wonder. (In reality The Claw is haphazardly controlled by any kid with a quarter.) The Claw eventually, well, claws at an alien and pulls him from the group. The little alien says in wonder, “I have been chosen. Farewell my friends. I go on to a better place.” Swap the three-eyed aliens for doe-eyed women and have a terrifying chuckle.
Like Tracee Ellis Ross, I can’t help but wonder how much of my one, singular life I would reclaim if I had not been quietly taught through countless cultural cues that my job as a woman was to be chosen, stripping me of all agency. How different of a woman would I be if I had been taught not only do I have agency over my life, but it is imperative that I use it?
Would I have had agency over my body in my 20s? When a man wanted to have sex with me would I not have passively said yes because I was so excited he was choosing me, but actively engaged in a conversation about what we both wanted and expected out of sex?
Would I have had agency over my career in my 30s? Would I sit in a seat of negotiation, knowing my experience and value, rather than a seat of passivity, thinking I am so lucky to be chosen to be employed?
Would I have had agency in my past relationships? Would I have left as soon as I realized they were not going to choose me? Instead of being stunned into disbelief and immobilization that after everything I had done to make myself small, and accommodating, and choosable, it was still not enough.
Or better yet, would I have been less concerned about them choosing me, and more concerned if I actually liked them? How much of my life has been wasted by being so concerned that it is only a life worth living if I am chosen by another?
I’m not interested in a nicely edited, glossed-up-for-social-media marriage proposal that reminds me of The Claw and is artfully designed to further your personal brand. Instead, show me (and all young men and women) the countless conversations, negotiations, and hard conversations that lead to the extraordinary, life-affirming moment.
Better yet, show us women wielding their agency to craft their one singular life in the most vivid palette they know, more beautiful than any tech-generated filter.
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LINK-DA-LINKS AND OTHER FUN NOTES
So, remember on like Jan 6th when I was like HELLLLOOO WORLD I AM BROADCASTING TO YOU FROM A NEWSLETTER!!!! SUBSCRIBE FOR A WILD RIDE!!!!
And then I went silent for a month?
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
It feels very on brand to me to be a month late and a dollar short but HERE WE ARE.
During that month I learned that people with these newsletters really brand themselves. I thought I was just collecting emails and making it look semi-professional with a pre-designed template.
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Apparently I need a color scheme. And a name (“Veronica’s Substack” screamed amateur, apparently). And a logo. (But not a logo with an image of yourself, that also screams amateur from what I gathered by stalking other substackers.)
This and a lot of other things were the perfect excuse to not write and instead swap out logo fonts for five hours a day — because a logo font is obviously the thing that people really care about and signals you are a SERIOUS writer.
One thing that took me zero time to do was settle on the name, Almost a Handful.
Where did that come from? Well, I was once told my boobs and personality are almost a handful, and I’m not sure it was meant as a compliment but I took it as one. Huzzah.
Okay. You can always expect a fun little ramble from me at the bottom of these newsletters and some links. Because I love links. I’m not going to say how many links because I don’t want to be held accountable to an exact number every week.
If you’re still reading this ramble I am sure you can summarize why I don’t want link-number-handcuffs.
Okay, without further adieu, what you really came for:
I have yet to try THIS MOVIE PICKING METHOD mainly because it would just mean Andrew and I switch after every movie. I called him out recently for his inclination for war movies. He protested. Three days later I came home to the sounds of WWII in our living room.
For all the black sheeps in families, you are now renamed, “HUNTERS BORN OF PATHS OF LIBERATION INTO THE FAMILY TREE.” (This is not a satirical link, but I like that it could be from that pulled quote alone.)
I am 3/4 of the way through THIS BOOK and I am reading it slower and slower as my chest swells with anxiety that it I am almost done. It has given me an emotional attachment to trees (yes, TREES) via universal truths of life depicted in the most beautiful, mundane, organic of ways. GAHHHHHHH. SEE, EMOTIONAL.
THIS WHOLE ESSAY and every link / quote throughout it. I kind of snubbed EE Cummings because he was like the Monet of poets to me, I was just dubious of his popularity. That was dumb of me. I love his stuff. Who cares if he’s super popular. He’s popular because he’s good.
And let’s end on a laugh that is funny because it is TRUE.
Okay — I will not disappear for another month due to paralyzation of branding. I might even write about how uncomfortable personal branding makes me!!! Who knows!!!
xV
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