Marriage and the Power of Divorce

Need some help here. This could go in the GG thread but uh, I want some serious feedback.

Came home today to a RESIST bumper magnet slapped on the back of my wife's car. It's not really her car, we both own it, she just drives it 99% of the time. Regardless of that, I calmly asked her to ask me before putting political messages on our car. I'll admit I'm extremely anti label/logo, I feel it gives people a way to make assumptions. I'm likely a bit overboard with that, so we compromise on some stuff. The car has bumper magnets like Nightmare Before Christmas, for example.

Her response was that I didn't say anything about the one on the fridge, so she assumed I was ok about this one. In truth, I didn't notice it in the clutter, she collect fridge magnets, there's easily over 100. The whole surface area would be covered if it not were for some of the toddlers she watches can get at them. This was a mistake, a whole bunch of other shit we've argued about came flooding back.

She has a needlepoint from a friend that says "Fuck the patriarchy", I think I've even brought it up here previously. Even if that phrase wasn't offensive to males(which it is? maybe I'm wrong there?), the anti label part of me doesn't want to give others the chance to assume what "Fuck the patriarchy" or "RESIST" means to them.

Is my assumption wrong that general public perception has poisoned the phrases? And that a reasonable person, regardless of intention(true feminism, not 3rd wave bullshit), wouldn't associate themselves with it? Or, is it possible that this forum and the aforementioned other thread has tainted my view of those phrases?

Khane said:

Any bumper sticker, or anything at all, that invites any kind of political conversation from complete strangers is a no-go for me. I'm not in the habit of inviting hostile interactions with people and a bumper sticker that says "RESIST" is antagonistic and vague for no reason. Like they are hoping you don't know what it means so they can shame you for your ignorance. It also seems a bit petulant to me... wanting to "fight the power" after a certain age instead of trying to question things you disagree with in a more appropriate manner.

But the biggest sticking point for me with anything like that is the people who usually decorate everything they own with whatever movement they want to get behind typically don't care at all about conversation to begin with. They just want people to agree with them, and there will be hell to pay if you don't agree.

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This is a good point, thanks. It feels kind of dirty using our kid in this argument, but they(RESIST, fuck the patriarchy) do feel childish and I don't want her setting this example for him.

Soygen said:

I wouldn't let my wife put ANY bumper sticker on our cars, let alone a political one. Man, I hate bumper stickers.

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I hate them too, that's why I compromised on magnets.

I do want to know if I'm offbase here, is "fuck the patriarchy" offensive to white guys? Or have I been reading too much GG thread? She basically told me to prove it and all I got is my gut feel and that "patriarchy" is an inherently male word.

That's ultimately what led the argument to posting here. If we were just debating the finer points of OTHER idiots' ideologies, I don't feel I need to involve this forum nor is it worth being offended about. She kept offering to hang the needlepoint in her office instead of the kitchen as some kind of compromise. I was honestly at a loss of words, so I just told her that I wanted her to stop supporting this stuff.

Yeah, I know, that never works and was the wrong thing to say. I didn't now how to get across to her that her support of this stuff lowers my opinion of her. It's not there yet, she doesn't take these phrases and movements to mean the same thing that we or others might.

There was a little keychain adornment that showed up in the mail a few months back. It had a quote from Ginsburg.

Quote by Ruth Bader Ginsburg: “When I'm sometimes asked when will there be eno...”

When I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court] and I say, 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that.

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Maybe I hold Supreme Court Justices to too high a standard? But blatant reverse sexism? That was a fun hour-long conversation. It was worrying that I had to explain that the endgame for feminism(and any form of equality) is merit-based selection and open mocking of such questions, not revenge-stacking the court. I haven't seen the keychain since, but I suspect it's because I'm not looking for it.

A lot of this feels like she's doing it because it(3rd wave feminism) is popular right now. I'm not sure if that's better or not, though.

Gavinmad said:

Uh...Feminism isn't about merit based equality, it's literally about revenge and seizing power. I'm not trying to bog this down into something that's been covered to death already in other places, but it's very plain that equality is not the goal, power is.

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It's a valid tangent because maybe this is a nuance we understand and others(people not on this forum) don't? She has no idea what 3rd wave feminism is, which is what I believe you are describing. And I think a lot of people call themselves feminists without more than a fleeting thought because their idea of feminism is 2nd wave, which is unfortunately dead.

Zaara said:

Maybe it's because I never did my research but I never associated the RESIST thing with feminism.

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No, I don't either. RESIST is ambiguous, lazy "orange man bad". I did actually get her to answer that one, because it's "anti-Trump". The disappointment there was that I had to explain to her that this baseless flailing is exactly what an internet troll wants. I don't want her associated with RESIST because it embodies the left's pathetic response to Trump.