I might be able to get Justin Bieber to marry me.
While violating my rights and committing crimes against me for 6 years, the conglomerate has also never stopped accusing me of being manipulative and mercenary. Those accusations are an insult to my intelligence, which isn't surprising because the conglomerate can't think of women as being anything other than stupid.
If I wanted to be manipulative and mercenary, I could be, and the conglomerate would think I was a marvelous person.
I don't know that I'd have to manipulate Justin Bieber to get him to marry me. The fading of my physical allure is not the result of years of bad habits or of abusing my body; it is the result of age, stress and poverty, and could probably be improved by several thousands of dollars of plastic surgery and orthodontic work. I have no children or other personal obligations that would prevent me from being a wife who had a lot of time for him. I'm not greedy, fame-seeking or exploitative.
I suppose that I could marry him, have some kids, and take almost all the responsibility for raising the children and directing the marriage until such time as he was old enough to participate as half of the marriage. I could be at the house while he was on tour, raising his children and reminding him that I would appreciate it if he didn't bring home diseases, other pregnancies or stalkers desperate to be Mrs. Bieber.
I think, though, that I would rather not be a matriarch. It used to be that older men sought much younger women to marry, and that all the reasons that they wanted to have much younger wives are also all the reasons that I don't want to have a much younger husband. The older person almost always has the advantage of age for knowing more than the younger person, and that creates a power imbalance which centuries of men have liked having over their wives and have thought of as being the way that life is, rather than as a repressive construct.
All stereotypes about women have their antecedents in roles for women that were forced on them by the male-dominated world. Some of them are:
-The mother who has no sexual side. The conglomerate has exploited this stereotype, which divides sex from birth, to say that it's normal for people to have sex with their own children. Motherhood has been artificially separated from sex for so many years that the conglomerate has tried to make people believe that children ought to be sex partners to their own parents, in total ignorance about how damaging that is to families and to people, and also in total ignorance about the genetic problems caused by incest. What's healthy is for women to be able to retain their sexuality even after they are mothers; it's not healthy for them either to be forced into social sterility by misogynist ideas about motherhood or to be sexualized to their children, no matter what age their children are.
-The slut that young men learn how to have sex with or that men have sex with outside of marriage when they're married. This stereotype is another compartmentalization of women in the service of male power. The slut of this stereotype has no feelings that anyone needs to worry about and no social worth. She is not the sort of woman whom you marry. She is not the sort of woman whom you introduce to your friends or parents. She is not the sort of woman whom you want to be the mother of your children. She has one task to perform in the life of a man, and any attempt that she makes to step out of that role will be met with derision at best and murder at worst. Murder; that is not an exaggeration.
-The virgin. This is the woman whom you marry. Although you have sex with her, it's not the kind of sex that you have with sluts, because she is too good for that. Not only is she not supposed to have sex with anyone before she marries you, she's not supposed to really want sex; she supposed to be talked into it by you, all your lives, and you're only supposed to be able to convince her to have sex with you because you love her and you make her love you, and because you are the only man capable of inspiring her to have any lust at all. She can't have too much lust, though, because she can't step out of the virgin role that she had when you got married. She has to be mentally virginal for the rest of your lives. For her to step out of that role will be met with derision at best and murder at worst. Murder; that is not an exaggeration.
-The evil woman. This is a stereotype that is cast over any woman who frequently steps out of any of the aforementioned roles and who not only doesn't respond with contrition to attempts to force her back into a stereotype but who won't accept anything less than the last thing that the misogynist world will give her, which is respect for her humanity.
It is 2016, and there are probably people who would be amused or even excited by my taking control of Justin Bieber's life. I'm not one of those people. I don't need to prove my importance by taking the traditional role of the older person who molds the younger person. I don't want to tell a boyfriend or husband what to think or what to do.
It's one thing to give my opinion sometimes; it's something else to join my life to an unformed life and half-raise my husband as if he were my child.
Copyright L. Kochman, July 26, 2016 @ 3:09 p.m./edited July 27, 2016 @ 12:56 a.m.
