Recommendations #11: She Said, pay to attend weddings, and the mental load of cooking
READING
Book: She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey
What is it: A non-fiction book by New York Times journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey about how they investigated and broke the story of Harvey Weinstein’s decades of sexual harassment and abuse.
This is one of two recently released books by journalists who investigated and won Pulitzer Prizes for their Harvey Weinstein reporting, the other being Catch and Kill by New Yorker reporter Dylan Farrow.
Thoughts: I chose to forgo sleep and read this instead on an overnight flight simply because I couldn’t put it down. The book is an in-depth retelling of the months of work that went into uncovering multiple firsthand accounts from women who were sexually harassed or abused by Harvey Weinstein. The real heroes of the story are of course the incredibly brave and diverse group of women who decided to share their stories with reporters, including actress Ashley Judd, who was the first celebrity to go on the record.
The book does slightly lose steam in its last quarter where it shifts to focus on Christine Blasey Ford – the woman who, upon Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, accused him of sexually assaulting her decades earlier. This part of the book is less engaging not because Ford’s story isn’t important, but because the account felt rushed compared to the comprehensive writing on the Weinstein case, and the fact Kantor and Twohey weren’t as heavily involved. This does however come together at the end of the book where Ford joins sources from the Weinstein investigation at a gathering to discuss what transpired after they each came forward.
This article provides a good snapshot of the investigation’s biggest revelations, and an excerpt of She Said can be read here.
4.5/5
Article: The pre-wedding parties where couples charge admission (The Atlantic)
What is it: An article about hens and bucks parties (aka ‘stag and doe’ parties) where guests pay a small fee in order to fund the couple’s eventual wedding.
Thoughts: I have a lot of thoughts about the costs of attending weddings, and these are constantly changing.
This article opens with a couple who essentially crowdfunded their wedding by charging friends and family a small fee (about AUD $11 or US $7.60) to attend a prior party.
I think most people would probably deem this inappropriate, but if this was done by someone I love who was legitimately struggling to pay for their wedding, I wouldn’t be opposed to it.
I have been to seven or eight weddings this year alone, and while I legitimately love going to them, they’re often not cheap to attend. There’s usually travel involved, so you’re looking at a couple of hundred dollars spent on accommodation and petrol/flights, and that’s before buying an outfit, and possibly giving a gift or cash. The idea of instead paying a small fee to reduce the financial stress on the couple therefore doesn’t seem so bad to me. It’s essentially the same as giving a cash gift (as is now commonly requested at weddings), just done in a more transactional and upfront manner. (Of course if you’re a financially well-off person who is actually profiting off your wedding guests, that’s a different story altogether.)
I think many people from older generations would argue people shouldn’t have extravagant weddings if they can’t afford them on their own, but even the most basic wedding costs thousands in catering and drinks. If I eventually choose to get married, my wedding day will likely be the only day in my entire life where my whole family (many of whom have never met) and friends from various cities will be in the same room. For some people to miss this experience due to financial circumstances out of their control seems utterly unfair.
Excerpt:
The idea that a couple’s friends and neighbors should help finance their wedding may offend some readers’ sensitivities. The words tacky and money-grabby came up a lot during my interviews for this story, and several wedding professionals I spoke with considered the stag and doe a violation of accepted wedding etiquette.
Chris Skrzek of Hamilton, Ontario, told me that when he posted on Reddit excitedly explaining his plan to merge his wedding and his stag and doe into one big crowdfunded event, he was surprised by how many negative responses he received about how it was being financed. “We just wanted to get married and have a party and not pay through the roof for it—not sell out our kids’ education fund,” Skrzek said. While Skrzek said stag and does are commonplace where he lives, the concept was poorly received online by people unfamiliar with the practice.
It’s hard to argue that a wedding one can’t otherwise afford is a life necessity, but there might be something more to the commenters’ disapproval. “Passing judgment on people who would ask others to help pay for their wedding and saying, ‘They’re rude and grasping,’ is a way to reproduce class boundaries without explicitly engaging in overt classism,” notes Andrea Voyer, a sociologist at Stockholm University who studies etiquette.
Maybe it’s better to look at stag and does as yet one more way weddings have become more financially transparent. “We are very much in the era of GoFundMe and crowdsourcing,” says Ariel Meadow Stallings, the author of Offbeat Bride: Create a Wedding That’s Authentically You. She points out that it’s now not uncommon for newlyweds to ask for financial contributions rather than things, perhaps in the form of a honeymoon fund or even just cash. “The idea of finding a cute way to ask people to contribute to the wedding is definitely gaining in popularity,” Stallings says.
Article: It's so much more than cooking (The Week)
What is it: A wife’s first-hand account of what happened when her husband offered to make dinner, not realising this included actually planning the meal and buying ingredients.
Thoughts: Reading this article made me so very frustrated on the writer’s behalf. Of course there is so much more to cooking than the actual cooking part of the process, that’s why lazy people like me do it so infrequently! It is absolutely insane to me that this woman’s adult husband thought this simply meant stirring something around in a pan.
Edited excerpt:
About a year ago, I had a sobbing meltdown in the kitchen in front of my spouse. It had started out innocently enough: He'd invited a friend over for dinner, but I was on a high-pressure work deadline and had no time or mental energy to spare. "I'll make dinner!" he said. "You don't have to do a thing."
That evening, he waltzed through the door from work, bubbling with enthusiasm. I met him in the kitchen, exhausted and hungry. "Okay, I'm ready to start cooking," he said. "What do we have in the fridge?”
I stared at him for a moment, and felt myself crumple in frustration. The strength of my reaction to this question surprised even me. Why on Earth was I so upset? It took some deep breaths, and a bit of damage control that evening, and a number of halting, stumbling conversations over the course of the next few months, but eventually I put my finger on it.
In offering to make dinner, my husband, with the absolute best of intentions, had focused on the one thing he'd promised to do: grab a pot and a pan, put something in it, and make edible food. But what I'd wanted him to do was much more complex, so ingrained in my experience of cooking that I didn't even think to articulate it. I wanted him to pick up the baton. To check what ingredients we already had, and what might need using up. To plan out a meal that would meet everyone's dietary needs and preferences (including a balanced amount of protein and starch, and at least one vegetable). I wanted him to look up recipes, and make a grocery list if needed, and stop by the store on the way home. I wanted him to make food appear without my having to think about it.
I wanted him to make dinner. And it hadn't even occurred to him to look in the fridge before he left for work that morning. This wasn't entirely his fault: I realized that he didn't want to guess at the cooking process on his own because I had so thoroughly claimed my title as the keeper of the food.
For those of us who cook frequently, planning and strategizing for meals becomes background noise. It's part of the mental load, the running list of small decisions and knowledge required to maintain a household. And as with so much of that mental load, cisgender women like me end up shouldering the lion's share. We are trained to reflexively and uncomplainingly take on as much of the mental load as we can possibly bear. And cooking is still a highly feminized pursuit; it's a skill girls are implicitly expected not only to learn, but enjoy doing. To be feminine, we are told, we must be hospitable, nurturing, giving — qualities that are intimately bound up with feeding those around us. If a meal isn't balanced and complete, if someone isn't happy with their portion, if it costs too much or doesn't land on the table on time, it feels like a personal failure.
LISTENING
Podcast episode: Your Driver Is Here by The Cut on Tuesdays
I know I recommend The Cut On Tuesdays nearly every week, but this is an especially good listen.
In this episode, a woman tells the story of waking up to discover her Lyft trip home the night before had cost her over $100, when it should have only been around $15. She couldn’t remember anything other than getting in the car, so she consulted the route map, which showed her what should have been a short trip within the one suburb had become a nearly hour-long journey, where the driver had taken her out of the state to a park, before returning her home.
The episode goes onto cover this woman’s quest to have her case properly investigated, and later, a re-enactment that helped jog her memory to remember crucial details.
It’s a really interesting look at how ride sharing apps provide so much data to users in the name of safety, when in reality, this provides little protection.
Podcast: Dolly Parton’s America
This new podcast is a nine-episode deep dive into Dolly Parton’s music and career to date featuring the woman herself.
The podcast was created by host Jad Abumrad upon realising how politically diverse Dolly’s fan base is in what seems like an increasingly divided society. He describes this in an interview saying, "You've got evangelical church ladies standing next to men in drag, standing next to guys in trucker hats. All of these different communities, on either side of the 'culture wars,' all standing together, shoulder-to-shoulder, singing the same song."
I’ve only listened to the first episode of this podcast so far (three have been released), which is a fascinating look at the musician’s early, dark songs. The episode also covers Dolly’s rise to becoming a modern feminist icon, despite this being a label she rejects.
Even if you don’t know much about Dolly Parton, this podcast is worth a listen to learn about her underrated songwriting and overall cultural legacy.
WATCHING
Movie: 500 Days of Summer
Okay so this isn’t a recent recommendation as such, but because this year marks 500 Days of Summer’s 10-year anniversary, a bunch of new articles have been published about it.
When watching the movie last week for probably the 15th time, I was reminded of all those frustrating hot takes from a few years back remarking how self-centred the main character (Tom, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is, as though this isn’t exactly the point of the entire movie. Tom IS selfish and DOES only see Summer for who he wants her to be, not who she actually is. Summer does clearly communicate her wants from the beginning and Tom chooses to ignores them. THE MOVIE KNOWS THIS! Tom’s young sister (played by Chloe Grace Moretz) exists purely to point this out (“Just because some cute girl likes the same bizzaro crap you do, that doesn't make her your soul mate”), as does the woman he goes on a blind date with after the Summer break up.
I appreciated this recent article critiquing 500 Days of Summer’s annoying twee moments (and that yikes author’s note at the beginning), while recognising the more recent woke critique of Tom is actually acknowledged throughout the film.
The You Make My Dreams dance is undoubtedly the most iconic scene in 500 Days of Summer, but I’ll always love this perfectly soundtracked expectation vs reality sequence. Actually, basically every scene that takes place after Summer and Tom have broken up continues to move me to this day.
SUPPORTING
Increased mental health funding for sufferers of eating disorders. Following Thank You Atoosa on Instagram for clippings from 90s/2000s teenage magazines. Buying your furniture from second-hand, vintage sellers on Instagram. ‘Textile circularity’.
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