Asking A Woman To Marry You Perpetuates Rape Culture.

I CANNOT EVEN.

If you feel the need to get dumber, click on that sourcelink and read the most ridiculous column ever, about how there are 6 marriage traditions that reinforce rape culture.

Or, just read this summary, and save yourself some brain cells. Because DAYUM.

The person who wrote that tripe, some hypersensitive progressive feminist named Suzannah Weiss (pictured above), started her column by grandly stating, “Rape culture is a ubiquitous part of our society, from the language we use to the way we expect people to dress. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a number of marriage traditions enforce rape culture.”

Sigh.

Marriage is a “patriarchal institution” she says, so naturally, it’s all kinds of misogynistic and rapey.

But lest you think she’s insulting people who get married, she assures her readers that as long as you’re “aware of the problematic sources of certain traditions but still want to practice them because they fit your needs, you shouldn’t be judged for it — especially if it’s your wedding. You should be able to do whatever you want on your wedding day.”

Well, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, Suzannah, for graciously allowing people to do whatever they want on their own freaking wedding days. Your benevolence is breathtaking.

Anyway, now that you have Suzannah’s permission to have whatever sort of wedding you want, she wants you to understand the ways which weddings are super rapey.

1. Men Asking Women To Marry Them

I’m not even making this up. Suzannah says that since the expectation is, generally, that men propose to women, and since men often feel that it’s up to them to pursue women, this perpetuates rape culture. She seriously says that. Like – in all seriousness. Specifically, she writes, “Putting what men pursue over what women want perpetuates rape culture.”

2. Women Wearing White Dresses

Suzannah hates that a white dress symbolizes purity/virginity, and when you associate a woman’s character with her level of sexual experience, you’re contributing to rape culture. If you’re thinking, “Huh?!?!” then congratulations. You’re a normal human being. Suzannah says that the whole white dress wearing thing is objectifying women and “portraying those who are more sexually experienced as ‘unrapeable.'” And, as long as we operate under the philosophy that a woman whose virginity is intact is somehow better than a woman who has sexual experience, then men end up NOT RAPING women for the wrong reason. In other words, she says, “…it is wrong to rape a woman not because she should have autonomy over her body, but because it is necessary to protect her integrity — and when a woman has more sexual experience, there is no integrity to protect.”

I’ll wait here while you take some Tylenol. I need it too.

3. Fathers Giving Away Their Daughters

Leave it to radical feminists to ruin this tradition. Suzannah and her ilk hate it because it contributes to the idea that fathers “own” their daughters and that daughters are thus property to be given away. She says, “Giving away the bride is the final opportunity for a father to exert the control that our culture gives him over his daughter.”

Or, you know, it’s simply a lovely way for a woman to honor her relationship with her dad. But shhhh – feminists don’t want to hear anything about that.

4. The Focus On Women’s Looks

This one is so ridiculous that it causes me Actual Physical Pain to have to respond to it. Suzannah writes, “When you go to a wedding, it’s practically common courtesy to comment on how beautiful the bride looks — and how lucky the groom is to be marrying someone so beautiful.”

Horrible, right? I mean, HOW TOTALLY RAPEY.

Her point is that there is tons of pressure for brides to look their best on their wedding day, and that it’s unfair that there is more focus on the bride’s looks than the groom’s. (Has Suzannah ever noticed how formal wear works? Or watched any award show? The focus is on women because WOMEN WANT IT THAT WAY.) She says that by focusing on how a bride looks on her wedding day, “…we perpetuate the idea that a woman’s primary role in a marriage or elsewhere is as a sexual object.”

OMG.

Find me a chick who doesn’t want to look her best on their wedding day. Find me one who thinks that by doing her best to look her best, she’s worried that she’ll forever be seen as a sexual object in her marriage. And if you find one, RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN, because you’ve got yourself a progressive feminist on your hands, and those chicks are wack.

5. The Pressure To Take A Husband’s Last Name

While Suzannah recognizes that plenty of women choose to keep their own names or hyphenate or whatever nowadays, she’s still miffed that the original intent of taking the husband’s last name was to make a woman the man’s property. And any tradition that makes a woman a man’s property perpetuates rape culture. Even if that’s no longer the least bit true.

In my case, I was super psyched to change my name from a difficult-to-spell Polish name that no one could ever pronounce correctly to one of the most common last names ever. But what do I know, right? I’m just a chick who doesn’t see the world through rape-colored glasses.

6. The Idea That Marriage Is Only Between A Man And A Woman

Believing in the idea of traditional marriage is so super rapey, you guys. And that’s because it supports the idea that couples should “play complementary roles.” In Suzannah’s warped view, that means that the chick is domesticated and the dude is the breadwinner, making the chick submissive and the dude dominant, which makes the dude the initiator of sex and the chick a piece of meat whose desires are never considered.

That was seriously her thought process. I’m not making it up, y’all. You can click on the sourcelink and see for yourself.

And it should come as no surprise, given that Suzannah’s previous articles include ones with titles like these:

1. 7 Ways High Schools Reinforce Rape Culture
2. 6 Reasons Cats Are Not Just Like Women
3. 5 Ways Schools Slut Shame Students
4. Why We Need to Destigmatize Menstruation
5. 5 Reasons Feminism Must Address Ableism
6. 5 Ways School Dress Codes Reinforce Rape Culture

There are so many others, but I don’t want to depress you too much.

These people exist, they’re among us, and they vote. The best we can hope for is that she decides motherhood perpetuates rape culture (because seriously, what doesn’t?), and she doesn’t procreate.

Gawd.