I didn’t have any desire to write about the Edwards thing, but, I suppose, this isn’t just about what I want.
In that post, Lisa takes issue with Rielle Hunter’s sister trying to “defend her honor” against a flurry of vicious attacks.
Lisa does not come to her rescue,
Excuse me. What honor? This woman had a blatant affair with a married man, whom she obviously knew was married, for at least a year. She’s a “good and honest” person? What on earth is your definition of good or honest?
Which is, I think, a rather severe character judgment to make when you know exactly one thing about a woman, and it’s presumably the worst thing she’s ever done.
The problem with this kind of criticism is that precisely fits the narrative of monogamous marriage. This is the one where you meet someone (a man, of course), fall in love, decide to be with him for ever and ever, get married and live happily ever after—unless a treacherous red-haired mistress steals him away (or maybe a witch poisons him, which is more or less the same thing).
The mistress is an integral part of this story. Should the man fail to cheat with her, this is proof of his loyalty, and while he is slightly emasculated for not tapping that ass, he is judged faithful. Should he decide to cheat with her, this is proof of both his and her moral reprehensibility, as the only reason they could possibly flaunt their vows in this way is that they are terrible people who probably deserve to die.
And, I mean, most people will agree that they shouldn’t have done that, and it hurt some people, and there might be more to the sentence, but it tends to get cut off, because, well, they shouldn’t have done that! They hurt some people! Grab me a stone.
This is really convenient if you’re trying to maintain an oppressive institution—say, marriage—as a social and economic necessity. Even putting aside the patriarchal power dynamics that marriage still connotes, it’s simply not the case that the structure of marriage is right for all committed relationships, yet it has a total monopoly on their social sanction. You don’t, in a real way, have a choice. Sure, you shouldn’t make a promise you can’t honor, but it’s difficult to imagine a situation where you have less ability to determine whether you can or can’t honor this one. For your entire life, you’ve been told (and likely believe) that your value as a person hinges on your ability to make and keep this promise. If you’re a woman, you’re told (and likely believe) that your economic survival hinges on it, to various degrees. And, of course, that you must never, ever speak of someone not your spouse. Particularly not to your spouse! Monogamy is the one and only true way you have serious, committed relationships; non-monogamous relationships are just playing around, un-serious, and un-committed.
We are not, therefore, especially likely realistically assess our ability to be monogamous. So, inevitably, cheating becomes an integral part of the institution of marriage. As does the resultant apologizing and slut-shaming.
So maybe Rielle Hunter is a terrible person. Maybe she just didn’t care about Elizabeth Edwards at all. Maybe she did, but felt pressured into sex. Maybe Elizabeth Edwards actually knew, but the arrangement became sour for some reason. We aren’t in their relationship, and we don’t know; pretending we do requires writing patriarchal assumptions onto their relationship.
Which is, I think, why you don’t see that line of criticism much in feminist writings. (You do, actually, but it tends to be lead up to, “And this is why women should be lesbians. Because men are socialized to be fucking pigs, and straight women can’t help but exploit other women in this way, but lesbian relationships are immune!” Which has, I think, a degree of truth, but probably not two.)
The cheating cheaters who cheat reminds me of a line from One Tree Hill, to do with a “slutty lying liar who lies”. Now whenever I want to watch it I say I’m going to watch the show with the slutty lying liars who lie. And yes, I occasionally watch One Tree Hill, and I’m also aware I’m off topic.
A superb post. Expresses something I was trying to get at much more beautifully than I did. Thank you, violet.
Vi, I don’t think I understand even remotely where you’re coming from here…
“The problem with this kind of criticism is that precisely fits the narrative of monogamous marriage. This is the one where you meet someone (a man, of course), fall in love, decide to be with him for ever and ever, get married and live happily ever after—unless a treacherous red-haired mistress steals him away (or maybe a witch poisons him, which is more or less the same thing).”
It’s true I was discussing monogamous marriage, but I made it crystal clear that not only is that not the only kind of marriage, I have no issues whatsoever with marriages where both partners agree to not be monogamous. And I certainly never tried to cut Edwards or any other man who cheats any slack, and repeatedly stated that I thought that the person in the monogamous relationship who then cheated was the worst offender. I certainly never portrayed any woman whatsoever as being a temptress or tried to even slightly pretend that they were ever the initiators of the situation. When you feel you must put words into my mouth to support your argument, Vi, it makes your argument look pretty weak.
Now, I’ve been married twice…actually spent most of my adult life married, sad to say. But I think we can agree that this gives me a lot of background experience in the institution. Vi, do you actually have any..? If not, grant that I have more authority than you do to speak to the difficulties…or lack thereof…of keeping it in your pants during marriage and in leaving the marriage once you decide you really just must fuck some strange. In the first case, trust me. It is not impossible. And I really, really, really like sex and by two years prior to the end of my first marriage I couldn’t even stand to TOUCH my husband, who was an abusive asshat, AND I was financially dependent upon him at that time with two small children. Lookie-LOOK at all these excuses to fuck AROUND! And yet somehow I managed to keep it together til I moved out. So, you know, it absolutely can be done. Of course, it requires that you have personal honor and integrity, which is clearly not a popular position to take…in my colder moments, I wonder if that’s because nobody themselves wants to be held to that kind of standard either, and rather than admitting that, find it much more convenient to try to deconstruct honor and integrity as positive goals. You know what–if you find that you’re unable to be monogamous…GET A DIVORCE. I agree, if there’s some abusive reason that you can’t, or economic reason that you can’t, slack does deserve to be cut. But I was specifically referring to John Edwards and those in situations like his, who obviously could leave any time he wanted. Look at our other presidential candidate–obviously you can get divorced and not lose your political career, so he doesn’t even have that feeble excuse.
Vi, you say, “So maybe Rielle Hunter is a terrible person. Maybe she just didn’t care about Elizabeth Edwards at all. Maybe she did, but felt pressured into sex. Maybe Elizabeth Edwards actually knew, but the arrangement became sour for some reason. We aren’t in their relationship, and we don’t know; pretending we do requires writing patriarchal assumptions onto their relationship.”
The problem is is that you’re all pretending that you DON’T know and doing so requires that you, sorry to be crude but it’s the best descriptor of the situation, are always willing and eager to issue a pussy pass. I mean, “maybe she felt pressured into sex?” That is one of the most random assignations of possible cause that I’ve seen. The situation does not in any way indicate it, nor has this broad, whose flapping tongue is the only reason the Enquirer ever found out about the situation in the first place, made a defense like this, nor has her family, who certainly would have if it had been even remotely feasible. “Maybe Elizabeth Edwards knew?” Both John and Elizabeth Edwards have made extensive statements to the press about the entire situation; I suggest you read them. No “guesswork” is required, unfortunately. The whole sordid story is right there for anyone who wants to read it.
I am a married feminist, and I agree with Lisa Kansas on this one.
I think there is a hesitation among feminists to say that “the other woman” did something morally wrong because there has long been a double standard in which married women who cheat, or women who have affairs with married men, are judged far more harshly than the men who are also cheating. But I think you can reject the double standard and still make a moral judgment that a woman who cheats (or participates in a man’s cheating) has done something wrong (as has the man involved).
As a wife, I have relied on and continue to rely on my husband’s loyalty to me, and I expect this (reciprocal) loyalty to continue for the rest of our lives. This includes sexual fidelity. I have invested a great deal in my relationship in reliance upon my husband’s vows. I am keeping my vows and I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect my husband to keep his. The historically patriarchal nature of the institution or marriage is utterly irrelevant in this context– because if my husband cheats, I as an individual will be harmed. And any woman who cheats with my husband should reasonably foresee the human cost to the actions she is participating in, and take responsibility for that harm. I am not at all impressed with the “see no evil” defenses posited in the prior thread.
I don’t know all the gritty details about the “story” because, like the Clinton sex scandal of a decade ago, I don’t really care enough. Edwards’s sex life is for his wife to judge, and the “other woman” was not and is not responsible for their relationship.
I’m disappointed that he’s decided to splash a private matter within his relationship in a public forum, and more disappointed that so many people find it an issue worth talking and writing about.
P.S. I usually read all of LK’s posts (earlier blog and above comment), but my eyes glazed over at the monogamy-praising and slut-shaming. Sorry. :\
Just to clarify–I have no particular praise or lack thereof for monogamy as a stand-alone concept. What I have praise for is keeping your word and your commitment that you’ve specifically made to a specific person or persons. “Monogamy” in of itself, as a specific end goal, I see no positive or negative value in as something someone decides they want to practice, much like vegetarianism.
I think a couple of things are going on in this conversation, and those things are helping people to talk past each other.
I have been married. I am currently cheerfully consensually non-monogamous. I have been in a lot of messed-up sexual interactions, and have at various points on the past seemed to have an invisible sign on my person telling men that I was a sucker for a sob story and therefore a safe person to proposition from their married positions.
I’ve had those moments that could have gone either way, too. And I have, at least once, played games with myself and just plain not asked about the details of the other party’s relationship status. I don’t, to this day, know precisely how open that long-ago relationship was or wasn’t. I’m fairly sure we crossed some lines. There’s nothing I can do about it now.
I’m not proud of those times. I can say that, at the time, I was suffering from extremely poor self-esteem, so questions of personal integrity were kind of moot to me. I was pretty sure that I sucked, as a human being, that nothing I could do could possibly affect anyone else, because I was just that insignificant, and that the only reason anyone would want to have anything at all to do with me was because they weren’t going to fall in love with me, so I wasn’t an emotional threat.
Let’s just say I went through a bit of a rough spell, and did some things of which I am not proud.
This isn’t a plea for pity or compassion. I’m through all that horribleness now, and out the other side, and, I more or less have to own that I participated in some questionable interactions, and was only too willing to buy some of the rationalizations fed to me. I’m not at all proud of fooling around with someone whose other relationship boundaries were less clearly defined than I insist on now. I also don’t think I’m a horrible person utterly lacking in all integrity and honour. I’m posting under my usual sobriquet because I’ve accepted that people are complex creatures, who sometimes do stupid things, as I did, and some of us are lucky enough to emerge from our dark times, learn what we need to learn, and go on to do better.
Tangentially, I’d like to point out that it’s possible to cheat within the framework of consensual non-monogamy: cheating happens when one partner’s extra-relationship liaisons break the rules of the interaction. If my sweetie and I have a “please tell me rule,” and that sweetie gets it on with someone of whom they know I disapprove, and, wishing to avoid an awkward conversation, doesn’t tell me, that’s cheating.
My point, and I do have one—this isn’t all maudlin, overwrought confessional bullshit—is that feminism provides a number of perspectives on the social phenomenon of cheating, yes, independent of whether we believe that cheating is ethical or not, and independent of how much we think the parties deserve censure. I also think that if we’re going to look at all facets of women’s experience, as part of developing feminist consciousness, we have to look at the vast numbers of mistresses (both professional and more or less uncompensated) from a less judgemental perspective. Maybe it’s true that they’re all simply greedy, silly people. Maybe there’s something else there.
I think we can do this—examine women’s experiences, both as wives and mistresses, without acting as apologists for either party.
We can say “cheating is unethical,” without it being a feminist question.
We can say that a woman who sleeps with or carries on with someone she knows to be in a committed monogamous relationship is almost certainly not helping another woman.
We can also examine the social narratives surrounding Other Women, and Dirty Little Secrets, recognizing that one of the things that happens when a system is broken is a statistically significant number of instances where all the available options appear to suck, and ask ourselves “Why do so many people cheat? What’s going on with the people who enable their cheating?”
And I think that’s what Violet is trying to do.
What I think I’m reading Lisa reacting to is the blurred line between examining a social phenomenon non-judgementally and celebrating choices that are damaging to other people.
What I want to know is how we create a culture in which it’s easier for people to talk about their relationship problems and deal with them constructively.
How we avoid damaging women to the extent that their own integrity and honour mean so little to them that they’ll let themselves be used, and comply in their own deceit.
How we teach men to take responsibility for their promises, and stop giving them easy outs and convenient cultural narratives that provide some legitimacy to infidelity.
Clearly telling adulterers that adultery is bad and wrong isn’t enough,
Zing, you make a very good point, one that I am ashamed I didn’t really explore more deeply. A lot of women are damaged, and damaged people do things sometimes driven by their damage, not by who they really are. As I clarified that I wasn’t talking about sex workers who really have little choice in their profession, I should’ve clarified that I was talking about people, especially women and often from causes rooted in patriarchy, who haven’t had their self-esteem destroyed already.
Hmmm … Lisa, I’m going to take gentle issue with “damaged people do things sometimes driven by their damage, not by who they really are,” because I think that, over time, our damage becomes part of who we really are, for better or for worse. Sometimes, when we’re covered in it, we do things that we wouldn’t have done if we hadn’t been damaged. Sometimes, if we make it out the other side, and do the necessary repairs, we wind up with a different perspective on ourselves and on other people.
Knowing that I have at points in my life behaved less than entirely honourably changes how I am now in a couple of ways: it makes me adamant that I don’t want to be anyone’s dirty little secret, and it makes me more of the ways that insecurity and hurt can damage other people, and make it more difficult for them to behave honourably.
This isn’t the place to discuss that, though, so I’ll deftly change the subject:
I really admired .
Like Zing said, I’m not trying to provide an ethical defense of cheating (or aiding and abetting cheating, I guess). I’m explaining why I feel like accounts of adultery that focus on the character flaws of “the other woman” don’t really have a place in feminist critique. Definitely, I think that prioritizing relationships with women and women’s concerns is central to a feminist ethic, and so harming other women because of your relationship with a man is not part of that ethic. So you shouldn’t do that.
But I don’t think in the context of feminist blogging and critique that shaming these individuals is either valuable or appropriate. There’s already an enormous amount of shame leveled at adulterers and sex workers, and it seems needlessly harmful to add more.
I also don’t think it’s helpful to write all women in these positions off as either pathologically damaged or failures as people—either you can have your agency, or your virtue, but not any mix of both. A fifth of men in monogamous marriages cheat; they are cheating with someone. Like zingerella said, that’s an awful lot of women to write off.
There are structural reasons to explain why cheating is so common despite the censure that it entails, and addressing those seems to be much more worthwhile. Even and especially at a grassroots level, in your own relationships (romantic and otherwise), making someone feel worse about something they already feel bad about isn’t going to actually help a situation. It’s possible to provide emotional support for women who’ve been hurt without also dealing out that kind of emotional damage, and I think raising awareness of and openness to radical relationship structures (even within marriage) is just better practice.
I also tend to believe there isn’t a lot of room for shaming in feminist ethical critique in general, particularly when we’re talking about women who are already shamed by society. It’s just incredibly easy for that sort of criticism to support the patriarchal narrative, even unintentionally. It’s like the woman who gets pregnant after having unprotected sex. Yes, she shouldn’t have had unprotected sex. It’s hardly helpful to shame her for that, though, and if you do, it isn’t distinguishable from a wingnut pro-lifer doing the same. In the case of adultery, probably the most practically visible effect of shaming is that it tends to seriously damage or destroy relationships between women, while their relationships with the cheating man are, typically, much more resilient. This is part of the patriarchal devaluation of relationships between women—you may forgive your man if he cheats, but you can never, ever forgive the former-BFF he slept with.
Some other points:
Sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest that you were actually saying all that; the paragraph was meant to be an account of the traditional marriage narrative. It’s relevant not because you’re supporting all of it, but because supporting part of it invokes the whole.
It’s illegal for me to get married where I live. So no, I haven’t.
Moreover, while it’s great that monogamy has worked flawlessly for you, I don’t think you can generalize it to everyone. (Also, you’re suggesting here that had John Edwards divorced his wife—at that point suffering with cancer and grieving for the loss of a child—prior to sleeping with Hunter, that would have been the right thing to do. Not the most right thing he could have done, but more right than cheating on her. That seems unclear to me; not impossible, but perhaps unlikely.)
It’s completely random to suggest that in a sexual relationship between man in a position of substantial power and one of his employees, there could be some element of pressure?
I don’t really put any weight on what they’ve said publicly because I couldn’t realistically imagine them saying anything else. If they got on television and said, “we had an open polyamorous marriage,” then I’d go outside and wait for the fleet of Irkan attack cows.
It’s probably worth noting that I actually think avoiding shaming is a good idea regardless of the gender of the cheater and their lover, but it isn’t typically as much of an issue when the lover is a man.
What I don’t like about the ‘other woman’ criticisms, generally, is that, to me, they reek of ‘women as gatekeepers’ BS. Why should it be the woman’s responsibility to control herself when the man is the one with the social contract (that has nothing to do with her)?
Goodness, Vi, you have inspired me to write another blog. (evil smile)
What I meant to do, when I was not-so-deftly changing the subject, was to say that I really admired brownfemipower’s reluctant Edwards post.
And Lisa, I have the sneaking feeling that you might have inspired me to do one of my navel-gazing sermons, sometime soon.
Zing, that was an amazing article. What a good writer. I am so jealous.