Romanticized Marriage Research Paper
Molly McGrath SC024: Gender and Society Final Paper, Option #3 December 10, 2010
Romanticizing Marriage and Heteronormalizing Society
Over the years, weddings have developed from a sacred ritual to a moneymaking industry. Bridal magazines cover the shelves of grocery stores and doctor’s offices. Television shows and movies show scenes of women dressed in white and associate these images with happiness and wholeness. The divorce rate in America may be high, but the social fascination with and desire for the fairytale wedding is even higher. Chrys Ingraham, Jyl Josephson, and the marginalized LGBT community all address the issues created by the romanticism of marriage and compare the pressure to have the perfect …show more content…
The website targets an audience of mainly women, and the home page supports “normal” female interests by advertising wedding dresses, shoes, hairstyles and the like. Ingraham looks at this phenomenon of the “girly-girl” and states that girls are not born brides with the desire to dress up, do their makeup, and someday be brides. These desires have everything to do with the dictations of culture. Culture reinforces that women care about their looks and dress a certain way, and “The Knot” further reinforces this by creating a wedding site geared at women with all of the things that any bride-to-be should be interested in. Ingraham would find that this proves that the institution of marriage acts as a symbolic rite of passage for heterosexual men and women. There is a constant promotion of heterosexual behavior in our culture, which is supported by norm and rule-guided behavior. “The Knot” believes that brides that act according to the heteronormative standard occupy their time with shopping for shoes and dresses and wondering what floral arrangement would look best. Weddings reinforce this hyper-feminism and women willingly enter into an institution that upholds female
Romanticizing Marriage and Heteronormalizing Society
Over the years, weddings have developed from a sacred ritual to a moneymaking industry. Bridal magazines cover the shelves of grocery stores and doctor’s offices. Television shows and movies show scenes of women dressed in white and associate these images with happiness and wholeness. The divorce rate in America may be high, but the social fascination with and desire for the fairytale wedding is even higher. Chrys Ingraham, Jyl Josephson, and the marginalized LGBT community all address the issues created by the romanticism of marriage and compare the pressure to have the perfect …show more content…
The website targets an audience of mainly women, and the home page supports “normal” female interests by advertising wedding dresses, shoes, hairstyles and the like. Ingraham looks at this phenomenon of the “girly-girl” and states that girls are not born brides with the desire to dress up, do their makeup, and someday be brides. These desires have everything to do with the dictations of culture. Culture reinforces that women care about their looks and dress a certain way, and “The Knot” further reinforces this by creating a wedding site geared at women with all of the things that any bride-to-be should be interested in. Ingraham would find that this proves that the institution of marriage acts as a symbolic rite of passage for heterosexual men and women. There is a constant promotion of heterosexual behavior in our culture, which is supported by norm and rule-guided behavior. “The Knot” believes that brides that act according to the heteronormative standard occupy their time with shopping for shoes and dresses and wondering what floral arrangement would look best. Weddings reinforce this hyper-feminism and women willingly enter into an institution that upholds female