Going the Distance
There's an interesting piece in TAPPED, the group blog for the American Prospect, about long-distance relationships and gender expectations. A fairly high profile couple recently announced their engagement. She's the D.C. Public Schools Chancellor and he is the mayor of Sacramento, California. Today, DCist has an interview with D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, who recently got engaged to Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento, CA:
One of the things that I've been hearing from people in my neighborhood and in the larger community that has surprised me, is the assumption that even if Mayor Fenty is reelected you might leave.
That's absolutely incorrect.
I've found it a little sexist, actually.
It's totally sexist! Let me just tell you this -- not a single person in Sacramento has implied that because Kevin and I are getting married that he's going to be moving to D.C. Not a single person. And it pisses me off to no end that people assume that I'm going to be the one to move, or that of course I would have to move. People say, well, her husband is there, so of course she would have to move. And I say "really?" What century are you living in?
So I am committed to the Mayor, that when he is reelected I will absolutely be here for a second term, and I'm really excited about the prospect of it.
This hits close to home. I have moved across the country three times -- and two of those moves were (at least in part) for men I was dating. At the time, I don't think I would have told you I felt pressured to move. If other people assumed I would be the one to change jobs and move cross-country, they certainly didn't say so to my face. But looking back, I am not so sure I could honestly say that there were no gendered expectations at play. Deeply ingrained sexist cues -- that women's work is worth less, that women bear more of a responsibility for keeping a relationship together -- have a way of affecting our choices. It's good to see Rhee pushing back against those expectations.
I was also somewhat relating to the interview. Three of the major relationships in my life were long distance. The first, neither one of us felt a particular pressure to move, and that may have ultimately contributed to the decline of the relationship. In the second, I was planning on moving to his city, but it was mainly because of his kids, not because of one career being superior to the other. And in the last, Graham moved to Houston, sacrificing his own career in Los Angeles to the point that it never really recovered and he's currently changing career tracks.
I think that Graham and I buck a lot of gender stereotypes within the relationship, though. I own our house. I am the primary breadwinner. He does most of the cooking, and a lot of the cleaning. I drive the car most of the time. He's the puppy disciplinarian. It's not something we talked about or specifically tried to buck the trend. It sort of worked out the way it worked out.
One of the things that I've been hearing from people in my neighborhood and in the larger community that has surprised me, is the assumption that even if Mayor Fenty is reelected you might leave.
That's absolutely incorrect.
I've found it a little sexist, actually.
It's totally sexist! Let me just tell you this -- not a single person in Sacramento has implied that because Kevin and I are getting married that he's going to be moving to D.C. Not a single person. And it pisses me off to no end that people assume that I'm going to be the one to move, or that of course I would have to move. People say, well, her husband is there, so of course she would have to move. And I say "really?" What century are you living in?
So I am committed to the Mayor, that when he is reelected I will absolutely be here for a second term, and I'm really excited about the prospect of it.
This hits close to home. I have moved across the country three times -- and two of those moves were (at least in part) for men I was dating. At the time, I don't think I would have told you I felt pressured to move. If other people assumed I would be the one to change jobs and move cross-country, they certainly didn't say so to my face. But looking back, I am not so sure I could honestly say that there were no gendered expectations at play. Deeply ingrained sexist cues -- that women's work is worth less, that women bear more of a responsibility for keeping a relationship together -- have a way of affecting our choices. It's good to see Rhee pushing back against those expectations.
I was also somewhat relating to the interview. Three of the major relationships in my life were long distance. The first, neither one of us felt a particular pressure to move, and that may have ultimately contributed to the decline of the relationship. In the second, I was planning on moving to his city, but it was mainly because of his kids, not because of one career being superior to the other. And in the last, Graham moved to Houston, sacrificing his own career in Los Angeles to the point that it never really recovered and he's currently changing career tracks.
I think that Graham and I buck a lot of gender stereotypes within the relationship, though. I own our house. I am the primary breadwinner. He does most of the cooking, and a lot of the cleaning. I drive the car most of the time. He's the puppy disciplinarian. It's not something we talked about or specifically tried to buck the trend. It sort of worked out the way it worked out.