las políticas de zappatos

this weekend i went to a wedding. while it hasn't been uncommon for me in the last few years to end up at the weddings of people I only vaguely know, i had never met either the bride or groom this time. i'd like to think this gives me a unique perspective.

weddings always hit me in a strange way. partially because for so many years i was pretty convinced that i had no marriage (nor the desire for one) in my future. partially because wedding ceremonies make so clear the ways in which "traditional" gender ideology continues to be reinscribed. i'm not the biggest fan of phrases like "man and wife" or all the talk about the aim or marriage being reproduction. and to all of that add the blatant commodification of desire.

not to say i don't enjoy weddings. other people's grotesque overspending usually results in me having a pretty fantastic time (and this wedding was in no way any exception). and the truth is, though i wouldn't be particularly concerned with the save the date magnets matching the bridesmaids' hair-dos, if i ever get married i can imagine myself eating every angsty word i've ever muttered about the ridiculousness of weddings (though thankfully, consueloZ, from the midst of wedding planning, assures me that it is possible to keep a level head about these things--no sand art!).

but this i will never take back...the ceremony had already begun when we found a pew on the wrong side of the aisle. the priest launched into a long metaphor of the ephemerality of flowers and the necessity of roots for lasting love. and then he turned to meaning of sacrifice in a relationship. here i will try to loosely quote: "John, sometimes you'll just want to come home and watch TV, but Casey will want to talk about her day, and you'll have to sacrifice. And Casey, when you're out shoe shopping and John just wants to go home, you'll have to sacrifice and take him home."

what struck me as so brialliant about the phrase was the complex interweaving of gender, consumption, and identity. the priest constructed the neoliberal formations at work here as naturalized (see lancaster 2003) and traditional enough to be in what many consider to be a sacred ceremony.

i'll side-step the television reference, and focus exclusively on the shoes. shoes represent a particuarly feminized realm of consumption, even in an age in which men's clothing style as become important and indicaive of lifestyle (see mort 1996). shoe shopping also connotes a level of wealth which allows for shopping as a leisure activity, rather than the procurement of a necessity. Finally, the positions of quitting shopping as "sacrifice" positions it as not only normative, but a right.

and so, in this most important of moments, neoliberal gender ideology forms the way we conceputalize partnerships, the family and the meanings we associate with "love."