IntersectionalityFeminism 101 Subtle Sexism: On Pets and Feminism

Subtle Sexism: On Pets and Feminism

Pets and Feminism: When you are asked to abondon your pet because your future husband and his family might not approve of it.

It has been a little over two years that those two melting brown eyes looked at me, and it was love at first sight. Indeed! I knew at that moment, that he and I are meant to be, and that is how I met Scooby, an adorable, naughty yellow Labrador.

These two years were fun and inspiring, he makes me a more responsible person. He is with me in the fun times and the bad. Especially the bad, he would insist on doing everything possible to bring back the smile. I just can never have a 100% bad day as his presence makes even the worst bearable, and the best, blissful. These two years have been the best and the most fulfilling years, I have grown as a person and learned things that only a loving dog could teach.

And in these two years, I have had a lot of people come up to me and ask me “So, what are you going to do with him once you get married?”, even before as a kid when I wanted a pet I was told “Not now, maybe after marriage you can think of having pets”.

I found it horribly weird, that people expect me to leave my dog (whom I love, and who loves me UNCONDITIONALLY, who makes me happy and makes my life better) with strangers, because some guy and his family, who till date have not made an appearance in my life, might not like having pets.

Now I have a lot of friends who have pets, so I asked around if this expectation were on every unmarried pet owner, or are those sundry people around me just a bit off.

Almost all the girls that I asked had heard these statements from the people around them, even those who wanted pets, could not get them, just because their future masters might not approve. (Yea, I always use the term “Master”, because in my mind, a husband is someone one can have an equal, loving relationship with. )

But strangely these expectations were not so rampant for the unmarried guys. In these cases, the girls who married the guys were expected to love the pet by default or just suck up and adjust if they did not like his pet. One person even went so far as to recommend the girl in question that she married a guy, and should love everything and everybody related to him, that is love…

But, why is this advice not given to the guys at large?

Why even in 21st century, a girl can have a pet only and only if her lord and master approve?

Why still what a guy prefers to have more importance than what a girl prefers?  Why cannot society see men as husbands, why it insists on seeing them as masters and lords?

As Superwoman says in this video, “anytime I want to do something like buy a dog, my mom says “No, you are not allowed to buy a dog for as long as you live in this house, when you get married, you can get two dogs”..umm..that’s stupid, when I get married, why would I want two dogs? And if my husband does not like dogs or does not want a dog, great, I have spent eight hundred thousand dollars getting married, and now I would have to spend thousands more to get a divorce. Mom really? I’m trying to save you money.” 😛

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