You are supposed to wear a ring with a matching locking metal chasity belt to which you SO has the only key. Do try to keep up with your moral obligations.
One ring to out-rule them all.
And what do I do when the invading orcs bring forth Grond, Hammer of the Underworld to try and bring down the gates of my married chasteness?
Freeze them out with Frostbrand!
Or expose them to a flower arranging class, and watch them die of sheer boredom.
Until I read your ETA, I thought, “Wow, he really ***isn’t ***all that bright, is he?”
I was picturing more of him charging up to every woman he sees and demaning to know if she’s married, Asperger’s style.
Fly away on a huge eagle?
I was going to say, ouch! I guess my vagina will always be “NO VACANCY” to you.
Well, yes, but how are other people going to know about it? Should I tattoo a symbol of the key onto my forehead too?
I don’t think so.
Go back to the OP and swap gender nouns.
*So this week I was visiting a customer for a few days. They had a new admin assistant and holy moly, he was a stud. Absolutely perfect. Not only handsome, but obviously smart as hell, personable, and funny. And.. what’s that, you have a 7-year-old daughter? So do I! Awesome! And no ring on the finger! Why, I think I’ll…
… oh, your wife. Ah! Great! Let’s talk about that! Damn.
Come on, that’s just mean. Guys, put your rings on. C’mon, don’t get my hopes up like that. It’s just cruel to us single middle aged women. *
It still works perfectly. There’s no actual sexism here. Men have wedding rings too, and women use it as an indicator just as much as men use it with women.
I absolutely agree, in the abstract, that it’s not on her to be available for any man who wants to ask her out. But holy fuck there are some touchy people here.
I’ll support the OP as soon as straight men and women adopt a piece of jewelry that denotes their nonreceptiveness to same-sex relationships.
They make those already:
http://www.amazon.com/Molded-Foam-Ring-Cushions-Donut/dp/B001RMZYL0
Why don’t you just befriend us first? It’s bound to come up in casual conversation over the next few weeks.
You are only supposed to go out in public if you are escorted by your husband or one of his brothers. That way you don’t have to worry about the tattoo not being visable due to the burqa.
(In all seriousness, on a few occasions I have been asked to draft a marriage contract clause that resticts the wife to only going outside the home when escorted by the husband or his brothers, and even then only for the purpose of going to mosque or family gatherings. Each and every time, the person wanting the clause became very angry when I refused and showed him the door.)
You’re forgetting about cultural context. Berating women for not following the proper behavior for a married/single/whatever woman is a long-running issue in Western culture. By and large men don’t have that problem. So while the grammar still works if you turn the OP around, that doesn’t mean it’s not problematic.
Wow. What part of the world are you in? Would such a clause even be enforceable in the western world?
The grammar isn’t the point, it’s that nothing about what I offered up sounds culturally unusual. Many men have rings too. Many women look for the ring. Many women would be disappointed to find a guy they’re interested in only to find out he’s married.
You can’t call it sexist just because it’s a man talking about a woman.
That’s not the part I (and other Feminists on this thread) are objecting to - it’s the part where RickJay says that not wearing a ring is “mean” and “cruel to us single middle-aged men”. Women don’t owe men cultural signals about our availability, and it’s not a plot to hurt them. I completely understand feeling disappointed and a little embarrassed, but acting like the woman somehow wronged him here… yeah, that doesn’t fly. And it wouldn’t fly if it was a woman saying that about a man either. The difference is that the man-complaining-about-a-woman-not-following-protocol scenario ties in with a lot of systemic sexism in our culture, and the reverse does not. It would still be a jerkish thing for a woman to say, but it doesn’t have the same cultural weight behind it.
Watch me. 
A more blatant example of cultural context being important might be the current use of the n-word. Some black people call each other ‘nigger’, but a white person using exactly the same words would be unacceptable. Cultural context matters. This one may be subtle enough that you (and many others here) don’t see it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.
I am in Canada. In each instance, the parties were from Saudia Arabia.
No, such a clause would not be enforceable here in Canada (void for policy), just as other clauses that have been requested by these people would be void here, such as requiring a baby per year for three years (or with some of them, for five years), or setting out the age that the father must have sole custody of the children should the marriage fail.
It’s a bit difficult to get one’s mind around this sort of marriage. Note that each of them was educated, wealthy, considered him or herself to be highly moral and modern thinking, and very much in love with his or her betrothed. What was utterly lacking was our concept of equality.
I suppose an analogy would be how westeners tend to think of our minor aged children – we love and cherish them, give them the best life possible in our opinion, but ultimately assume authority over them and expect them to toe the line, rather that treat them as full equals. Note that when I make this analogy, I am not trying to justify the Saudi’s behaviour, their culture, or their religion, which I find deeply revolting. I’m just trying to understand why they can be this way while treating their spouses with less consideration than I treat my cat.
We’re only a hundred years removed from that ourselves. That’s not really much of a difference in the overall scheme of things. Not that I’m advocating treating women as second-class citizens, but voting rights are relatively new, and some old pubs still have separate entrances for “women and escorts.” Not that we actually use them as such, but still, a reminder of a not-too-long-ago past.
True, but I was asking about the clubs - I just can’t see the value in going to one, collecting a bunch of names/numbers and then going on all those dates in the hope that one might turn out to be with someone I had something in common with.
I’m starting to feel like we’re in the feminist light bulb joke here. “How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?” “That’s not funny.”
I do understand what you’re saying, but I also think you’re taking the OP way too seriously.
That’s my problem with the situation and the very similar situations that I have been in.
It seems that there are some men, who upon laying eyes upon an attractive woman for the first time, immediately make up a relationship inside their heads. Then when this woman says NO, whether or not she’s married or “has a boyfriend” or just not interested.
Then when she indicates that she’s married or disinterested the guy acts like he’s been dumped by a real girlfriend.
I have had strange men approach me on the street to inquire about my marital status…and I’m fine with that and they usually just grin and say “too bad” when I tell them I’m taken. I have no problem with that, it’s an appropriate reaction to what should be an extremely minor disappointment.
When this happens in a social situation it’s easy to shake off, I will never see this person again. What I HATE HATE HATE though is when guys pul this crap on me at work…finding pretenses to see me or meet with me that are allegedly business related ( and I work on commission ), stretching out the time I spend with them and trying to change business meeting to something social…all the while they are AVOIDING asking me my relationship status. Since I know what is going on eventually I will need to drop a “husband” or “boyfriend” into the conversation, at which point they act inappropriately butthurt…one time at the builders convention some guy walked into my booth with a roll of blueprints and claimed he had a project he wanted me to look at with him -( I was forewarned because he also asked me if I liked to party) so I walked up to my husband (who was with me at the time ) and told him I would need another half hour before we went to lunch, and the guy observed this interaction and stormed off angry.
When you say they were educated, etc., are you talking about the women as well? Were the brides-to-be in support of this kind of contract? Or was it just the men dictating terms? Your analogy of their culture treating women as children is accurate, I think.
How would I take it less seriously? What would that look like?
Either I can keep quiet and feel uncomfortable myself, or I can call out the problem and make the person who said it uncomfortable. I’m a fan of making people carry their own shit. Then they get a choice of acknowledging what I’m saying and moving on, or they can make a massive drama out of it. Up to them.