Why crabs don't escape

[grysar]

I occasionally read Cary Tennis's advice column in Salon mostly because it gets weird questions. Today's involves a woman weirded out that another woman is attending a bachelor's party her husband is attended.

But then I found out that, actually, one woman is attending the [Bachelor's] party. She's single and unfortunately not gay; she's very straight, a boy-crazy type. She's the groom-to-be's best friend. I love when men have female best friends, but the notion of her watching my husband at a bachelor party creeps me out. I know she'll be enjoying the exclusivity, and it seems like another kind of sexism: Wives are too dorky to attend; typical women can't "hang" with guys viewing naked women.

Am I crazy to think she's going to be putting the wives and girlfriends of these guys down while she watches them watch strippers?Listen, if she were doing the stripping, I'd be fine with that too. But I think it is more of an "I'm cooler than all other women" type of position. I've had guy friends all my life, but I never relished "being one of the boys" or their being somehow "My Boys." (There is a nauseating show titled this. Ugh.) It seems so unnecessarily anti-woman. Thoughts?

Man... the horror. A woman at a bachelor's party that wasn't in a clearly servile position. What could be more anti-woman?

Comments

[lirazel.livejournal.com]

I don't understand the whole batchelor party thing in the first place. Or Jack-and-Jill parties. Or (gack) batchelorette parties. It all seems to me to be something the wedding industry made up to make more money--and, incidently, seems to sow the seeds of many grudges to come. If one has to act ubermale as some sort of show of independence before tying the knot, by all means, make it paintball. But first, ask why.

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Well there is some valid logic. Essentially you may have some of your circle in town that wouldn't normally be. Wedding parties and receptions are fairly formal events. So a pre-wedding party is a chance to do fun things with friends while they're in town.

I tend to think the gender split is basically a stupid hold-over. I do admit that paint ball plays into the uber-male stereotype, but I'm mostly motivated because I'd want to do it and wouldn't have done it for several years. If another chance to do paintball came up between now and then, I'd probably just pick something else that would be fun to do with friends.