ladyoflisquill | A comment on privilege (Reply)

I often see a lot of lj friends post about issues relating to white privilege or male privilege and I wanted to say something on heterosexual privilege.

I was having dinner last night with a group of girls - some friends, some acquaintances, some I'd never met before. One of the girls who got married about 4 years ago, and who was a single mother previously to that, was saying how her and her husband would have been better off financially if they hadn't of gotten married. As a single mother she would still get lone parents allowance and mortgage allowance but as a married couple they get nothing.

And I was sitting there thinking, wow, I can't believe you're bitching about the fact that you have the choice to get married. I'm sorry you feel being legally entitled to be considered in your partners life is such a burden. I'm sorry that you will never have to face the reality of being turned away from your partners bedside because you are legally strangers, or that your child will be taken away from your partner in the event of your death because they are not biologically related.

And she finished off by saying something like, 'Oh but we wanted to be married, so we just did it'.

Yeah... I'm glad you could do that!