Reflections on Bitch Planet: Triple Feature
Recently, I re-read Bitch Planet Volume 2 for WTF+ YEG Book Club. This led me to shamefully admit to the group that I had not been reading the mini-series, Bitch Planet: Triple Feature!, even though the issues were conveniently located in my comics subscription file. I read the 3 issues that had been released so far a couple nights later.
As I was reading the short stories taking place in the world of Bitch Planet, but on Earth rather than the offworld jail of the main series, I couldn’t help but think about my role in this world as a married woman.
It’s not news, and there have been countless articles on Bitch Planet, but here I am anyway.
In my teens, I grew a fascination for 1950’s culture. Drunk on my white privilege, I reveled in boomerang tile and ranch houses, never once thinking of the pervasive racism of the day and gender roles women were forced into. I didn’t dream of being a housewife, but I sure as hell created a future for myself that may have ended that way. Nowadays, I’ve moved past that obsession and only have an attraction to the aesthetic. My current ideal space is a cozy mix of 1940’s minimalism and 1970’s comfort, and deep, earthy tones(oddly, both decades where women were expected to step up to join the workforce and the waves of feminism rose higher).
I grew up with little interest in marriage. I assumed I would get married “someday”, but never put too much thought into it. When I was very young, I believe 28-29 was my “someday” range – perhaps it seemed old enough. Or perhaps I was raised by society to believe that 30 was the End Times for a woman, so never questioned why I had put my nebulous marker ahead of this dreadful milestone. In my early 20’s, I was in a long term relationship with a man who I assumed I would marry. We dated for around 4 years, and it became quite obvious he was never going to propose. Around that age, I was full force into thinking that’s what a relationship needed to move to the next level. Of course, it ended with us falling out of love with each other, so really nothing was going to improve anything.
As it happens, I am currently married. I did not end up a 32-year old spinster. The best man I’ve ever known saved me from the terrible fate of Being Alone In My 30’s(sarcasm heavily implied). I knew marriage could be hard, but I didn’t realize that much of the stress would come from myself. I didn’t realize I had put myself in a box of my own making until I had been married a couple years. I stressed about Having It All. I was bound and determined to work a fulltime job AND cook dinner AND keep the house tidy AND feed the cats. I felt guilty asking Brandon to help out with housework, as if I was shirking my duties. I felt as if I had poured my own glass of the proverbial Kool-Aid and given in to what I thought a wife should be.
It took a long time, and I still have difficulties. Brandon and I are equal partners in many ways. We live together, own a business together, plan together, we make sure the cats are happy together. Reading Bitch Planet has been healthy for me, because I can often readdress who I am as a wife and woman.
I’m going to leave this idea to simmer for a bit. Please leave a comment below if the series has, or has not, made a similar effect on you. If married, did you have to fight against any gender roles to find a comfortable way to live with your partner? If not, how do you see a married you? And if marriage isn’t in your plans, do you have any issues cohabitating?