The core of feminism is the idea that women ought to have agency over their own lives and make their own decisions based on what is right for them.

 

Yes, I’m fully aware of the awful, sexist origins of the tradition. Women long were considered chattel, and if they had any rights at all, they usually were conferred through their fathers or, if married, their husbands. So much of that tradition of subservience and inequality still reverberates today, including the way the coronavirus pandemic economy hit women hardest in part because the burden of inadequate child care access falls disproportionately on them.

But if I rejected every tradition rooted in notions that women are merely the property of men, or at the very least meant to be submissive to them, I couldn’t have married in the first place, for matrimony was traditionally seen as a business arrangement between a bride’s father and her groom.

If I took such a purist interpretation of feminism, I also could not have worn a shade of white on my wedding day, a vestige of the truly gross tradition of signaling a bride’s chastity. I designed my own ivory gown of beaded lace and silk, and sewed it with my own hands. It could not have been more a representation of who I am, and not shaped by notions from magazines or social media of what a bride should look like. What’s more feminist than that?

Kimberly Atkin Stohr Kimberly Atkins Stohr is a columnist for the Globe. She may be reached at kimberly.atkinsstohr@globe.com.