Wake up! We are in 2007. Women are no longer owned by their father and then their husband. So why are some women still changing their surnames? And why do some men still want them to? It's sad, it's misogynous, it's archaic, it's insecure and it's unnecessary. Why would you do something so drastic simply because you decided to delude yourself it was easier? Because you are deeply insecure, deeply conservative or deeply stupid. And in deep denial.
Oz Conservative has some good thoughts.
4 comments:
"Thanks to feminism, women should be allowed and encouraged to do anything they want. But the question I ask is why do some women still want to change their surnames?"
Translation: Women are allowed and encouraged to do anything that feminists think they should do. If they want to do anything else they're stupid and oppressed and in denial.
Well, somebody is definitely stupid here, but I don't believe it's the women who choose to change their surnames.
This is such a tough issue for me, because I've kept my last name after my marriage.
I've actually been all over the board on this one. First, we decided to both hyphennate our last name Abby & Jon X-Y. We did that for our first year of marriage (my husband's grad school thesis still has that weird last name on it). But we both hated it.
So then we went back to our original names. We decided easily that our kids would all have their dad's last name. When our daughter was born, I was doing slightly dangerous work in domestic violence law. At the time, it seemed better to have my name be Mrs. Maiden Name at work, and Ms. Y. at home. Now that I've been a stay at home mother for three years, that seems sort of ridiculous.
Baby number three was just born this summer and all her hospital papers said "Baby My Maiden Name" even though her official name on the birth certificate is Baby Y. That annoys my husband, and the kids are getting sort of old (oldest is 4), for it not to be obvious soon if we are not all last name "Y."
Still, I don't know. I just started a blog and I love having my writing filed under Abigail X. At church, I hate being considered divorced, so I write my name as Abby X-Y. When I got a package from my mother-in-law last week, I automatically signed Mrs. Y, as I do on all of my letters to her. The postman noticed and said "so it's only taken a year, but you've finally changed your name." Of course, I didn't tell him that its been 6 years and I still sign my married tax returns Mrs. Maiden Name.
I guess it has just taken me a long time to get the last name thing figured out. I'll may finally be Mrs. Y only on my tomb stone!
Hmmm...
My parents divorced when I was three, and my paternal grandfather's surname was given to him when his stepfather adopted him. So I have one living relative (besides my mother who kept her married name after the divorce) with that last name.
I happily took my husband's name, at least it has tradition. And I really like being called Mrs. S.
Of course, the only real alternative here is to make up one's own surname, likely goddess-inspired or with "gyn" in it somewhere, otherwise any surname can be traced to some man somewhere! I can't think that I am oppressed or stupid or whatever for exchanging the name of a man I never knew for the name of one I know & love. My last name was never part of my identity (it wasn't the same as my mother's or my siblings', for example, and I could not have taken the name of my abusive stepfather with a good conscience). But that's what feminism does--when it can't come up with any real arguments, it falls back on oppression and language. *yawn*
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