more ‘news’. people have nothing better to do anymore
You know, as a feminist who is getting married this year, this has actually been something I’ve been thinking about a lot.
Like, on one hand, there are practical reasons for spouses to want to have the same name, sure.
But on the other hand, it is hugely inconvenient. It takes time and money, it can impact your eligibility to vote if you don’t get your ID updated fast enough. And like, symbolically, you are really changing a fundamental part of how you present yourself to the world- what family you are a part of.
And when all of that always traditionally falls on women all the time, and not on men…
It’s something to consider. It’s an issue that deserves some thought.
As another feminist getting married this year, this is absolutely a sexist double standard.
It’s massively disruptive to change your surname, people (women) do it because it’s a tradition (rooted in undeniably sexist history), and as a woman marrying a man you’re caught between doing something disruptive and inconvenient or fielding questions and nasty comments literally for the rest of your life. Which is a thing men don’t have to deal with. Women have to deal with something socially awkward and unpleasant by virtue of being women and men don’t by virtue of being men = sexism. My mother didn’t change her name on getting married because she didn’t see why she should have to, especially because she had established a career under her name and it would be very inconvenient to have a Masters and papers published under a name and then change it. And literally her whole life it’s been pointed comments; “Mrs. Myfathersname [sneer]” and “are your children adopted?” and “oh well I thought _my_ family was more important than my career [condescending smile]”. From sexist people, some of them otherwise lovely, but just they thought that she should do something that no one ever asked or expected of my father, just because he is a man and she’s not.
Like it’s fine if a person wants to change their name. Go nuts. Change your name to your spouse’s. Your mother’s. A artist-formerly-known-as symbol. You do you, brides. But the tradition and the pressure is sexist. It just is.
Like the way it’s totally fine and nice and lovely if an individual person wants to stay home and mind their own children, but it’s sexist to _expect_ it of women and be taken aback when it’s a man, and it’s dishonest to pretend like there isn’t pressure and or deny that a lot people will go along with the norm just because it’s a norm. And people do expect women to change their name. And they are taken aback if a man does. And there is pressure. And people do go along with the norm just because it’s a norm. Absolutely. And that is sexist. Not like “people who do this are sexist and awful” but like “this is coming from a sexist tradition when women were much less valued, and it is an unfair pressure on women, so it is an expression of sexism in our society”.
Agree with all of this. I have a friend who, when she married her husband, they decided that they would BOTH change their names – hers was Smith, and his was Barnwell – and they are now the Smithwells. I love that idea. Surname mash-ups should totally be the rule.
Also, when men do change their name to their wife’s name after marriage, once people get over the initial shock reaction they often congratulate those men like they performed an extra special trick at the dog show. My cousin’s husband took her name and people keep telling him what a great and noble thing he did, “giving up his name” like that. But apparently your name is only valuable if you’re male.
Meteorologist Liberté Chan was in the middle of her forecast when she was given a cardigan to cover up. Viewers were apparently writing in, appalled by her outfit. In a second video posted to her Facebook page, Chan and a coworker read some of the “angry emails” and responded.
And there it is. The exact problem with this whole thing in six words. Dress codes follow women from school to professional life — and in every situation, they are sending a clear and damaging message about priorities.
I was sent a script recently, and the opening scene was; Jessica, or maybe not Jessica, whatever her name was, rolls around in bed and stretches. She’s 35, and in brackets they had it say 8/10, close brackets. I closed the script, and didn’t read the rest of it. Because you cannot reduce a character, you cannot make them their attractability, you can’t number them and then claim you’ve written a multidimensional female character, or a male character. That is just not acceptable. […] And I think it’s very important to say ‘this is the reason I didn’t respond to, or didn’t read your script’, because that’s absolutely outrageous. You can’t do that.
“The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities; we should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness.”
2. When St. Thomas Aquinas Said Women Are Sperm Accidents
“… A female is deficient and unintentionally caused. For the active power of the semen always seeks to produce a thing completely like itself, something male. So if a female is produced, this must be because the semen is weak or because the material [provided by the female parent] is unsuitable, or because of the action of some external factor such as the winds from the south which make the atmosphere humid.”
3. When Napoleon Said Women Are Just Slaves
“Nature intended women to be our slaves… they are our property; we are not theirs. They belong to us, just as a tree that bears fruit belongs to a gardener…. Women are nothing more than machines for producing children.”
4. When Cato The Elder Argued That All Women Are Wild Animals
“Woman is a violent and uncontrolled animal, and it is useless to let go the reins and then expect her not to kick over the traces. You must keep her on a tight rein…. Women want total freedom or rather – to call things by their names – total licence. If you allow them to achieve complete equality with men, do you think they will be easier to live with? Not at all. Once they have achieved equality, they will be your masters.”
5. When Pliny The Elder Warned That Menstrual Blood Is Poisonous
“On the approach of a woman in this state, must will become sour, seeds which are touched by her become sterile, grafts wither away, garden plants are parched up, and the fruit will fall from the tree beneath which she sits. Her very look, even, will dim the brightness of mirrors, blunt the edge of steel, and take away the polish from ivory. A swarm of bees, if looked upon by her, will die immediately.”
6. When Plutarch Did Not Approve Of Independent Lady-Emotions
“A wife should have no feelings of her own, but share her husband’s seriousness and sport, his anxiety and his laughter.”
7. When Friedrich Nietzsche Was Basically Just Friedrich Nietzsche
“Finally – woman! One-half of mankind is weak, typically sick, changeable, inconstant – woman needs a religion of weakness that glorifies being weak, loving, being humbled as divine.”
8. When Jean-Jacques Rousseau Said Ladies Only Need To Be Taught About Men
“The whole education of women ought to be relative to men. To please them, to be useful to them, to make themselves loved and honored by them, to educate them when young, to care for them when grown, to council them, to console them, and to make life agreeable and sweet to them – these are the duties of women at all times, and should be taught them from their infancy.”
9. When Sigmund Freud Despaired Of Grown Ladies’ Sexuality
“The sexual life of adult women is a ‘dark continent’ for psychology.”
10. When James Joyce Was A Bit Of An Idiot
“Men are governed by lines of intellect – women: by curves of emotion.”
I love being able to blunt steal and kill swarms of bees.
