“You can condemn and move one poster’s judgment aside but it wouldn’t end the discussion of why such practices were started and why they are tolerated? Is it time to end them or society isn’t ready yet because it’s an acceptable norm and must be defended?”
These name-changing “practices” shouldn’t be tolerated? It’s time to end them?
Why would anyone care? Why is this anybody else’s business? Whether woman (or for that matter any person) chooses to keep or change her name is her decision and no one else’s. She may or may not wish to consider her husband’s opinion, but beyond that everyone else should just butt out and move on with their lives.
@doschicos, birth name would be a good substitute for maiden name…except for those adopted into their families as infants/children. My unmarrried daughter has a birth name that changed when she was an infant, but she doesn’t consider it her name (though we kept part of it as a middle name).
@mom2and I think the posts on this page continue to make what I mean clear. And as far as “young feminists,” the ones I know have more important issues of real substance to debate than the hackneyed judgmentalism displayed by some posters here.
As previously stated, D1 did not change her name (for professional reasons, not as a stand against patriarchy) and D2 probably will, at least in some way. I support and will support both of them in whatever they choose. Nothing they do or don’t do in this regard will change who they are in terms of their “identity.”
This is a basic human trait and you could easily replace judgmental with dumb or something similar. It doesn’t matter what the topic at hand is. We all want to think we’re the smart ones with whatever decision we make/made so “obviously” anyone who chose differently has a reason it happened (dumb, uniformed, etc).
If we happen to change our minds about the topic at a later time we also give ourselves a “dumb” label. It allows us to retain the idea that we’re (currently) smart.
It takes intelligent thought to realize two people can both be smart even when they come to differing conclusions. “Smartness” isn’t at all connected to many of these decisions. It’s more akin to color preference (eg I like the green one, she likes the blue one). And yes, many times folks will assume the person preferring the “wrong” color isn’t as smart. It’s how humans naturally tick.
Overcoming the idea that we all need to be the same in our choices shows intelligence.
D1, when asked, told someone recently that she and her new husband do not intend to have children. She was told that that she and DH must be “incredibly selfish.”
I have no words…well, not that I can say on this forum.
I changed my name when I married because I wanted to have the same name as my kids and my husband’s name is particular to his family. There are roughly a dozen of us with the name worldwide. My maiden name was very common and it never felt special to me.
My Swedish SIL (my husband’s sister) just got married and her husband took her name for the same reasons I changed mine. He’s now Mr. 22, just like my husband.
I ended up keeping my original middle name as my current middle name instead of my maiden name because it’s my grandmother’s maiden name and I liked the idea of keeping it. I gave it to my daughter as her middle as well.
There are all sorts of ways of honoring tradition and family and all sorts of ways of being a feminist. AFAIC feminism has always been about having choices.
I didn’t change my name when I married, as I didn’t marry young and I had had so many life adventures as “inthegarden” by that age that I couldn’t imagine being anyone else. I also feared I’d resent the name change when/if my husband ever had an argument! Also, up to that point in my adult life I had few friends who DID change their names (I guess we considered ourselves to be a progressive bunch).
Then, a few months after we married we moved (H’s career) to a small-town, conservative community. I honestly felt a good bit of culture shock in those first years, as if I’d been dropped into a time warp. I’m very much an anomoly NOT having the same name of my husband and I think many people must assume at first my child has a different name because of divorce. Most people call me "Mrs (not Ms) Inthegarden and if they don’t know DH, assume my husband is Mr. Inthegarden.
In the first weeks of my first job here a male co-worker announce in a large-group meeting of around 30 people (as a joke, but sort of not) “I guess you don’t really love your husband since you didn’t change your name.” To this day, I wish I had quipped back, “well then, I guess YOU don’t love your wife!” I did think of it, but was afraid to hurt/offend the female employees I was trying to bond with. But now I think they would have liked the little joke.
I have no regrets about not changing my name, but at times I feel a little twinge not sharing a last name with my daughter. We adopted her from another country, so since we don’t share a biological tie or physical resemblance it would be nice to share the name. She does have my name and part of her birth name as middle names (poor kid, I told her she can drop anything she likes when she’s an adult). But in the end, patriarchy or no patriarchy, I feel it’s important from a practical standpoint that she have my husbands name. She doesn’t look anything like him, either, and it’s important these days that her name matches his on IDs. After all, no one looks askance or questions our mother/daughter bond when the two of us travel together, but I’m afraid that might not be the case when she’s out and about with dad.
“In the first weeks of my first job here a male co-worker announce in a large-group meeting of around 30 people (as a joke, but sort of not) “I guess you don’t really love your husband since you didn’t change your name.” To this day, I wish I had quipped back, “well then, I guess YOU don’t love your wife!” I did think of it, but was afraid to hurt/offend the female employees I was trying to bond with. But now I think they would have liked the little joke.”
I so wish you had but, having spent my career in a male dominated industry, I can understand why you didn’t back then as there is stuff that was said to me that I would just grin and bear. Grrr…what an ass.
Good thing I’m retired now, I guess, because I wouldn’t be so forgiving and would definitely make a retort, and likely more.
As a parent-administrator in youth sports, it makes me crazy when parents send an email about Susie, but don’t tell me that Susie has a different last name, I don’t want to have to log into the database to figure this one out. (Tip: please make it clear in every written correspondence).
Years ago, I happily changed my name and followed my husband’s military career. I used my maiden name as a middle name. Mostly as a middle initial.
Fifteen years ago, I got a position in a company importing Italian goods. My maiden name gives me credibility in that arena. I use my First-Maiden-Last name in all correspondence. It helps and has opened many conversations.
D is getting married in January and is changing her name. I love her name and it makes me a tad sad that she is changing it. She also has a fabulous set of Initials, The new initials are like dog, cod, or cat. YMMV.
I will admit that I have probably thought a little less of women who didn’t change their names, or at least lamented that keeping your name seems less common than it was. This thread has been a very interesting read and I had not thought of many of the reasons why people wanted to jettison their birth names.
As I’ve posted in other threads, I’ve encountered very little discrimination in 33 years as a female engineer. The low point was when I was talking to a civil engineer (ironic) about a technical issue and told him I needed consult with my boss about it. Literally sneering, he said, “Oh, you have to run back to talk to Daddy about it?” OMG! This was a guy who was usually amiable and friendly. I was so stunned I didn’t say anything. I sure wish I could remember Bob’s last name, because I would love to send him a little note…
@MaineLonghorn if you are on fb you could post something there - it might just circle back to him!
On a different but similar note (sorry if this has already been addressed), why are we still using Miss, Ms and Mrs? Bothers me so much that men have the same title regardless of marriage. Why do we need to advertise whether or not a woman is single? Men have Mr. Can’t women just have Ms?
“…why are we still using Miss, Ms and Mrs? Bothers me so much that men have the same title regardless of marriage.”
We’re are not still using those. Or least we are not still using them in my industry (biotech). Women in my field are formally addressed as either Ms. or Dr. Same for all the female teachers that my daughters had while growing up.
Getting rid of Miss and Mrs. in formal and public address was one of the big feminist battles of the 1970s - a battle that they mostly won. Who still uses Miss or Mrs.?
You’d be surprised, @Scipio …Who? People in small towns across major swaths of the the U.S. That adds up to a lot of people, even if they’re not of your world.
Where I live, I believe the use of Ms. is seen as a sort of affectation. In my current lifestyle I’m mostly addressed by my first name, so it doesn’t affect me much.
@doschicos, you might not believe the kinds of things (even inadvertent things that I took for granted were considered “normal” in this day and age) that got me into social trouble upon moving to this place. And I don’t think I’m culturally insensitive, or radical. I had grown up in the deep south to somewhat open-minded but conservative parents, so I’m not exactly unused to traditional ways of doing things. So I tried to put on my “observer” hat at work and tiptoe a little while figuring things out.
I had less difficulty adapting to cultures overseas during my two tours of Peace Corps service. In those places I was treated as a guest and forgiven cultural faux pas as an invited outsider. Here, being an outsider is something vaguely threatening to some folks. Heck, before I had even set foot in my place of employment, my boss had circulated my resume to everyone who worked there (it was supposed to be a sort of team-building practice) and just the places I had lived and the jobs I had worked screamed “weird” in the context of this community.
Also, up to that point in my adult life I had few friends who DID change their names (I guess we considered ourselves to be a progressive bunch).