Apparently I can't be a feminist because I changed my name when I married.

Surely, in this day and age, it's actually about creating your family name? Men can change their names if they wish - nothing to stop them.

I changed my name when we married because it was something I wanted to do. I did not, however, promise to obey my husband in my marriage vows. That really would have been unfeminist!

I don't judge individual women on changing or not changing their name, but I do think it is a real shame that so few women keep their name, and default to being Mrs Hubby (both 'Mrs' and 'Hubby' being defaults). A sea-change is long overdue.

why dont you have double barrelled Ms His-Your Name
i do think the whole mrs hisname and mrs is archaic
i do think its fair enough to query why you took his name as opposed to maintain own name or double barrelled

It is trivial - you can do whatever you like and it is nothing to do with anyone else. If I had a double barrelled name the very first thing that I would do, as soon as old enough, is drop half and I would keep the part I liked best and I couldn't care if it came from the male or female side.
Women need to concentrate on things that matter.

I think it is un-feminist to change your name to your husband - I don't see how it can be anything but. I have changed my name, but if I'm honest, it doesn't sit completely well with my feminist principles.

DH didn't expect me to. I kept my own name for quite a while, but by the time it came to have children, I decided to make the change as I wanted us all to have the same name. Weak and feeble reasons, really, but there you go.

I do think the surname/title thing is important in the grand scheme of things. It seems so insignificant to the usual anti-feminist types, but it's not. It's just another way that women are assimilated, and the Miss/Mrs thing - being defined by your marital status in a way that men are not, is ridiculous in this day and age.

But - I do loads of things which are incompatible with feminism. Anyone deigning to tell me I'm not a feminist based on any of that, would be given extremely short shrift.

I think gender is a construct. I believe in equality of the sexes.

And I do think there are things that are incompatible with feminism. But IMO they tend to be sustained practices in society, not one-off decisions made only by women.

I agree it is un-feminist to change your name to match your husband's. But most of us do un-feminist things; you have to pick your battles. It doesn't mean you're not a feminist, though it does work the other way around: women who take pride in being Not A Feminist love to tell us all how they honour their husband by taking his name, or some such codswallop Perhaps the woman on R4 had met one too many of those!

Anyway, this is still a free country, allegedly. You can use as many names as you like as long as you're consistent :)

I hate the 'you can't be a feminist if...' things. They tend to come from the same women who believe that everyone should be a feminist, too (which I sympathise with). You can't have it both ways, either anyone who believes in gender equality is a feminist, or people who stick to one exact lifestyle and world view are feminists. It's silly, I'm agnostic, but I certainly don't agree with every other agnostic, or make the same choices as them. Why should being a feminist restrict the choices of women? I thought the whole point is that we don't want that!

Oh, FFS, anyone who judges on something as single-issue as whether you changed your name ...!

I didn't change mine, and I'm hoping if we have children we can give them mine. But it's one decision.

I think it is important is that using the name you want is respected, and that it's not assumed that all women are 'Mrs Husbandsname', but that's part of a bigger issue of respect, surely.

I preferred DH's to mine but I didn't hate mine enough, I don't think, to change it if I was a man. Its much more socially acceptable to change your name as a woman, a man would have to explain himself all the time so would probably need a greater level of dislike to force the decision to change. I don't love my new name so I think if I was getting married now I might go with my mothers maiden name, which is lovely and fuck knows why she inflicted my dad's name on us

If you keep your surname and he keeps his, which surname do the kids get if you don't want to double barrel?

I'm never sure why some people get so worked up about the whole surname thing. I am Miss X at work and Mrs Y at home for pragmatic reasons; I married at a stage when it would have been professionally inadvisable for many reasons to namechange. An added benefit is that I have a work identity and a home one - a bit like a work and home wardrobe.

Whilst I can't get excited about it, I don't see the point of the recent spate of new double-barrelling. I know some people have rational reasons to do so, or genuine old D-B'd names, but I also know of a fair number who do it to for the aesthetics (to sound posher?), which seems a bit pointless IMO. But then I think personalised number plates are pointless, too, so I guess I'm not that bothered about names.

You can't be a feminist if you got married

Or so I was once told

I chose to change my name when I married.

I have chosen to keep this name even though I will soon be divorced.

My life. My choice.
I am a feminist.

me neither, defineme

I don't really care, tbh

I suppose I mean't cultural norm to do that then...but think you knew that.

I'm just not sure we've come far enough in terms of women's position in society to be able to do without symbolic gestures and I think the name is a good symbol. Sorry if that sounds garbled.

part of the reason I kept my name was because I thought about having the same name as my mother inlaw and it didn't appeal and I thought about not having the same name as my Mum and felt sad: so it wasn't all high falutin' feminist ideals.

I'd never judge a person by their name and it's not something i'd get worked up about in real life.

I kept my surname on marriage, and for me it was definitely a feminist decision. It was not my dad's name as such, when I married at 28, that was just historical accident if you like - at that point it had been my name for 28 years and was staying that way.

However: "I think the woman you listened to on R4 was confusing the act with the person. " Yes, I agree. I think keeping your name is (or can be) a feminist act, and I wish more women would do it, but changing your name doesn't stop you being a feminist.

My dad hates his surname but TBH my mum's maiden name was even worse.

I do know a man who absolutely hated his own dad so he changed his surname to his wife's. He emphatically did not want their children sharing the same surname as their abusive grandfather.

Men can change their surname if they wish

I would prefer it if I lived in a country where you can choose what you do

like this one I reside in

I have heard the 'hated my surname' 'hate my family' reasons from so many women, what do the men who feel like this about their surname do?

If women's surnames are optional/something we make a choice about then why aren't men's?

How would you have felt if we were like one of the European countries that use the women's surnmae or everyone keeps their own-can't remember where that is-Spain?

"I think with regard to putting women off the movement, some women don't need a lot to be put off."

Sorry, this is a bit of a tangent because not referring to OP, but yes, that's so true Fastidia!

I hear both men and women saying stuff like "oh well I believe in women's rights, but this is going too far, blah blah blah" and "this kind of stuff gives feminism a bad name" etc, but I get the impression that those people are looking for a reason to be put off, whilst at the same time trying to sound reasonable that they tried to give feminism a chance but it was just too extreme ....

I'm not married but if I ever do get married I will probably keep my own surname because that's just what I'm used to and I don't think I would ever get used to being called something else. I don't think this decision makes anyone more or less of a feminist than anyone else, I don't think any single decision stops people being feminists.

My family is split equally between our two names, we chose the dd's surnames based on which of our surnames 'went' better with the first names we liked. So dd1 has my surname nothing to do with her father being an arse and me wanting to make sure she was mine and not his, and dd2 has dp's surname. It hasn't caused any problems so far that we have different surnames, apart from when the cm has to fill in forms to take dd2 to certain toddler groups and she can't remember her surname, only mine.

*next

*Will we