Male colleague - views on changing name

Also those of you saying it's only your fathers name you give up when you change, try applying that logic to your husbands. You aren't taking their name. You're taking your FILs.

It also won't do to suggest women pointing out that name changing is unfeminist aren't applying the same standards to marriage itself. Because for that argument to hold good, we'd have to live in a society where marriage didn't offer women as a class (not all women) more economic benefits than not marrying. We don't live in that society.

You changing your name was not feminist, but neither was him even asking you, let alone passing judgement in that way. Men thinking they're qualified to make assessments about feminism is skeevy as fuck. He ought to have stayed in his lane.

Just because you have tried to signal that through your choice over your name does not mean that patriarchy has interpreted it that way or that it has contributed to any meaningful change for other women. It’s nice and easy to self soothe by saying your birth name is your father’s name and for this to be true given names are inherited from fathers as standard.

Men complaining about women keeping birth names are complaining that ‘their’ woman is rejecting signalling they are owned by them, not because they see keeping a birth name as particularly problematic re patriarchy in general.

I think society is changing, and you can tell by the way patriarchy and masculinity are changing, as a result of divorce and increasing numbers of cohabiting rather than married couples (not all of which are down to feminism) but what shift has occurred due to naming decisions?

Getting married but keeping your birth surname is not really that important to patriarchy, though it may be important to individual men. It hasn’t caused any kind of backlash or adjustment in masculinity since some women have kept birth names for an age and men have always had varying degrees of success in squashing this depending on how much a woman needed to be married or not.

offred I disagree that these decisions have 'virtually zero effect on women’s material conditions as a group.'

There is a collective, ongoing shift in women's status and part of that is signalling that an increasing number of us refuse to be defined as the wholly owned subsidiary of a man.

For keeping names to be easier you would need to be dismantling the social and economic sanctions women face when they do not comply with patriarchal standards.

It might make give other women who are likely to face relatively fewer social and economic sanctions a reason to consider it rather than just blindly following tradition but it does not make it possible for women who have no power in their relationships and who have the greatest level of benefit from signalling belonging.

It’s not a ‘bad thing’.

What I am saying is it doesn’t justify categorising certain choices about private life as ‘objectively feminist’ and others as ‘objectively non/anti feminist’.

Whatever decision a woman has made you can guarantee it will have been made as part of an ongoing negotiation with patriarchy (even if she doesn’t believe there is a patriarchy), that it concerns what she has determined is the best fit for her if she has thought about it.

It was easy for me to keep my name as I married late and had noone close to me pressuring me to change, so I’m not claiming any special virtue. I also made the unfeminist decision to give my dcs their dad’s name (albeit with mine as a middle) which I wish I’d thought more about.
But every woman who keeps their name or double barrels or does this for their children makes it a bit easier for the next woman to do so.

I don’t have dds but when my sons grow up they are less likely to have any expectation that future wives will change their names on marriage, and that doesn’t seem like a bad thing to me.

I’m not saying they don’t matter.

I’m saying they do matter.

I’m saying they matter very much to the indivuals and those directly concerned.

What I am disputing is that a certain decision made by an individual woman re that individual woman’s private life can be categorised as ‘objectively feminist’ and other decisions ‘objectively non/anti feminist’.

I am urging people to consider the consequences of categorising complex and individual calculations re negotiation with patriarchy as ‘better’ or ‘worse’ for all women when these individual decisions have real social and economic consequences for individuals but virtually zero effect on women’s material conditions as a group.

The result of that is that feminists mirror patriarchal oppressive behaviour by making individual women accountable to feminism for individual and private decisions concerning only themselves and their families in the same way women are expected to be accountable to patriarchy.

Offred - for one thing, it teaches my daughter that her own identity is just as real and important as her brother's.

It prevents the erasure of my ethnic group in the UK.

It means I have a consistent professional profile throughout my life and that materially helps me to find work as a self-employed woman.

It makes it easier for other women to make the same choice in future.

I'm about to get off the tube with my kids so will return and add more later.

Just because these changes are small doesn't mean they don't matter.

Is your colleague married?

Did he take his wife's name when he did?

If he didn't, there is no basis to his claim that the's a better feminist than you.

Also, there's no claim anyway, he sounds like a nob.

My DH would think this but has better sense than to say it .

Gorgon - and how does your name choice/feelings about your name actually change anything at all re patrilineal naming practices or material reality for women generally?

As I have said a number of times I always assume that where women have thought about these things they have made the right decision for them.

But if we are going to say there is an objectively feminist decision then it needs to be about more than just being different to what is expected or what is best for an individual woman and if it is about best for one woman we are heading down the POMO territory of every choice an individual woman makes is a feminist one.

He's a gaslighting idiot. I bet he asks vegetarians why they aren't vegan, if their shoes are leather or of the theys accept a pigs heart valve in life saving surgery.

So what if you changed to your husbands name.? Where did you get your original surname from anyway - your mum??

Just to add, when I and my wife got married, confusion from some people who asked if she was changing her name? What to did they expect us to swap? The only double barreled person is the cat and her registration at the vets. The point b being that women are still supposed to do something to show they are no longer single whilst men are not.

And it’s terribly naive to think that in a system of patrilineal naming patriarchy won’t see your birth name as your father’s name even when you identify it as yours.

My daughter has my name as well as her father's. If she passes that on to her daughter, in what sense is that a name handed down by men?

It's my name, not my father's. I have a different ethnic background to my husband who has a surname that reflects his very white British heritage, and I have no intention of concealing my ethnic background.

And it’s terribly naive to think that in a system of patrilineal naming patriarchy won’t see your birth name as your father’s name even when you identify it as yours.

It’s no more or less valid to see your birth name as yours than it is to see a name you chose to take, whether it is your husband’s name or another name handed down via men, as your name.

The system is one which denotes women as belonging to men, fathers or husbands. That is the reality no matter how individual women may feel about their names.

So, make your own negotiation by all means but don’t think your choice to keep your birth name is in anyway radical or revolutionary or an example other women should be judged by.

‘Being different to what patriarchy expects’ is not sufficient to make an individual choice an ‘objectively feminist’ one IMO.

It’s simply contrarianism at an individual level over individual issues that affect you as an individual and that carry with it social and often economic consequences.

Women would be batty to take on those consequences just for the sake of a small fuck you. Invariably it’s women for whom those consequences are relatively small who do keep their birth surname.

Oops!
Her own private life have any effect at all on the material conditions of women generally.

Well, I think you need to outline what criteria you are using to categorise certain choices made by individuals as ‘objectively feminist’ and others as ‘objectively non-feminist’.

I don’t believe that’s possible since I don’t believe one woman’s choices about her own private

He's a misogynistic twatty little troll.

I took my husband's name when we got married, our children have his surname, it's now our family name. I was only changing from my father's name. As much as I love my dad I've always hated my maiden name so for me it was an easy choice (I also used to fantasise about being Mrs DH surname before we got married ). But this has no bearing on my feminism, I'll choose whatever bloody name I like, thanks! Your colleague was being a nasty little troll.

I am working on my family tree at the moment and it has really struck me that on records women just disappear once they marry, often making their original family difficult to trace. Consequently I have urged my dds never to change their name.

And there are lot of sirtuations where the non feminist choice is the only one available at the time-or the best one for the individual woman at the time. I can't see circumstances where taking your husband's name fits those criteria.

"Women’s choices re this stuff involve negotiations with patriarchy and are made on the basis of ‘what will be best for me in my circumstances’ or ‘what I can reasonably achieve for me’."
Yes of course. And sometimes that choice will be the non feminist one. Because circumstances. But it's still important to acknowledge that it's a non feminist choice we're making.

Offred I totally agree re: pragmatic choices made by women under a pervasive system of patriarchy.

Feminism, as a movement, needs to be careful about imposing rigid standards of conformity on its members. We risk replacing the current system of male oppression with a system of female oppression and women deciding that they prefer to stick with the devil they know than to take a punt on a system proposed by the very women who are shaming them.

Every change requires buy-in. Women need to be convinced with facts in respectful discussions, not coerced and shamed into changing their minds.

We also need to remain mindful - as Offred points out - that some women simply will not be in a practical position to actively take part in the process of making change. I see no point in condemning those women for attempting to make the best of and survive their oppression in the best way they know how.