Male colleague - views on changing name

Can anybody remember that great comment by, I think, Janice Turner, when she said that you can tell if something's important by whether men are doing it? I've phrased it badly but the fact that men aren't changing their names is, imo, rather telling.

Dworkin's Right Wing Women went a long way in helping me understand why women make the choices they do. It went a long way toward helping me reel in my self righteous anger at women who failed to live up to my unrealistic expectations.

As far as men who presume to judge how feminist women are by how we negotiate the obstacles they put in our way? I don't care what they think.

You are essentially saying that it's not OK for women to have views about what constitutes feminism in the private, rather than public, sphere. The inherent contradiction in this argument is that you are making a judgement about MY private sphere when you tell me it's not OK for me to hold these views.

I was just clarifying- I wanted to be sure I understood you.

I think individual action is important. I think we should all try very hard to live feminist lives- obviously falling short as we do. Because otherwise how will things ever change? To be a fridge magnet for a moment, we need to be the change we want to see.

I don’t believe either the ‘objectively feminist/non feminist’ individual choice thing or the Pomo crap re woman choosing = feminist choice.

I think of it in terms of women’s individual choices being an ongoing negotiation with patriarchy and usually, where thought has been put in and choice has been made, a decision which ‘makes the best of it’ for those women as individuals.

In relation to individual choices that women make under patriarchal systems no, I don’t believe there is any such thing as an ‘objectively feminist’ or ‘objectively non feminist’ choice and further to that I think it is actively harmful to believe that it is appropriate for feminism to make those judgements regarding women’s choices or to apply those judgements as standards to other women in general.

I’m pretty sure I have already said that but apologies if not.

Really? I think there are a lot of fundamentally non feminist choices. I’ve made plenty of them in my time.......

It isn't an either or question so it can't have an either or answer except for the most basic fundamentals.

So , are you saying there is no such thing as an objectively feminist or an objectively non feminist choice?

I think the ‘objectively feminist choice’rs are speaking to feminists particularly too. They are trying to state that there is a ‘feminist choice’ and that for feminists that choice is keeping a birth surname...

I am pretty at those people who don’t appear to hold themselves to those same standards re getting married in the first place, or if they do, skimming over the fact that they are in that position re which choice to make only because of making the ‘objectively unfeminist’ choice to marry.

I don’t really believe any of these individual choices should be judged using these categories in the first place but I do find it strange that there has been no examination of personal choices re marriage (or having children TBH) according to the rules of ‘objectively feminist’ but there has been lots of fussing about names on marriage.

I’m specifically talking about the women who have given it some thought rather than the majority of people generally who don’t think about it and just follow cultural traditions.

I’m not expecting many of those women to be particularly bothered by feminists on feminism chat saying their choice is ‘not feminist’ or ‘anti feminist’

that women may want to dissociate from FOO or identify into a husband’s family? Surely people must understand this is actually quite a common thing?

Well yes, that is what I said but that would assume that the majority of women are in those circumstances - which they aren't - and that identifying into their husband's family is a priority.

It is not uncommon for men who wish to dissociate from their fathers to use their mother's surname and to describe it as their "mother's surname" - not their grandfather's surname.

And TBH given that the whole point of what the man in the OP said was to dominate by shaming, IMO, the fact she’s come on here and been shamed by feminists in the same way only to get a reluctant ‘Oh, sorry I understand why you might do that in your circs’ after she had to explain her personal reasons, is pretty disappointing to me.

I would agree that it is important for those who feel it is important. The part I am criticising is the application of ‘I think it is important and so it is objectively the only feminist choice’.

It is your choice and it is important to you but other women have different life experiences and different material conditions which have an effect on what choices they make. As soon as you cross the boundary between ‘it is important to me’ and ‘it is important for all women’ you lose the ability to understand other women and are left reluctantly conceding, after having made other women explain themselves, their choice was not so bad.

Since individual choices only really have impact when they are collective where you are ideologically positioning yourself IMO is trying to encourage that women collectively keep their birth surname as a means to disrupt a patrilineal surname practice.

Will it do that though? What are the consequences for women and children of doing this? Why do women not chose to do this en masse already? You have to listen to women who haven’t done it to understand this and putting up an ‘objectively your choice is not a feminist one’ simply shames them out of speaking.

Where I am positioning myself is this is simply tinkering around the edges since it is one issue which is not actually possible to overcome through individual choice given all surnames have a patrilineal heritage.

There are very many very good reasons why other women do not make this individual choice. If we want to understand this we need to listen and understand why women are generally not making this choice rather than telling them not having made the choice is ‘anti-feminist’ or ‘not feminist’.

Feminism is a political movement, not a yardstick men use to measure women by.

It is just another inappropriate male dominance display in the workplace.

And now I have to fulfil my wifely destiny and go to the supermarket!

Firstly, I believe that structural change usually comes about through the prior actions of individuals.
Secondly, I'd love to know how it's possible for any individual to examine the choices of another 'neutrally'. I believe this to be impossible. I have a strongly held belief that women refusing to change their names upon marriage is an important act. You take a different view. We both have priors and would be fooling ourselves if we claimed to be able to override these.

So what I would like, rather than deciding some individual choices are ‘objectively feminist’ and some are not, is if feminism examined the actual choices women made neutrally and related them to the material conditions under which all women live in a patriarchal culture.

I’m saying I don’t think it is appropriate to say that an individual’s choice is a ‘feminist choice’ (and the other choices are ‘not feminist’ or ‘anti feminist’) when it comes to personal decisions which are being made within a patriarchal framework.

Individual choices are subjective. They are based on personal factors which are different for different people.

A legal change which allows women to legally own property when they haven’t previously been allowed to is a structural change rather than an individual choice. These structural changes have an impact on what choices may be available but they do not, in isolation, rid property ownership of patriarchy.

If this structural change happens within a culturally and structurally patriarchal system there is little point shouting at women who, for example, are not prepared to be the owners of property in relationships with men since the context created by patriarchy in the structure outside that one law (re possibility of being a legal owner) is that women are frequently less able to be sure that they are going to be able to meet the legal and financial responsibilities entailed.

This is how patriarchy adjusts to continue oppressions when structural changes are made. It frequently may do something such as grant a right to own property whilst continuing to ensure it is difficult for women to actually own properties in practice.

It might pass laws re domestic violence whilst structuring social security so that it becomes increasingly difficult for women to make use of those laws or leave abusive men.

If rights are, in effect, on paper only a great number of people will employ ‘you should make use of your choice’ arguments which actually just serve to perpetuate the problems by making sure women never speak about the real reasons they made different choices, because it becomes shameful to do so. I think it is magnified when this happens within feminism.

FFS *there

it is particularly unhelpful when women start extrapolating their choices into general principles re ‘feminist choices’ and applying them as standards onto other women whose personal circumstances they do not know

Are you saying it is impossible for their to be an objectively feminist choice? Because I would take issue with that. For example, I would say that allowing women to own property is an objectively feminist choice. It's just a matter of where we draw the line as to what's objectively feminist and what isn't. You disagree with where I draw the line, that's all.

But if I did have a husband, he would also have his father's name. We pretty much all have our father's names (and no, don't pile in and tell me examples where we don't.)

Your colleague was being a dick, OP. Ignore him.

I don't have a husband. I'm bisexual. One day I might have a wife.

No, I can't be arsed. I'm exhausted, pretty depressed and came on Mumsnet as a distraction. Apparently I'm not enough of a feminist to be here because I use the term maiden name.

That really is the least of my worries at the moment.

Having to pull him up on it is still negotiation with patriarchy. Your kids still will be socialised into patriarchal gender roles and socially/economically sanctioned for breaking them.

I’m not arguing that individual choices have zero impact on individual lives. I’m arguing that it is foolish to believe that keeping a birth name or refusing to marry or pulling up male partners on bad behaviour are ‘feminist choices’. They are choices women make their in negotiations with a patriarchal culture over their own circumstances and that it is particularly unhelpful when women start extrapolating their choices into general principles re ‘feminist choices’ and applying them as standards onto other women whose personal circumstances they do not know.

This is what repeatedly happens in all narratives re the primacy of individual choice as a means to overcome structural oppressions and it usually ends with some sort of ‘oh but your choice is ok now I know the circumstances, I meant those other people’ concession.