Why are so many women hellbent on acting against their own interest?

so you admit that it doesn't matter if others change their name in which case- why do you care enough to even prompt women to talk about it?

I changed my name because husband had an older daughter who had his surname and we were planning more kids - we wanted siblings to have the same surname and I didn't want to be the only one in the family to have a different name. If it wasn't for this purely practical reason he would have probably taken on my surname as he liked it more than his

what hoops will you jump through to spin it to fit your narrative?

I think you are reading an intent that doesn't exist into the thread.

Where did you get the notion that I need other people to not change their name in order for me to keep mine. I didn't change my name despite the best efforts of my il's who address post to me using my husband's surname and of the secretary in the dc's school whip also insisted on the same.

I really don't care what other people do. However I do find it amusing the hoops some women jump through to try and claim their decision to change theirs is somehow unrelated to patriarchical tradition.

@SerafinasGoose marital status if anything, which sure, used to be used interchangeably in theory, but in practice we have enough records of pregnant maidens to know how that went down 😜

Yes, I could - but at 18 years old, it honestly didn’t occur to me. And if it had, I probably wouldn't have done it, to spare my parents’ feelings. Getting married meant I could change it without upsetting anyone.

And I asked if it was OK, because the impression I have from this thread is that, having done something that is considered so I feminist, I have therefore utterly failed at feminism and should hand in my credentials immediately - whereas, as I said, I think we all do our best, and few, if any of us, will achieve perfection - but that doesn’t negate what we do.

No skin off my nose what other people call themselves.

It's that revolting term 'maiden name' I can't stand. The meaning of 'maiden' is quite clear: a name to denote your sexual status. Imagine that same distinction being applied to men?

We all know this simply wouldn't happen. Family name or last name will do fine. Or, for a novel change, 'own' name.

@OchonAgusOchonOh why do you need other people to not change their name to stick with yours? and if you don't need them to...then why do you care?

@CuriousAlien funnily enough it has been consistent theme in my life that people did try and change how i look and with each attempt it made me more defiant even if it is trivial

Your decision @SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius . It's not up to me to ok it or not.

However, if you hated it that much, why didn't you change it once you were old enough to do so? You could have legally changed it at 18.

@OchonAgusOchonOh - I do hate my maiden name, and it is one of the reasons I did decide to take dh’s name when we got married. My maiden name was used as the basis of the bullying that started when I was a preteen, and carried on u til I was 16 - bullying that left me having suicidal thoughts by the time I was 14. I like dh’s surname, so I was happy to change to it. Is that OK?

To address the wider point of this thread - there seems to be a huge list of things we must do, and things we must eschew, if we want to be considered a good feminist - and anything less than 100% compliance with these items means complete failure as a feminist. Surely the truth is that we are all doing our best, but that a vanishingly small number of us will be able to achieve every single thing on these lists.

@PaintedEgg I have a feeling you would take me down if I tried to mess with your self-image 🔥😊

@thedankness and maybe that answers another part of your op. Challenging a narrative can bring massive resistance because of the cognitive dissonance it causes. Do you know the poem Snow by Louis MacNeice? It has the phrase "incorrigibly plural" in it.

@CuriousAlien I think you're onto something very interesting. In psychology there is a lot about concept of what we consider to be our "self", but there is a lot of variation in how each person defines themself - it would make sense to assume the literal mental image we have differs.

I for one have a very defined imagine of what I look like in my head and I'm very possessive of it

@thedankness what about the idea that collecting women's stories about any of the particular issues you mentioned would help to challenge a single dominant narrative and reveal what solutions might be? I suppose what is most effective is when you have stories that might also contradict each other. Like hearing the voices of trans widows or detransitioners

@PaintedEgg yes that's a good extension of what I'm trying to say.

Thanks @Psychoticbreak I appreciate you answering my curiousity :D
Hehehe not as far as I know, I just made it up. I definitely didn't mean are you up your own arse! I just thought if I accept what you say as true for you, that you like putting makeup on just for yourself then what is the payoff?
My idea is, that if it isn't the gaze or judgement of another then is it your own gaze? And if not literal gaze (no judgement if it were) then is it a sort of self image gaze? I suppose the next question that interests me is to understand how to let people develop that self gaze and self pleasure without shame or pressure from the "beauty" industry and new social hierarchies driven by social media.
I really do believe that the more we listen to each other's stories, the more we'll figure out if there is harm somewhere and if so, what we can do to help each other. And that's not to say that everyone has to act for others, that's just my choice.

@Psychoticbreak that could be that as well 😛

but it would explain why some people care excessively about their own appearance for themselves while others have no defined image of what they look like in their own head

a bit like when people try to remember an interaction they may imagine how it went looking from first or third person perspective (ie they try to imagine they are looking at themselves)

i like how its going into the realm of cognitive psychology now

I took it to mean am I up my own arse to be honest 😆

@CuriousAlien are there any studies about this "self-gaze" concept? I find it very interesting!

@CuriousAlien I only look in the mirror to do hair and makeup and to give my self a once over look to make sure my dress is not in my knickers or something lol and thats it. I dont reapply makeup during the day or anythbng but i like the feeling of getting up and showered and just kinda polished for want of a better term. I do have days I look like I live under a bridge and insult people for the craic too but mainly I like to be fresh and ready for the day ahead. I dont wear makeup every day but I like the look and feel of it on my face.

@Psychoticbreak do you have a "self-gaze"?(for want of a better term)
What I mean is, do you have a consistent visual sense of yourself as wearing makeup or is it that you like to see yourself in reflection every so often? I am wondering exactly how the pay off works as it doesn't work like that in my brain. I can understand nail varnish or clothes as the colour or sparkle or texture is always visible.
Or is it more like "Kleider machen Leute" (I like the German phrase better than the English "clothes maketh the man"). So there is a sort of magic in dressing a certain way and wearing makeup in how it effects your sense of self, posture etc. Maybe like Granny Weatherwax's headology of the witch's hat.

I wanted this too but unfortunately guys round here around my age are so pornsick hookups are completely miserable. The women I'm attracted to either don't want hookups or are very into he der and/or kink too ..I'll amuse myself instead :P

On the name thing - it can swing all the way to the other end of expectation spectrum

I didn't change my name when I first got married and it was never even a question whether I would.

But then I got divorced, remarried and changed my name - and there was a lot of consideration that went into that decision. I also got a fair bit of criticism from no other than my dad who believed I should keep my maiden name because it's on all of my diplomas and I should not change my name for anyone. It is a bit insulting that my careful decision got thrown into "she's brainwashed by tradition" bag

Be nicer if people stopped judging others by their own choices....

I didnt change my name when I married my ex. I didnt like his name and it was not and never would be my identity. I am however just out of the shower, about to blow out my hair, put on some makeup and get dressed into something nice but practical for the fact I am working from home today and not seeing anyone or doing anything as it is too stormy out there. Ooh maybe I am doing it for the dog. He is male after all 😉

@ARockIsASlowSlowCooledOffFlameAndACradle I like how you summarised this variability...and based on that, can we really expect that women will work as one hive-mind to change social normals while amongst ourselves there is absolutely no agreement as to what bothers us - but the expectation of this hive-mind mentality is sometimes used to undermine us too.

I've seen social and political discussion where whatever an individual said was countered with "but other feminists said..."

Even on this forum I was met interchangeably with accusations of either just hating men/angry feminism, being subservient to men or being a man when my views or attitudes didn't align with whatever majority of women said on particular topic (before I joined here I never realised that my attitude towards sex can be so controversial).

It would be nice if we began treating each other as people with varied needs, wants and preferences first....

"I don’t see how you go from a situation where there is every expectation that a woman will do a particular thing such as change her surname to zero expectation without the actions of individuals changing the expectations of society."
Also, isn't one step in this process individual women (who get the ball rolling) saying, "I don't care about societal expectations or what other people think."