Christmas cards and women changing their name upon marriage!

[mulledoverwine]

I am recently married and did not change my name.

I have been writing out my Christmas cards tonight and have realised that only 1 other woman I am posting to hasn't changed their name and another double barrelled theirs (he didn't).

Everyone else is Mr & Mrs {His Initial} Patriarchy.

I am quite enraged by it all! I have become more feminist as I have got older as I have started to question the norm more. Especially since reading the feminist boards on here.

I just want to shake every woman who changes their name!!

I am going to get slaughtered here aren't I??

Well, Neiflette I guess there need to be enough women doing the name-keeping in order to redress the balance. Preferably 50% of marrying couples! So all the women who hate their maiden name etc can carry on being in the other 50%. But if we have all this arguing about whether keeping your name is even of any importance at all we're going to struggle to get the 50%. Which is why the women working against our point of view, even just by arguing the toss on here, are slowing down progress.

But you do recognise the issue, neiflette so you're not part of the problem!

Snowy this is a copy and paste of a post I made upthread. Hope it will be useful for you.

So basically Lonicera, there are women like me who would like a title equivalent to Mr. One that doesn't convey marital status and is also neutral, without baggage. I use Ms, but it isn't that. A quick look at a few Ms threads here will tell you that. I also don't want the fact that I didn't change my name on marriage to say anything more about me than my DHs decision to retain his says about him.

Unfortunately for me, I don't get to have that, because other women want to use their title to convey their marital status. Me choosing not to is something that other people have an opinion on. I would need you lot to stop doing that in much greater numbers, to get what I want. Just like those of you who use Mrs DHSurname need unmarried women not to use Mrs or to change their surname to your husband's (which they'd be entitled to do, perfectly legal, unless they're trying to commit fraud). If eg all adult women started using Mrs, or all teenagers, or all men over 77, it would start meaning something different to what it does now.

The same is true of other titles too, obv. If you call yourself Professor, you rely on other people knowing what that means and not calling themselves Professor if they're not one, in order for it to convey the meaning you want it to mean. If it suddenly got universally adopted by everyone with no qualifications, it would stop having the meaning it has now.

I look at it like this: you don't need to fight nor win every battle in order to win the war. As such, I'm willing to forgo the fucks I give about whatever women choose to call themselves if it'll free up more cognitive and practical energy to encourage women to consider STEM careers, to ask for a pay rise go for promotion, to not have to bend themselves out of shape so that some man doesn't grope them.
And I'm happy with that.

I am inclined to agree with you. I find it outdated and odd. What will you do name wise with children?

If only there were some mechanism by which women engaging in patriarchal naming traditions without giving it much thought, taking time and sometimes spending money to do so (eg new passport) would translate into us as a class forcing ahead in STEM careers, seeing less sexual harassment etc.

My DH and I have 2 DC. One has DH's surname and one has mine.

VladamirsPoutine

It's of course fine to decide which particular battles you'll fight. What's not so fine is to tell other women that the particular battles that matter to them are so trivial as to be pointless. That slows down progress overall.

Indeed. It's also dancing perilously close to the sort of telling women how to do feminism that she feels is turning some off the movement altogether...

We appear to be forming a loose consensus. No one is that bothered but name changing does irritate some people more than others. I find it annoying but despite posters desire for me to be angry I just shrug and tut. I may roll my eyes.

It isn't a feminist decision because some choices aren't feminist. Having said that you don't have to hand your feminist card back ( those of you who want it) because we all make non feminist choices sometimes.

The thread is useful because it raises awareness that name changing doesn't have to happen and defying outdated traditions is OK.

We both double-barelled & then did deed polls

What's not so fine is to tell other women that the particular battles that matter to them are so trivial as to be pointless.

Feminism isn't a one-size-fits-all model. It's also not fine to tell other women that they have 'false consciousness' of the informed choices they make. And it isn't fine to chastise other women for not being as ardent about an issue as you are. Because that too slows down progress overall

Thanks mirri!

IsaSchmisa, thank you for explaining that. I understand your dislike of the titles on offer for women, I dislike them also and do not refer to myself as Mrs, if I must use a title (which I avoid at all whenever I can) I use Ms, I did this before I got married as well. In my job when the PA does up letters for me I always have the Mrs removed from the signature at the bottom and leave it without a title, when taking on a new client I ask their preferred title and ensure this is what is used on all correspondence. This may seem to be a contradiction to my choice to change my name on marriage but it is the decision I made and one that I am happy with.

Re the societal pressures to change names that pp are mentioning, maybe I am being naive or maybe I am very lucky in the people who surround me but I have never seen/felt it to be an issue. I was probably under more pressure to keep my name the same due to my career than I ever felt I was under to change it

Yes I'm not one for titles either. Prefer first names.

Mirri
Thanks Right back atcha

Tbf vlad I don't think I chastised anyone for not being ardent enough; I was annoyed that some posters pointblank denied there was an issue...

Anyway.

Well, this is all very interesting
I chose to marry my husband because he had a lovely surname

My mum changed her name when she got divorced. She chose not to go back to her maiden name and picked a name that had no relation to our family, but that we (children) adopted.

My husband, otoh, has a family name he is very proud of.

When I got married he was delighted I took his surname and I am also proud to be a Mrs, wear a wedding ring, etc etc.

And if that makes me old fashioned, so be it. It certainly does not make me subservient to men.

To be fair, it hasn't stopped two women becoming prime minister

As an aside, my DH surname is actually my mums maiden name, I liked that in choosing to take his name I was still going to have my own family’s name even if not the name I grew up with