To think women taking their husband’s name doesn’t have to be sexist?

[RealNavyEagle]

I know it’s a traditional thing and some people see it as outdated or patriarchal but I actually think there’s something quite nice about a whole family sharing the same name. It doesn’t feel like “losing my identity” to me, just part of building a shared one.

AIBU to think it’s not automatically a regressive choice and that it can just be a personal one?

Ah so now your basing whether something is sexist or not on whether it benefits the woman.

I dont view something that a woman has a choice in as sexist

I suggest you review the definition of sexist as it seems like you don’t understand what it means.

No, I'm basing it on the definition of sexism which you clearly don't understand.

Well given that the woman doesnt suffer in any way by wishing to take her husband's surname then at the very least its a neutral matter surely.

I've looked at the definition of sexism yes.

I've also looked at resources online at whether marriage is considered sexist. I've looked at whether a woman taking her husband's surname is considered sexist. And what have I found- it's a matter of opinion. There are arguments for and against both. And here on MN you think its sexist and I dont. We could argue forever. The poll seems pretty much 50/50 also.

It’s certainly sexist to take your husband’s surname without question but there’s nothing stopping him from taking your name or combining both. It should be a joint decision, not something that’s taken for granted or imposed. Back in the day, my former MIL used to address me as Mrs X (husband’s first name) Merrymelody and that annoyed me intensely.

Of course it shouldnt be imposed. It's a joint decision between the couple.

Yes? No one is disagreeing with that. Simply making the point that not every choice a woman makes is a feminist choice.

I was happy to take my husband’s name. But each to their own. 🤷‍♀️

A woman can make whatever choices she wishes.

My boyfriend and I have discussed this and I have decided I will be taking his surname when we marry. He has offered to take mine - I've no attachment to my surname as it is my father's name and he was notba nice man. He's offered to take my mum's maiden name (which she never reverted back to) but that's never been my name. Whilst I'm not massively keen on his surname, I look forward to sharing it with him.

I've never thought of it being sexist but maybe that's because I've never had any attachment to my surname. When I was a child, my sister and I wanted to change it to our mother's surname but our father would have had to have consented and that wouldn't have happened.

I kept my name, and I'm so glad I did. DC has their fathers name, and my surname as a middle name

This is what my mum did and personally I don't like it. It means my name is really long and it doesn't fit on forms and so I have to take the extra middle name off most of the time. There's probably less than 10 people in the world who actually know about my extra middle name so it's purely tokenistic.

I'm annoyed that my mum settled for this when she gave birth to me and did the majority of the childcare. I wish they had given me her (much nicer) surname.

Yes, marriage benefits women in our society. That doesn’t mean that marriage is not a patriarchal institution. Or sexist. It means we live in a society where women need to conform to patriarchal rules to get basic protection for them and their children.

Of course she can. That doesn’t make her choices automatically feminist choices. Not all women are feminists, for a start!

Can you not see the irony here? You see the inherent sexism in changing your name, so you didn’t. But you gave your children their father’s name……

Correct we are all individuals. No two exactly the same.

I think people can do what they like.

This

Great - so you understand that not all women are feminists, and not all choices women make are feminist/non-sexist choices (even if they are feminists).

You seem to have been labouring under a misapprehension that we are telling women what they can and can’t do.

My stance is I dont view a woman wishing to take her partner's surname as sexist.

It's interesting how often we see people talking about their choice being denied or restricted when the inherent sexism of the custom is pointed out. As if simply saying something they don't want to hear could possibly do that.

It’s just a name. To get your knickers in a twist about a surname is a waste of emotional energy. Stop wasting time on worrying about symbolic sexism, make whatever choice you want, and get on with your life. I don’t care what other people think one way or the other on this issue - to waste so much time caring one way or another what people think about it is to conform to a sexist, feminine stereotype.😉🤣

She in herself is not being sexist but she’s making a sexist choice. Which is fine, she’s free to do so.

That's your opinion. It's not fact.

I find it interesting that the tone of argument that 'it's not such a big deal anyway', or 'why are you making such a fuss about nothing', is so often trotted out when the issue being discussed is one relating to women. Women's concerns are merely trivial. Men's (even if they are trivial) are important. Cf. shopping versus football (which should not be 'gendered' according to lazy stereotypical thinking, but are).

'It's just a name' implies similarly - because it's women and not men who are expected by social convention to discard our own identities. This is not mere trivia. Casual, everyday sexism is an issue worth fighting. The expectation that a woman will disappear at the point of marriage at the very least deserves scrutinity. Likewise, whilst I can't understand what compels any woman to take on someone else's name, if she does so then that name becomes hers. I find the expectation that on divorce she will immediately hand back that name, as though it's on loan and once she no longer 'belongs' to the man that name is a possession to be returned, equally unfathomable.

If names didn't matter then I could address you as Dick, Engelbert Humperdink or SeeYouNextTuesday, and you wouldn't bat an eyelid. People would not get so offended if someone inadvertently misspells their name. A family name is an identity, no matter how much those who would divest women of this privilege try to claim the contrary. It's an identifier which lets you pass between countries, marks you out as individual, denotes your origins for better or worse, or which labels your achievements - hence academics who have published and have a particular name on their degree certificates are very reluctant to divorce those things from their own names.

The upshot on this thread, as ever, is that men possess their own names. Women are deemed not to, and far too many women seem willing to support the patriarchy in that antediluvian view. You're of course at liberty to dismiss these things as trivialities. To me, they happen to be very important.