I regret not giving my DCs unisex names

[darleneoconnor]

do other feminists?

After reading some stuff on how exam markers/recruiters discriminate based on perceived gender I feel like I've let my DC down.

DD does have a kind of strong sounding name but it's no Morgan.

Find me one name that has gone the other way - that is - a girl's name that has become unisex or largely for boys and I'll be prepared to accept that thinking about stuff llike this is "pathetic".

Or one collective name for a group of women that has becoem unisex or male without aquiring derogatory overtones on the way.

Language - and "the naming of things" is important.

I don't suppose there are any-but it is the same as everything. Scouts take girls, Guides don't take boys. Women want the men things but men don't want the women things. Guides haven't been forced to take boys because there is no call for it. There was call for girls to go to Scouts.
Things take their natural course. I would hate to see lovely old names go and us have to make them up.

Charlotte would have to go-Emily would too-most of the names I like!

For those who think we're making a mountain out of a mole hill - Don't you think there may be an element of girls/women wanting 'men things' because they hold the status and power? And men not wanting 'women things' because they hold the opposite? Nothing to do with doing things like a girl being an insult? (You throw like such a girl! hahaha).

No one should have to consider unisex naming to address gender inequality but you do what you think will benefit your child most in the society you live in.

No, guides donlt take girls because they are specifically exempted under equlaity law. There are lots of girls who would not be allowed to go to guides because of their family's cultural or religious beliefs if there were boys in the group. So guides remain a girls only organization.

Of course they do msrisotto-historically women have had a hard time.
I do however think they ought to stick with the main issues and not get side tracked with names. If I wanted to use the name Stephanie, it would never even pass my mind that it was a feminine form and I don't believe that Stephen would do better on an exam paper if the examiner saw the name.

(If anyone is influenced it would be the difference between Julia and Jayden, Charlotte and Courtney etc-not that that should be an influence)

I just think that boys get a hard deal. Every couple of weeks on MN you get a post asking 'am I dreadful to want a girl?', 'do you regret not having a girl?', 'I am so disappointed I find I am having my second boy' 'should I have a third if I have to boys and I am desperate for a girl?' Or there is the idea that if you have all boys you are secretly disappointed, your family is never complete and you are missing out.
I have yet to see any thread where you can change the above to boys.

It all seems to be mainly for the 'girly' type things. They can buy sweet little dresses, do things with the hair, have someone to go shopping with, have a lifelong friend etc whereas boys are messy and dirty, use up a lot of energy, won't like shopping (and if they do-not the right sort of shopping) and will forget you as soon as they meet a partner!

This seems to me to be stereotyping of the worst kind, girls may want to dress in unisex clothes, have hair cropped short, loathe shopping (and wouldn't be seen dead out with mother) and get a fantastic job in USA and hardly ever see mother. Why assume that the girl you give birth to will be the 'sort of girl' you want?

I think that women get bogged down in the unimportant things, like calling a DD Victoria, and there are far more important things. However I dare say I am 'the wrong sort' of feminist.

I am sure there are cultural beliefs where women just don't go to male organisations-we don't pay attention to those.
However-the main point is no one will fight it because boys wouldn't want to go when they had the right!

Names are Important and fascinating as the popularity of the baby threads on MN bears out.

It is definately true that boys names become unisex and sometimes then get dropped as boys names, not the other way around. This reflects the greater status of men, in the same way that new names tend to be popularised by higher status groups (celebrities, upper classes) and then be picked up as aspirational by people lower down the social ladder, until they get seem as ' common' and go out of
fashion.

baby name nerdy graph haven

girls names seem to go through the cycle faster, because people are more willing to choose unusual names for girls - made up names, hippy names, names from other cultures etc.. Where for boys they are more conservative.

I think it is definately a subject worth talking about and looking at the data for what it can tell us, but I think the idea that unisex names are better because they allow you to 'pass' temporarily as a man, is to simplistic.

Well I didn't expect a thread as innocuos as this to end up in a bun-fight!

I think some people should go back and read the OP. I said I regretted giving both my DCs gendered names, my DD and my DS. Did no-one pick up on this? DD's name isn't a girly-girl name and can be shortened to a very unisex name (which I dont like and dont use, but she may choose to use when she's older). This was my compromise when she was born because all the unisex names I liked then were considered chavvy and I thought that would override the gender bias.

As for my DS, I never considered a unisex name at the time. (There is a whole other debate as to why I, and many other Mums of sons, dont consider gender as an issue when naming thier sons, but do for their daughters). He has a boy's boy name. It isn't even phonetically feminine like some of the y ending boys names. I now regret this. As has been alluded to on this thread it is no use just giving girls unisex names. Then they cease to be unisex and become girls names. As a feminist I now regret that I didn't consider this when I had my DS.

I gave the examples of exam and coursework marking (I know at least 1 uni which doesn't blind mark 50% weighted coursework) and interview selection but these are not the only ways you can be prejudged by a name. I think that, in principle, a name should not reveal gender. Why should it?

BTW, little known fact but the name Oscar used to be only used for girls but I imagine if contemporary parents knew this they probably wouldn't choose it for their sons.

In Renaissance France women's names were sometimes used for men - famous example the Marshal of France, Anne de Montmorency. Also lots of Jean-Maries etc, presumably in homage to the Virgin Mary, and women called Claude (now I think only a man's name?).

Exotic - there are an awful lot of issues involved in gender inequality, I don't know by what standard you decide which ones are worth concentrating on. I dare say that the scattergun approach isn't so bad, attacking stereotyping from all angles. Also, it is rather rude to tell people what to talk about or that they're talking about the wrong thing! We talk about a lot of topics within the feminism section, I don't see why that is a problem.

I have to say, I am on mn a lot and I haven't seen those threads you speak of, I see a lot of people being angry when they have 3 boys/girls for example and people ask if they're disappointed they've not got one of each.

And I feel like you're preaching to the converted regarding gender stereotyping!

Love that graph!

I don't know by what standard you decide which ones are worth concentrating on.

My own entirely! I should keep off the feminist section-it always ends in trouble

Love the graph-reassurring to find that the 'old lady' names only have a small showing in present times.

I think that women wanting to have girls for pretty dresses and future shopping is worse than calling them Jacqueline-but I will leave you to it!

I think that women wanting to have girls for pretty dresses and future shopping is worse than calling them Jacqueline

Well I don't think anyone is arguing with you.

at Milly and PrinceHumperdinck hounding CowardlyLion off the thread for erm being qualified to know what she's talking about and disprove a theory which was taken as fact for most of the thread. Fwiw I found it interesting and positive that at GCSE at least, gender bias in marking has been disproven. As long as it still applies to job applications and possibly higher level study, it's certainly worth considering pressuring organisations to hide gender.

Thinking about what Exoticfruits said about 'old lady' names, I wonder if part of the reason why girls names cycle in and out of fashion so much quicker is because people don't want to give little girls the name of an older woman seen as 'past her prime' but are happy to give boys an older man's name which is seen as powerful and aspirational?

Which maybe suggests that as feminists we should be naming our daughters Linda, Debra, Cynthia,Brenda and Sharon...?

Interesting point Himalaya.

I wasn't going to add to it but maybe they don't give them the name because they are hideous! Elsie, Freda, Hilda, Muriel etc.
Pretty names like Elizabeth, Catherine, Louisa, etc have always been used, despite belonging to grandmothers.
In exactly the same way Percy, Herbert, Cuthbert, etc are hideous and are out of use, whereas the classics - George, Edward, Matthew etc will always have a place.

If I have to show my feminist tendencies by calling my DD Brenda-then count me out!

Exoticfruits -

Are you seriously saying that some names are objectively prettier than others, rather than through association with something? Cuthbert has many of the same letter sounds as Elizabeth. What is it that makes one pretty and the other hideous?

Have a look at the graph, its interesting (I think it is US data, but probably not so different to the UK). ...sorry about the blue and pink colour coding folks! - but looking beyond that if you look at the boys names on their own and the girls names on their own (there is a button) the shapes of the graphs are completely different. There are many more boys names like Thomas, William, John, Robert and Joeseph with great wide stripes over 100 years. Girls names are much more varied and go in and out of fashion more quickly(many more short, thin stripes). In fact the only one with significant staying power has been Elizabeth.

Not saying any of this is a major issue for which to man the barricades, just interesting to think about, since baby naming seems such an individual, personal thing and yet we fit into these patterns.

Goodegg, how has cowardlylion been hounded off the thread? I have not made any personal remarks about her or her motivations, despite the fact that she did so to me. She simply claimed it would be impossible to carry out a certain piece of research, and I questioned this. She never looked up the actual research method, so how could she possibly know?

I have looked up whether or not gender bias exists in marking; there is a literature review when you google the terms. She never bothered to look at the literature review, which is the first (and very easy step) to make if she wants to find out whether or not the overall evidence supports the case. She clearly didn't want to do that. She just wanted to cherrypick papers that supported her beliefs. I don't care enough about the issue to come on here providing papers showing the opposite, so I never actually disputed her argument about gender bias. I just disputed her disagreeing with a research method, when she doesn't even know what the research method was.

I find it annoying if people come on threads, dispute published research (in either its findings or its methods), and then ask other people to go away and read it for them. The feminist section is not some kind of group of volunteer academic PAs, but a lot of people expect us to act like we are, and then insult people personally if we don't scurry about after them.

And I apologise to Cowardlylion for singling her out in this post, and am only doing so because I am responding to Goodegg. This kind of strange 'research it for me' happens a lot, which is bizarre, because most of us talk most of the time about feminism as an everyday experience, way of thinking and acting, not some academic essay.

I thought TheCowardlyLion was talking from experience , but it wasn't experience that people wanted to hear! I'm not surprised she went.

Boys names come and go- the reason that there are thick bands is because there is less selection. John a classic, is now quite rare, as is Mary.
They all have fashions-I don't see people using Colin and Nigel much or even Alan and Paul.

I could think of lots of lovely girls names-not needed -but boys were much more difficult to find.

They have the same fashions-where did Wayne go? Oscar will disappear again soon.

People are reading way to much in it. I shall use names I like-regardless of the fact I should use Brenda to be a feminist!

Judging from my family history Catherine, Sarah, Emily, Louisa, Emma,are just a few that have staying power-I could find lots if I bothered to look.

exoticfruits wrote - "the curriculum is more suited to girls".

I disagree.

As far as I can tell, the school curriculum is more suited to some girls and some boys.

Quite right vesuvia-but I bet the sample of some girls is bigger than the sample of some boys.

Even so, why do those girls get on better with certain teaching styles? No reason to think it is genetic rather than socialisation.