Apparently I can't be a feminist because I changed my name when I married.

[dustandfluff]

I heard someone (a feminist writer dunno who) on Radio 4 a few months ago saying women who change their names when they get married are not feminists.

. I have long been interested in feminism and women's rights. I appreciate the feminist arguments against changing your name. I had my reasons but I don't think that's relevant here. To me this sounds as though to "be" a feminist you have to meet a particular standard.

I think this is the kind of thing that puts a lot of women off the movement.

Opinion s anyone?

[exoticfruits]

To me feminism is being able to make a simple choice and not have other women telling me what I should think and what I should do. I wanted to change my name, it was an informed choice and I did it- it is absolutely nothing to do with anyone else. I also refuse to be Ms- I can't stand it. However I will address other people as Ms if they wish - and whichever name they choose without reading anything into it or making judgements.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I agree with you you shouldn't get people making judgments on something like changing your name (no-one ever judges a man on his name, do they?).

I can't agree with you about that being what feminism is. I don't think the major problem with the world that feminism sets out to right is 'other women'.

IME it's as much men as women who judge this issue. Often very rudely, too.

[AnnoyedAtWork]

I am so conflicted on this. My dd from prev relationship has my name so don't want to change mine when I marry DP

And also I'm a pretty vehement feminist and I do feel like I would be betraying my own principles by changing it and I wouldn't change it at work anyway even if I changed it officially ( I have a "network and reputation " type job )

BUT

If DP and I have our own child it won't be able to have both our surnames as they are not possible to double barrell ( one of them is an O'Something for a start) so this means that at least one of my children I won't share a surname with whatever I do !

(Can't change DD's as she has her dads as well and not worth the aggro / legal challenges )

[AnnoyedAtWork]

Sorry but feminism does NOT equal choice! I'm sure that all those women who " choose" to be prostitutes and lap dancers are perfectly happy and not oppressed by men at all

Not that I am equating changing your name to prostitution before I get accused of saying that! But think about how much "free choice" you actually have on this??? Women are SO pressured by society into changing their names

[exoticfruits]

You never know what is around the corner- DH died 2years after I took his name- it was a great comfort to me to have it.

[exoticfruits]

No one pressurised me, the one thing that would is women telling me I shouldn't change it. It is my personal choice and nothing to do with other women.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Oh, exotic, I'm so sorry.

I can understand that.

[exoticfruits]

It would have been dreadfully upsetting not to have his name. He was under 30yrs and left his name and DS- and it seems some people would begrudge the name!

[YouSeveredHead]

Surely it's about the right to choose?

[OwlLady]

I would have rather have had my husbands name than my abusive fathers tbh but everyone's circumstances are different.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I don't think anyone is begrudging the name.

It's a choice within a context, is all.

[exoticfruits]

Apparently not YouSeveredHead- feminism is choice to me, but it appears you have to make the 'right' choice which effectively takes it away!

[OwlLady]

But if you choose to change your name, surely you have made a choice? and it is YOUR name anyway. My name has been my name for almost as long as my other name now. I wasn't forced by my husband to change my name

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Feminism isn't choice. And the right to make a choice isn't the same thing as saying every choice must be made possible, because you can't. You can't give someone the right to buy porn, and someone else the right not to work in porn, can you? To take an example.

Names seem to me to be one of those issues where we do, to be honest, all have a reasonable amount of choice. I do wish we'd get to the point where everyone just used their own names as standard, but I'm not grudging anyone changing their name because there are sometimes very good personal reasons for it.

It still doesn't make me believe that feminism can possibly be all about choice, because it simply can't.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Yeah, that's true, no one is taking your choice away from you, exotic.

[exoticfruits]

I would ban porn, people taking illegal drugs, people eating unhealthy foods and all sorts of 'bad' choices- however they have the right to choose for the selves.

[bitsofmeworkjustfine]

when i was single my intials were PB now i'm married my initals are Pb.

I've always doen this and got some stick from the blokes in work... but i'm not defined by who i married.....

[BegoniaBigtoes]

I feel so strongly about this. Changing your name when you get married is a choice, yes, but that doesn't make it a good choice. The problem with doing things like this - unless men and women do them equally - is not whether it's right for you, but the message it sends to everyone else.

When a woman changes her name on marriage, but doesn't expect her husband to do the same, it tells her husband, her kids, her colleagues, and basically everyone in the world "As a woman I am not as important as him". It just does. Because his name becomes the name of the family, and hers is obliterated - and what that says is that she doesn't matter as much. EVEN IF it's practically trivial/irrelevant, that message is so importat because it is one of the many, many ways girls and boys get that message as they grow up. And that message, so deeply ingrained in so many people, leads directly to situations like a man beating up his partner and her putting up with it.

I know people will throw their arms up in horror and say :How dare you accuse me of causing DV by changing my name" - I don't mean any individiual is responsible, but by changing your name you are contributing to that deep inequality, and thereby directly counteracting feminism.

Feminism is NOT about choice. It is utter nonsense and wibble to say that if a woman chooses to do something, it must be feminist because she's made the choice herself. Wibble. Here are some of the things women freely choose to do - stay with men who beat them up, inflict FGM on their daughters, throw acid in their daughters' faces because they dishonoured the family by looking at a boy, wave their tits around for the Sun, rip their pubic hair out in agony so they can look like a child porn star for men who expect it.

Feminism is about equality and helping each other, and men, to see what that means.

My hard hat is on.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Why, though?

If porn were banned, wouldn't it be illegal?

If you say someone has the right to buy porn, that means that someone else's right not to be working in porn is going to be eroded.

OTOH if I have a right not to see top-shelf mags when I go to the newsagents', that takes away pervy neighbour bloke's right to see them.

You can't uphold everyone's choices.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I've got to say, I do not believe women 'freely' choose to do those things, begonia.

They may do them, and they may do them despite lots of other options being made available, but women don't have free choice in a patriarchial world.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

(Nor do most men, I know.)

[cat]

Exactley what YouSeveredHead said.

Surely it's about the right to choose?

Isn't Feminism about having the freedom of choice????

[Lancrehotpot]

I feel that the point, LRD, is that there really are bigger fish to fry. I am not saying that people on this thread shouldn't feel that name-changing is a big issue, but why should others be made to feel un-feminist because they have name-changed, or be told that they can't possibly have considered the implications of their decision?
We are all intelligent enough, men and women, to realise that the name-change expectation is a relic, but we do it anyway because it is tradition and it still has a function (naming the family unit) I don't believe anyone involved changes their modern beliefs about the equality of the marriage partnership on the basis of it, so I just don't think it's as important as people make out. To me, getting concerned about every piece of patriarchal dogma still present in society is like pissing in the wind, but I know that many people feel like those foundations are important and need to be changed so that we can move forwards with the bigger issues.
When I was in my late teens I did read a fair bit of pop-feminism which has stuck with me and often rears its head when I'm listening to friends doing down other women and their choices.
As an example, one of the the 'bigger fish' I'm talking about is the fact that SAHMs can be so quietly derided by women who on paper, tick every feminist box. There is, I agree, a lot of smuggery about. Last weekend, I heard a twenty-one year old talk scathingly about her mother who has 'never worked'. Said mother raised and partially home-educated her four children, but is now an embarrassment to her daughter. Her life is seen as 'wasted'.
The poxiest, most tedious receptionist job (I've had a few, before you ask!)has more worth than that of a SAHM, and I say that having had somebody yet again say that they could never be a SAHM because they 'just need the mental stimulation' that a paid job provides.
I know this argument has been done to death, but the whole thing is such a con. Many, many people, women and men, find stimulation and fulfillment through paid work, but I'll warrant that far more do not. People like Xenia epitomise the attitude I'm talking about. It's not feminism and wanting other women to have power and options; it's a love of superiority and a belief in a meritocracy; if only you did what I did, you would all be successful.

Bloody hell...I apologise for waffling incoherently off topic
DS wriggling around on my lap and he's just learned to bite Thanks for a good thread everyone.

[BegoniaBigtoes]

I agree totally LRD - they don't actually freely choose, they just think they do. Hence the confusion about things like working in a strip club being a "feminist" "choice". A woman makes that decision, so some people think feminism has been achieved - despite the fact that she makes it in a context where inequality is so normal and deeply ingrained, it seems like a normal thing to do.

I think that's exactly what is going on with name changing. So many women think it is a free choice and a nice, normal, harmless thing. Yet if they asked their husband to change his name to theirs, it would very rarely go down well. And in many cases what their "choice" means is that deep down, they don't want to be seen as too independent or scary. I also know women who didn't really want to do it, but did it because their husband was a bit shocked at the idea that they wouldn't, and they didn't want to upset him. And I know another couple where the woman has kept her name, but 12 years on from their wedding the bloke still moans about it.

[Visitor57]

I have heard the 'hated my surname' 'hate my family' reasons from so many women, what do the men who feel like this about their surname do? Quote

Change their name to their mother's surname - or at least that's what my husband did. He has had no contact with his father since he was eight years old. His mother reverted to her maiden name when she retired (her married name was her professional name) so Mr. M became Mr. N at the same time.

We have given our daughter this surname, we discussed it a lot before she was born, but it was really important to him that she had the same name. Especially as we weren't married when she was born (and unmarried fathers have few rights where we are).

We have since married, I have not changed my name, although his surname coupled with my first name is nicer sounding. It is certainly less common popular then mine. If you put my name into a search engine, it will throw up literally thousands of people, my first name with my husband's name only brings up about thirty! I occasionally wind up MIL and my husband by saying I will change to Ms. M but only if they refer to me as Mrs N.

I don't think changing your name makes you less of a feminist.