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?

I haven't read the whole thread as I'm on my lunch break, but what the hey, here's my tuppence worth .

I'm Dr DH name, or Ms DH name at a push. I like it - I lost my family name, which was slightly OTT with my forename, and was apparently difficult to say / spell, and that I didn't feel overly attached to anyway. I gained a simple surname that I share with my lovely DH and DS. Overall, I'm relatively happy with my decision.

Interesting point about keeping your Dad's name versus taking your DH's name .

'I don't think it's so bad because he is clearly not doing it just because everybody else does. Bit unnecessary though'

Ditto. I would hate for DP to take my name because I would see it as him 'joining my family' - and we are both best off as far away from my family as possible! We would love to have a CP one day (waiting patiently) but wouldn't do any name changing if/when we do. Not planning on any children but honestly not sure what we would do - maybe my name to one, his name to the other? Assuming we had two

I think that women who say this is a trivial point, or who go on about there being no difference between a father's name and a husband's, or who justify changing by saying how horrible and ugly their name was are just doing what some women have always done. They are disassociating themselves from other women who want to rock the boat, and making it very clear that the status quo suits them very nicely, thank you.

I agree with Hully with it not sitting comfortably with feminist ideology.
But

What message does it send? I have been married for 11 years. I have always been a Ms. The majority of people I worked with and the majority of parents and teachers at school have always tended to assume I am unmarried.

Before I got married I had a chat with my Dad. He said to me that a name is a gift. It's a gift given with love not expectation and its up to you what you choose to do with it.

I don't think that's quite right, seeker. I mentioned below that I thought it a relatively unimportant issue, and I "rocked the boat" to the extent that I kept my own name and arranged with my dh that our children will also have my name.

I was reacting to the form of words in the thread title, which suggests women being given a hard time for a choice they have made and being told that other people know better than they do how adequate their feminism is.

I just think that there are many more important ways of bringing you feminism into your life than this particular matter, and that it doesn't seem fair to judge women on this issue. There might be family reasons why they make a different decision to the one I made.

That's an interesting point, seeker.

Agreed seeker. If it really didn't matter so much I doubt we'd have so many people lining up to defend this practice.

Also agree with seeker. People who moan about how totally trivial something is get on my wick anyway - there's loads of it on MN these days

Great post, seeker. Totally agree. Three women on my university course have been married in the past few months and all of us have kept our names. When I realised that my heart actually sang with joy.

I don't like being told whether or not I am a feminist. I have never been told that on Mnet.

Only in rl by people who choose to describe themselves as intellectuals. So in a way this thread has made me feel defensive. But not because of my name.

'When I realised that my heart actually sang with joy'

Good for you. And them.

Out of all the hundreds of women I have been at uni with/met socially/worked with/been friends with, only 3 have not changed their names to their husbands, and two of those went double-barrel. It's and . One friend said 'oh well I'll always be a at heart' Well why are you changing your name then??? headdesk

furo - I'm going to quote you because it's a bit back up the thread - you said: 'We are arguing over a battle which has been won. Unlike the 23746 other battles like the pay gap and FGM etc.'

I'm not sure we are.

I can see that the pay gap and FGM are more tangible issues than women changing their names, which has for a very long time now only had symbolic value. Yes, women are no longer their husbands' property. But I think even though the issues around what name you use are more difficult to quantify, they are still real issues and we haven't 'won' yet. All the little things ultimately do add up.

I agree with Seeker.

Also I'd like to add, if it's such an unimportant thing, how come so many people make such an almighty fuss about it?

I regularly get teachers, medics etc., flustered, shocked, disapproving, non-plussed etc., because I don't have the same name as my DC's.

Like so many other things in life, it's a battle that's been legally won but it has hardly even started socially.

If it mattered so little, I wouldn't be getting such ridiculous reactions from other people as I stumble through life, just for having a different surname from my DC's and people wouldn't be getting so defensive about the whole subject.

It clearly does still matter, as this thread shows.

"because I don't have the same name as my DC's."

Did you give your DCs your DH's name then?

Well ok having thought further I will concede that LRD

I've always found it to be a tricky one to dissect, because I know so many women who are full on feminists who have nevertheless changed their names. They don't fall into seeker's description of women who are happy with the status quo: they might be actively fighting to change society, living their words, spreading their successes. I can't condemn them for having changed their names. (At least one I know is a feminist activist, and does struggle with her name, but puts it down to having gone a bit soppy at the time of the marriage )

I truly don't think that we need to look further than 'it's somewhat traditional' and lump it in with all the other shit that's 'somewhat traditional' around weddings. With a bit of pursed lips from parents in there somewhere.

Having said that, there is a definite group of women who like to sneer at people who do differently, and knowing a few and having been on the receiving end, I like seeker's explanation as it fits them all to a T. Very conservative and dependent on their husbands. I find them sad but they make me angry inside too. I dislike having my own identity questioned, deeply. If there weren't something easy to point out, I have no doubt they'd be finding fault for other reasons, though.

Fastidia, do you really get trouble for having different names? Apart from a few twits in a social context, I have never once had a problem with having a different name from my husband or children. (For the record...we gave the children his name because it's a lot nicer than mine. I've come to regret this slightly because it simply mirrors tradition but it's done now.)

I don't get into trouble as such. It just causes embarrassed flusterings IYSWIM.

No-one's demanding explanations or anything, it's just a "oh one of those different types" response.

Slightly wearing, but no big deal.

Still "different" though. Different enough for it to not be utterly unnoticed, utterly trivial, not an issue anymore, etc. - all that stuff some people are saying which clearly isn't true.

Interesting. I must have a touch of the hard stare about me because I get NO SHIT from officialdom
A reminder not to extrapolate from my own experience.

Who was it who said that when thinking about whether to do a thing or not, look at the men and see if they are doing it...?

What an arse-badgeringly stupid rule to follow. Says that only stuff men do is valid. I shall immediately renounce my membership of the WI

DH was quite happy to take my surname if I'd have asked him to, or we could have double-barrelled. We discussed all the options. I chose to take his since he was so reasonable and I liked his name. If he'd been named Poobottom I'd have rethought.

Don't think that was quite the rule Woozley.

It was more "if the claim is that it's empowering, does it empower men when they do it?"

IE, where do men get their power from, versus where do women get their power-lite from?

I've never had any trouble at all with keeping my own name, or with my family's decision to give our children my name rather than my dh's. He has never had a problem either.

I do feel surprised when women take their husbands name, or regard their children's names as a foregone conclusion (i.e. the same as dad's). But I just never see it as something to judge women about: among older women, they might have decided to avoid a particular battle that would be administratively irritating every single day, to concentrate on other battles that might have more effect on their qality of life or that of their children. Among younger women, it may be that they see the battle about names as a done deal, where other battles are still far more pressing (or that they have family reasons that I have no idea about). I'd always assume that they focus their feminist efforts in areas that make most sense for them.

I don't really get that argument woozley. If you keep your name entirely, you don't need two different names or any confusion.

As for the admin, the admin involved in changing your name on all your bank stuff, passport, payslips, contacts etc etc etc is quite major isn't it?

Not once you have done it all. The children would have to have one surname or the other so there would be fairly regular confusion caused by that. Not the least if the non-matching surname parent wanted to take them abroad on holiday. If I were professionally so well established that changing my name would cause me to lose business or clients or whatever I could understand it. But otherwise it would seem pointless going through the rigmarole of getting married and then appearing as if unmarried to everyone. Sorry, but I didn't want to appear unmarried with children. I am not judgemental about other people having children and not being married, but it's not something I wanted for myself. Of course the best thing would be if we were all Mrs or Miss so you wouldn't know anyway, but you'd still have the surname issue.

'What an arse-badgeringly stupid rule to follow. Says that only stuff men do is valid'

Actually, the rule was to do with deciding whether something is sexist or not. Is women changing their names on marriage a sexist practice? Do men do it too? Generally - no. So yes, it is sexist.

It works well I find

I get annoyed with the whole pride thing. That somehow retaining your own name diminishes your husband but you're both proud that you now add a different collection of letters to the end of your name. What an achievement.

And as for trading one man's name for another, my father didn't just give his name to me, he also gave it to my brothers and if they don't have to give it up or question it, why should I ? As for children, why do women feel they have to give their children their husband or partner's name - I've never understood the responses I get that they feel it somehow diminishes the father's role if they don't. So the man gets appeased yet again, his wife, his children.