Male colleague - views on changing name

[Sailinghappy]

Just interested in what people think about this scenario.

Yesterday my male colleague (totally randomly) asked me if my surname was on my birth certificate. I said no, it's my surname through marriage. He openly laughed and said he was disappointed in me for taking my husband's surname at marriage. He said he thought he was "a better feminist" than me and that taking my husband's name is sexist. I told him I certainly am feminist and that I support women's choices, to do whatever they like. I wasn't forced to take his name, it was my decision and I'm happy with it!!

Do other people agree with my colleague or is he in the minority?

“Scrutinising individual women and then saying they are "good feminists" "bad feminists" or "not feminists" gets us nowhere. It's exactly what the man in the OP did”

There is a significant difference between the above, and saying that a particular choice a woman has made is an anti feminist one. It is baffling that people find this hard to grasp. Being a feminist does not mean having to agree with and support everything that other women do. It is more nuanced and complex than that.

It’s not a feminist choice to change your name upon marriage.
That doesn’t say you are a “good” or “bad” feminist but there wasn’t anything feminist about that particular decision.
I’d think that, but I wouldn’t be an arse like your colleague and say it. I wonder what his motives were.

But actually, in reality, that is how things actually are in the UK. Surnames have been passed down to us through men. All the surnames. They have been passed down through men. The reason it is expected that women take a husband’s name and that children have their father’s name is because we live in a patriarchy.

If you are going to argue that a woman’s surname is her own name because it is her name then you have to also accept some will feel that when they have taken their husband’s name it becomes their name because they have chosen it to be their name. Both of those things totally fail to deal with the fact that all these things are women trying to negotiate a ‘deal’ with a patriarchal system that results in a better outcome for them as individuals.

It’s a circular argument that does very little in terms of dealing with patriarchy except to create a system of judgement re individual choices which actually actively keeps women down IMO. Anyone who honestly believes taking on the mantle of feminist activism involves telling another woman she has to make certain choices is as bad as those who think any choice a woman makes is a feminist one.

Anyone honestly think patriarchy gives a fuck what surname you have as an individual? Or do you understand that patriarchal systems adjust the ways they oppress women in response to women attempting to make changes like this?

Women’s choices are all negotiations for a better deal for themselves as individuals living under patriarchy even without awareness or acceptance re that being what is going on. To think that choices at the individual level re marriage or names can be ‘feminist’ or ‘anti-feminist’ or ‘not feminist’ is verging on the ridiculous IMO.

Isn't it more about family making than anything else? You take on the family name of the family you are currently a part of, if you want to. If not you keep the family name of the family you grew up in or create a new name

That contradicts the view by some here that all names are just men's names- although it is a concession that a woman might own her own name. I married my husband - I did not become part of his family. It never occurred to me to give up my name.

Alternatives to "Maiden name": birth name, surname at birth, original name, former name.

If a feminist on here can't be arsed to type whatever the words are need[ed] to type to put it in non-patriarchal language what is the prospect of people who have no interest in avoiding sexist and outdated language being arsed?

Thanks so much to everyone for the interesting replies!

I think in my case, I chose to take my husband's name for very personal reasons. I don't really have my own "family" as such, I was abandoned as a child by my parents - really long story buuut my point is, when I met my husband, his family became mine. His mum is like my own mum and I love all his extended family like my own. When I married him, I married into his family and it felt right to join the family, I was proud to take their surname. Our daughter also shares the same surname as her grandparents and aunties etc which I love.. I didn't want her to have a randomly selected name/ take the name I grew up wth that linked to no one. It says an unusual circumstance but I love being part of the clan and I happily chose to take the name. There's no reason at all why I wouldn't have expected my husband to do the same if he situation had been reversed.

I think he was being rude, and I highly doubt he is a 'better feminist' than you, but I still think women who change their names and claim it's a free choice are deluding themselves. I would NEVER have changed my name to a man's. Never.

Sailing I posted at the same time as you, before I had read your story. What I said was not in response to you, that does sound like quite a specific circumstance.

Is it a really that specific or is it simply an example of what has been said before; that women may want to dissociate from FOO or identify into a husband’s family? Surely people must understand this is actually quite a common thing?

As I said, all women make these choices within the context of patriarchy and I dislike the judging of ‘my choice = the feminist choice’ Your choice is likely to be the one you thought was best for you at the time based on your personal values and position.

These choices cannot be feminist choices because they are about individuals negotiating their place in a patriarchal society. One which, no matter what you personally choose to do, has a patrilineal surname heritage and practice.

I really feel very strongly that women do not have to justify these choices to people like the man in the OP, or to other women who believe there are such a thing as ‘feminist choices’ re marriage, names, relationships.

If you understand from the beginning that women have to negotiate various deals in order to survive and thrive within a patriarchal system then there really is no need for women to be held accountable for where they have drawn these lines in their own personal lives.

Hold the bloody system accountable for making it so that a woman’s life is one long negotiation with various men and the state over in what ways it is legitimate for her to exist.

I truly believe that smashing the patriarchy starts at home, with our individual actions. When my husband fails to do his share of housework, that is because he is conditioned by the patriarchy to think that someone else will/should do it for him. If I don't pull him up on this our kids will also have this impression about male/female roles. You would have to have a heart of stone not to cut somebody who was abandoned as a child some slack though!

Having to pull him up on it is still negotiation with patriarchy. Your kids still will be socialised into patriarchal gender roles and socially/economically sanctioned for breaking them.

I’m not arguing that individual choices have zero impact on individual lives. I’m arguing that it is foolish to believe that keeping a birth name or refusing to marry or pulling up male partners on bad behaviour are ‘feminist choices’. They are choices women make their in negotiations with a patriarchal culture over their own circumstances and that it is particularly unhelpful when women start extrapolating their choices into general principles re ‘feminist choices’ and applying them as standards onto other women whose personal circumstances they do not know.

This is what repeatedly happens in all narratives re the primacy of individual choice as a means to overcome structural oppressions and it usually ends with some sort of ‘oh but your choice is ok now I know the circumstances, I meant those other people’ concession.

I don't have a husband. I'm bisexual. One day I might have a wife.

No, I can't be arsed. I'm exhausted, pretty depressed and came on Mumsnet as a distraction. Apparently I'm not enough of a feminist to be here because I use the term maiden name.

That really is the least of my worries at the moment.

But if I did have a husband, he would also have his father's name. We pretty much all have our father's names (and no, don't pile in and tell me examples where we don't.)

Your colleague was being a dick, OP. Ignore him.

it is particularly unhelpful when women start extrapolating their choices into general principles re ‘feminist choices’ and applying them as standards onto other women whose personal circumstances they do not know

Are you saying it is impossible for their to be an objectively feminist choice? Because I would take issue with that. For example, I would say that allowing women to own property is an objectively feminist choice. It's just a matter of where we draw the line as to what's objectively feminist and what isn't. You disagree with where I draw the line, that's all.

FFS *there

I’m saying I don’t think it is appropriate to say that an individual’s choice is a ‘feminist choice’ (and the other choices are ‘not feminist’ or ‘anti feminist’) when it comes to personal decisions which are being made within a patriarchal framework.

Individual choices are subjective. They are based on personal factors which are different for different people.

A legal change which allows women to legally own property when they haven’t previously been allowed to is a structural change rather than an individual choice. These structural changes have an impact on what choices may be available but they do not, in isolation, rid property ownership of patriarchy.

If this structural change happens within a culturally and structurally patriarchal system there is little point shouting at women who, for example, are not prepared to be the owners of property in relationships with men since the context created by patriarchy in the structure outside that one law (re possibility of being a legal owner) is that women are frequently less able to be sure that they are going to be able to meet the legal and financial responsibilities entailed.

This is how patriarchy adjusts to continue oppressions when structural changes are made. It frequently may do something such as grant a right to own property whilst continuing to ensure it is difficult for women to actually own properties in practice.

It might pass laws re domestic violence whilst structuring social security so that it becomes increasingly difficult for women to make use of those laws or leave abusive men.

If rights are, in effect, on paper only a great number of people will employ ‘you should make use of your choice’ arguments which actually just serve to perpetuate the problems by making sure women never speak about the real reasons they made different choices, because it becomes shameful to do so. I think it is magnified when this happens within feminism.

So what I would like, rather than deciding some individual choices are ‘objectively feminist’ and some are not, is if feminism examined the actual choices women made neutrally and related them to the material conditions under which all women live in a patriarchal culture.

Firstly, I believe that structural change usually comes about through the prior actions of individuals.
Secondly, I'd love to know how it's possible for any individual to examine the choices of another 'neutrally'. I believe this to be impossible. I have a strongly held belief that women refusing to change their names upon marriage is an important act. You take a different view. We both have priors and would be fooling ourselves if we claimed to be able to override these.

And now I have to fulfil my wifely destiny and go to the supermarket!

It is just another inappropriate male dominance display in the workplace.

Feminism is a political movement, not a yardstick men use to measure women by.

I would agree that it is important for those who feel it is important. The part I am criticising is the application of ‘I think it is important and so it is objectively the only feminist choice’.

It is your choice and it is important to you but other women have different life experiences and different material conditions which have an effect on what choices they make. As soon as you cross the boundary between ‘it is important to me’ and ‘it is important for all women’ you lose the ability to understand other women and are left reluctantly conceding, after having made other women explain themselves, their choice was not so bad.

Since individual choices only really have impact when they are collective where you are ideologically positioning yourself IMO is trying to encourage that women collectively keep their birth surname as a means to disrupt a patrilineal surname practice.

Will it do that though? What are the consequences for women and children of doing this? Why do women not chose to do this en masse already? You have to listen to women who haven’t done it to understand this and putting up an ‘objectively your choice is not a feminist one’ simply shames them out of speaking.

Where I am positioning myself is this is simply tinkering around the edges since it is one issue which is not actually possible to overcome through individual choice given all surnames have a patrilineal heritage.

There are very many very good reasons why other women do not make this individual choice. If we want to understand this we need to listen and understand why women are generally not making this choice rather than telling them not having made the choice is ‘anti-feminist’ or ‘not feminist’.

And TBH given that the whole point of what the man in the OP said was to dominate by shaming, IMO, the fact she’s come on here and been shamed by feminists in the same way only to get a reluctant ‘Oh, sorry I understand why you might do that in your circs’ after she had to explain her personal reasons, is pretty disappointing to me.

that women may want to dissociate from FOO or identify into a husband’s family? Surely people must understand this is actually quite a common thing?

Well yes, that is what I said but that would assume that the majority of women are in those circumstances - which they aren't - and that identifying into their husband's family is a priority.

It is not uncommon for men who wish to dissociate from their fathers to use their mother's surname and to describe it as their "mother's surname" - not their grandfather's surname.