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?

But I am old school and believe very strongly that the personal is political. I don't think we can sit round whining about the patriarchy and the evils of patrilineal traditions and not our our money where our mouths are.

Well no, she said she was a feminist, she supports women to make their own choices and that taking her husband’s name was her choice.

She did not claim her choice was ‘her choice as a feminist’ or that taking a husband’s name is a feminist choice.

I still maintain that there are only negotiations with patriarchy for women making individual choices about their private lives.

If you feel more comfortable with keeping a birth surname that’s about your own negotiation with patriarchy, it doesn’t make it an objectively feminist choice.

the personal is political

Thanks Bertrand. Our foremothers knew what was what.

My husband’s surname is english. My maiden name is irish. We live in england. I hated my name growing up as nobody could spell it. I wanted to change it. If i got divorced and remarried i would keep it though.

Nobody expected me to change my name.

Of course I agree with the personal is political, or what I take that to mean - that the material reality of women’s lives, which are largely confined to what is considered the private sphere and have traditionally been considered ‘private family matters’, is a political issue. I do not agree that the political is personal, which is what ‘objectively feminist’ individual choices is trying to do. It is simply another side to the Pomo stuff of woman choosing = feminist choice. Rather than saying anything a woman does is feminism it is saying women can change things via individual choices.

I do not believe this is true. An individual choice is only effective in changing things for women if it is part of a collective action. Even then collective action should be targeted in the right way and at the right things or it will fail to be effective.

An individual choice is only effective in changing things for women if it is part of a collective action

Yes so if the majority of women refused to change their name, it would have more of an impact than the minority who currently take this stand.

Yes it would. But no-one is starting any kind of collective action when they say ‘the choice you have already made is not objectively feminist’ they are simply sitting in judgement regarding another woman’s choice which has already been made. I don’t see anyone starting any kind of collective action or movement around getting married but keeping a birth name or articulating why or how it effects any kind of meaningful change to the material conditions of all women in the UK.

Re this particular issue though what exactly would it change? Women keeping birth names, which we all have as a result of patrilineal naming practices, which would affect patriarchy how exactly? At best it’s cow towing to marriage but doing it with a small ‘fuck you’ which achieves very little and can have negative consequences for women.

In reality women still depend on marriage for economic insecurity and many still need or what to signal belonging to the man they marry for various reasons. Women’s material conditions still depend, to a large degree, on the benevolence of individual men or the benevolence of the state.

*want

Men get over the wife not taking their name pretty quickly.

The real fight is, married or not, giving the children YOU grew YOUR name.

That's permanent change and also where you'll find the real resistance from men.

Now, how many married women reading this thread both (1) kept their birth surname AND (2) gave their children that same surname without any double-barrelling of the husband's name?

Not many, I'd wager.

Probably close to zero. Which kind of proves the point I’m trying to make about creating hierarchies and negotiations with patriarchy.

Women’s choices re this stuff involve negotiations with patriarchy and are made on the basis of ‘what will be best for me in my circumstances’ or ‘what I can reasonably achieve for me’.

In these conditions no choice can really be an objectively feminist choice but choices can be made with reference to feminist values which is a different thing.

If we are going to be really hardcore re the hierarchies of feminist choice we’d all be political separatist lesbians with no DC wouldn’t we?

The reason we aren’t is because we all have these negotiations with reference to our own personal circumstances and therefore we all draw our lines in different places. We shouldn’t be expecting other women to live how we decide they should based on where we draw our lines IMO.

Offred I totally agree re: pragmatic choices made by women under a pervasive system of patriarchy.

Feminism, as a movement, needs to be careful about imposing rigid standards of conformity on its members. We risk replacing the current system of male oppression with a system of female oppression and women deciding that they prefer to stick with the devil they know than to take a punt on a system proposed by the very women who are shaming them.

Every change requires buy-in. Women need to be convinced with facts in respectful discussions, not coerced and shamed into changing their minds.

We also need to remain mindful - as Offred points out - that some women simply will not be in a practical position to actively take part in the process of making change. I see no point in condemning those women for attempting to make the best of and survive their oppression in the best way they know how.

"Women’s choices re this stuff involve negotiations with patriarchy and are made on the basis of ‘what will be best for me in my circumstances’ or ‘what I can reasonably achieve for me’."
Yes of course. And sometimes that choice will be the non feminist one. Because circumstances. But it's still important to acknowledge that it's a non feminist choice we're making.

And there are lot of sirtuations where the non feminist choice is the only one available at the time-or the best one for the individual woman at the time. I can't see circumstances where taking your husband's name fits those criteria.

I am working on my family tree at the moment and it has really struck me that on records women just disappear once they marry, often making their original family difficult to trace. Consequently I have urged my dds never to change their name.

He's a misogynistic twatty little troll.

I took my husband's name when we got married, our children have his surname, it's now our family name. I was only changing from my father's name. As much as I love my dad I've always hated my maiden name so for me it was an easy choice (I also used to fantasise about being Mrs DH surname before we got married ). But this has no bearing on my feminism, I'll choose whatever bloody name I like, thanks! Your colleague was being a nasty little troll.

Well, I think you need to outline what criteria you are using to categorise certain choices made by individuals as ‘objectively feminist’ and others as ‘objectively non-feminist’.

I don’t believe that’s possible since I don’t believe one woman’s choices about her own private

Oops!
Her own private life have any effect at all on the material conditions of women generally.

‘Being different to what patriarchy expects’ is not sufficient to make an individual choice an ‘objectively feminist’ one IMO.

It’s simply contrarianism at an individual level over individual issues that affect you as an individual and that carry with it social and often economic consequences.

Women would be batty to take on those consequences just for the sake of a small fuck you. Invariably it’s women for whom those consequences are relatively small who do keep their birth surname.

And it’s terribly naive to think that in a system of patrilineal naming patriarchy won’t see your birth name as your father’s name even when you identify it as yours.

It’s no more or less valid to see your birth name as yours than it is to see a name you chose to take, whether it is your husband’s name or another name handed down via men, as your name.

The system is one which denotes women as belonging to men, fathers or husbands. That is the reality no matter how individual women may feel about their names.

So, make your own negotiation by all means but don’t think your choice to keep your birth name is in anyway radical or revolutionary or an example other women should be judged by.

And it’s terribly naive to think that in a system of patrilineal naming patriarchy won’t see your birth name as your father’s name even when you identify it as yours.

My daughter has my name as well as her father's. If she passes that on to her daughter, in what sense is that a name handed down by men?

It's my name, not my father's. I have a different ethnic background to my husband who has a surname that reflects his very white British heritage, and I have no intention of concealing my ethnic background.

Just to add, when I and my wife got married, confusion from some people who asked if she was changing her name? What to did they expect us to swap? The only double barreled person is the cat and her registration at the vets. The point b being that women are still supposed to do something to show they are no longer single whilst men are not.

He's a gaslighting idiot. I bet he asks vegetarians why they aren't vegan, if their shoes are leather or of the theys accept a pigs heart valve in life saving surgery.

So what if you changed to your husbands name.? Where did you get your original surname from anyway - your mum??

Gorgon - and how does your name choice/feelings about your name actually change anything at all re patrilineal naming practices or material reality for women generally?

As I have said a number of times I always assume that where women have thought about these things they have made the right decision for them.

But if we are going to say there is an objectively feminist decision then it needs to be about more than just being different to what is expected or what is best for an individual woman and if it is about best for one woman we are heading down the POMO territory of every choice an individual woman makes is a feminist one.

My DH would think this but has better sense than to say it .