Women's rights general conversations - Thread 10

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 9.

There is so much excellent information and so many active discussions on FWR that I wondered if it would be useful to have a thread to sort of "cross-fertilise" between them - airing little thoughts or vignettes that wouldn't themselves merit their own thread, to highlight other posts/threads of particular interest or to point to notable developments on fast-moving threads so that casual observers know where to look.

(For example, "the X thread has meandered onto a fascinating discussion of Y" or "Poster P's amazing analysis on thread Z might have relevance to the scenario in thread W" or "Has anybody noticed this recurring theme that keeps coming up??" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions in the supermarket, grr"- that sort of thing).

Cross posted! Unfortunately it has not died out.

Thankfully it seems to have died out.

It hasn't though, we've been getting them this year.

Now there's an idea!

My in-laws once gave me a cheque made out to Myfirstname Hissurname and DH had to have the awkward conversation reminding them that there is no such person.

My PhD supervisor, unsurprisingly, does remember to address cards to us both as Dr. But Drs Hissurname. Sigh.

Just read out your comment to DH, Kuc, and he said he'll happily have the same conversation with the members of his family calling me Mrs His Name. We need to nip this in the bud right away.

I'm always mildly fascinated by the angst caused by the Married Surname question whenever there's a thread about it.

Our pre-marriage conversation, nearly a quarter of a century ago, was something like this.

Me: "Um, what should we do about surnames?"
Him: "I don't mind at all. Did you want to change your name?"
Me: "Not particularly, it's not really a thing in my culture. But I don't feel strongly, so if you really want me to..."
Him: "Nah, we're cool."

I'm divorced.

A relative still sends me birthday and Christmas cards addressed to Mrs his initial, his surname.

It really pisses me off and I find it upsetting seeing his name as we divorced due to his violence towards me.

I've asked them not to do it and explained why, but apparently that is correct etiquette which counts for more than my feelings.

I can feel my blood pressure rising on your behalf @YorkshirePuddingsGreatestFan

JFC @YorkshirePuddingsGreatestFan that is so insulting, I'm not surprised it pisses you off. I'm pissed off on your behalf.

After making your feelings clear, I don't think YWBU to say, OK, any mail thus addressed will go straight in the bin, unopened, @YorkshirePuddingsGreatestFan .

Many congrats, @Vegemiteandhoneyontoast and MrVegemite. May all those misnaming you have a permanent itch in their armpits.

@Kucinghitam I am furious on your behalf - the name is bad enough but you earned that title.

@YorkshirePuddingsGreatestFan, not only is that rude and deeply insensitive, I'm pretty sure it's also incorrect even under the old-fashioned 'rules'. After divorce I believe you should at least get your own initial back.

I send Christmas cards addressed to First name and First name and most cards that we recieve are addressed the same way. This has involved a little nudging but it seems to work.

Heh, I am so dim, when I read your announcement, @Vegemiteandhoneyontoast , I somehow didn't twig that that was recent. So, congratulations! 🍾

At my first wedding in 1971, both of us had surnames that were a colour. Think Miss Pink marrying Mr Blue. Given that his dad was a painter and decorator and mine worked for a paint manufacturer, you can imagine the jokes at the wedding. I changed my name because it would have been too weird to double-barrel them, I liked his colour better than mine, and it’s all some man’s surname anyway, innit? After he died and I remarried, I changed it again because it just felt unkind to keep one man’s surname while I was getting married to another, but obviously two of my DC were adults anyway and DC3 was mid teens, so they just kept their dad’s surname. I’ve got used to this one now though since I’ve had it for over 23 years.

Congrats on the marriage but I feel your and others’ pain over the name and title business. I only changed to Mr PSB’s name because it was so much nicer than my name, though a lot longer to write.

Before I met Mr PSB my boyfriend had the same surname as me, and it’s not a common name at all. Even more strangely, we met at a party in the house of the someone with the same name. apart from them and members of my family I’ve never met anyone else with that name. Your colourful names and connections are amusing Brit.

Mr Veg has drafted out an email to be sent to all his family and shown it to me. Essentially, it says 'Oy, you lot! What do you think you're doing?!'. We'll see what happens but neither of us are having this misogynist bullshit.

I like my wife's surname better than mine but I kept mine to honour my adoptive dad, who gave it to me. Wife kept her dad's name and DD has it too. We put my surname as a second middle name (not double barrelled) in case of questions when we travel together without her mum.

It hasn't really come up, but we thought better safe than sorry!

You must have been a little tempted to change to Mr and Mrs Purple.

Congratulations @Vegemiteandhoneyontoast

Commiserations to everyone with surname and title issues. With being shacked up rather than wed, has come in handy. I'd pick up the phone and some salesbod would ask if i was Mrs Fella. I could quite honestly say that was fella's mum and she didn't live here. Call over. Now i leave the machine to deal with it.

The email has been sent.

Sadly the colour would have been much less pleasant than purple!

Brown?

It is not the correct etiquette.

Divorced women would be referred to as Mrs Herfirstname Hissurname to distinguish them from widows or wives (Mrs Hisfirstname Hissurname) So you could know who to shun and also not to invite the ex husband.

It is utterly ridiculous.

My DM and godmother both address cards to me as Mrs Myrtle Lion (Walrus), when I have been Ms Myrtle Lion all my life. We made a joke at the wedding (2 years ago) that because we share a syllable (like Fordham and Mitford) we should become Fordford. Some people took us seriously 🤣 But I would prefer that to having anything but my name.

We've had a couple of responses to Mr Veg's email but not from any of those who called me Mrs His Name. I wonder if they'll reply and what will happen with subsequent mail.

One of the top stories on the BBC News site today. The Family and Education desk may have woken up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyx3y84ln9o

Wow - a reasonably balanced BBC article, not pretending it's a one-off, and even giving a halfway decent explanation of what GC means. It must be Christmas!