I feel sick like I'm going to die or something whenever I think about this. A lot of people think that feminism is totally unnecessary now because it's over and women have equality, the end. But if that's true then why do so many women keep changing their last names when they get married!? Checkmate!
I remember when I was in 7th grade, a classful of girls insisted that they would not change their last names when they got married. Hm, I should try to look those people up on facebook or something. That could be problematic though, because I was unable to obtain a yearbook due to stupidity (someone else's, not my own) and I might not be able to remember people's names. But I don't have any reason to think that that class wouldn't have been representative of, say, texan girls in general. It was a relatively conservative town, so if even those girls didn't want to change their names.... But every (hyperbole) woman my age (who I am currently in some kind of contact with) is now getting married, changing her name, and crapping out babies. What's up with this!?
OK, I have to admit that my 7th grade class could have just been unusual. But even so. That so many young women, women in their early twenties, are still taking their hubands' last names is, I think, sympomatic of widespread sexism.
My best friend from college change her last name when she got married. I knew her by one name for 5 years. Names are like a capsule for someone's identity. So who is she now? It confuses me on some subconscious emotional level, and then my brain informs me that I should feel a combination of >:( and whatever the emoticon for barfing up bile is.
My sister also changed her last name when she got married. She's my half-sister, and we have the same dad, so we didn't really live together that much, because she mostly lived with her mom. So I had a big attachment to the fact that we shared a last name. It was like, "YES, world, she really is my sister. We have the same last name; that proves it." But now her name is completely different from mine, and she lives in a different town, and we look nothing alike and it makes me feel like this :.( and also like throwing up.
Yeah, I never really understood that tradition. I guess to avoid confusion as to the child's name? Maybe? Eh, I wouldn't want to change my last name either. While there's a lot of things I disagree with that feminists say, this isn't one of them. (Also, I haven't studied feminism that much, meh.)
ReplyDeleteThey could just give the children completely different names.
DeleteWell, my dad recently remarried, and she kept her name. They gave their son his last name, but I think on the birth certificate it's a hyphenated version of both last names? I dunno. But I think it's like a "Father to son" thing?
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