This Chick is Hardcore

Um, whoa. It always surprises me when women attack other women like this. I don't know why; maybe because my women friends are awesome.

Some of the most interesting quotes:

Women who choose not to take their husband's surname after marriage are not sexually attracted to them, and will likely be the one to initiate divorce.

When a woman feels metaphysically submissive to a man, when she admires all the masculine qualities he exhibits and deems him worthy of submitting to, sexually speaking, she will gladly become "his" and take his name. This is the essence of femininity.

I don't know about this "essence of femininity" crap. Femininity = being submissive? What century are we in? And yet, I agree with her here:

Any woman whose self-esteem is so precarious that it hinges on which surname she attaches to herself has bigger problems to worry about. What should be offensive to women is the suggestion that we are so insecure, so unsure of our place in the world, that we cling to trivialities like surnames and titles like Ms. as if they represent our very souls.

However, it feels a bit like propaganda for some anti-feminist agenda. I give you the following as evidence:

In certain Middle Eastern countries, it is forbidden for a woman to take her husband's name when she marries. Forbidden. And why? Well, in a country that makes women wear head to toe black garb and where a woman can be killed by her family for even the merest hint of so-called impropriety, it's not hard to surmise that the real reason they exclude women from their family names is because they believe women would pollute them, and don't deserve to use them. Is there a connection there? I believe there is. Men in that country understand that offering someone your name is an honour, an honour that they unfortunately don't wish to grant their wives.

It's very convenient to bring up the Middle East and make assumptions about the culture without doing any real research, huh?

What's In a Name?

Would a belly dancer by any other name smell as sweet? Don't answer that.

I never gave much thought to changing my name after I was married. Women taking their husbands' last names seemed like an outdated tradition to me, much like the garter toss. Unless you plan to have kids, then I could see how it's necessary (the name change, that is, not the garter toss. Although I could see how the latter could lead to having kids).

But I knew I didn't want kids, aside from the furry four-legged kind, and we've hyphenated our last names for the cats. ;-)

Is it equitable for the bride to give up the last name she's had her entire life? Who made this rule up? And, let's face it, hyphenated last names can be unwieldy. I've heard of couples making up a new name together and taking that one, and while I appreciate the spirit of that idea, in reality I think it wouldn't go so well.

I offered to trade last names with Mr. T, just to make it fair, but he turned me down.

So anyway, I wasn't going to change my last name, but to my surprise Mr. T seems to want me to take his name. He hasn't really asked for much in all of this; I've heard a lot of "whatever you want," and "if it makes you happy," which he truly means; he's not just saying it to get me to leave him alone. I think. So hearing him ask for something made me take it seriously.

Although Mr. T prefaced the name conversation with saying of course it's up to me, etc., he is a bit of a traditionalist at heart and it came out that part of what "family" means to him is being "Mr. and Mrs. T"*.

So I'm thinking about changing my name now.

His name is more pronounce-able than mine, which is a plus.

There would be so many things to change: work stuff, bills, credit cards, social security card, driver's license...the list goes on and on. But you know what was making me hesitate the most? My email address!

Yes, my current email address is firstnamelastname@emailprovider.com. If I change my last name, does that mean I need a new email address? I think it does.

I have to confess that I'm an email packrat. Thanks to my current email provider, I've got all my email labeled and archived, and it's all easily searchable. If I change my email address, what about those archived emails?

This is all very silly stuff to be worried about, but it's been on my mind. Anyway, I have a year and a half to decide, right?



*Note: Not his real last name.