The Knitting Revolutionary

The name thing

Running around the Guardian website, I stumbled across this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/gender/story/0,,2201073,00.html

I've had this conversation with several people (I know Adele will be hopping up and down at this point in time) about the whole "what do I do with my surname now that I'm divorced" thing, so this article really struck a chord - and made me giggle lots, which is always a good thing ;-)

I've had three surnames. My first was my father's, and I had this name from birth until age 8(ish) when my mum married my stepdad. Things were looking pretty rosy for them, and us kids took his surname, so I toted that one around for a while until I got married at 23, and then took my ex's name.

I said to Luke when we divorced, "changing your name is a pain in the arse, do you mind if I just keep yours?" to which he laughingly replied "ok". I mean, really, I've had the name for 10 years now, and I'm just as attached to it, or not-attached as the case may be, as I am my other 2 names.

So I considered going back to one of my old names (nah, no point), keeping Luke's (mmm... it'll do for now), or taking a completely random or cool name (Wollstonecraft? inspired, but...). I gave up on the whole idea, put it in the too-hard basket, and just learned to live with having a Lebanese surname even though I'm fairly obviously caucasian. Mostly what I dislike is having to explain to people why that is - people *do* ask, and I don't really feel comfortable dodging or fully answering the question.

It seems that there's a third option: no surname at all.

Hm.

How *does* one detach themselves from a name when there is no new name to replace the old one? And how does one go about this without looking like a bit of a twit?

I have much thinkage in which to immerse myself. Hm, and hm again.

Just the way it's done

I believe that one of the most annoying explanations someone can give for the question "why do I have to do something this way?" is "because that's the way it's always been" (or any other variation including "because it's our policy" and "because that's the way it's done around here"). It is a non-explanation, it explains absolutely nothing and leaves the enquirer in a worse situation than before, not just ignorant but frustrated as well. It leaves very little room for improvement of procedure, and no chance for innovation or problemsolving to be used with the purpose of making whatever-it-is work better.

This article was published in the Guardian on the 15th, and the Canberra Times on the 20th of this month:

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2191130,00.html#article_continue

"Women in developing countries find it easier to break through the so-called glass ceiling than their colleagues in the west, according to a global study by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The firm interviewed more than a hundred business people across eight countries, including China, India and Germany, for the report on women's economic participation for the Women's Forum held in Deauville, France, over the weekend.

It said: "Our discussions with interviewees suggested that in developed countries, cultural stereotypes and perceptions may represent greater barriers to full economic participation by women than in many of the developing countries.... (click link for full article)

I found it absolutely fascinating for a couple of reasons - firstly my continuing interest in and support of feminism, and secondly because of the sociological aspect of it. Even though people in developing countries seem to have a built in sense of superiority, we can learn something really valuable from this - women can actually do these jobs, and do them well.

Why doesn't it happen (very often) in countries like Australia? Well, apparently, it's just the way it's always been done.

Angry angry angry

Grr.

I was talking to a woman today who stated firmly that she thought feminists were all wrong, had it all wrong, and that men and women are just not meant to be equal. Uhhh... right.

"Look at our origins", she said. "Men were hunter-gatherers, women stayed at home, men brought the food home. That was it. That's why we are like we are now".

"Soooo", I replied slyly, "you mean as in 10,000 years ago? Evolution's natural course?"

"Yes", she replied.

"Aren't you Christian?" I asked.

She... didn't like me pointing this out a whole lot. The conversation degenerated into her telling me her opinion, and me masking my rising and completely unexpected rage. I didn't really reply to anything after that, and extracted myself as quickly as I could. I see no point in continuing conversations with people who haven't properly thought through their opinions, and who claim enough of evolution to support their half-baked theories, and enough of religion to claim some sort of superiority.

I didn't expect to feel so angry about this. But... willing female submission makes me so utterly furious. And people who attack feminism make me equally furious. The definition of feminism is so innocuous it's just ridiculous, what's so scary about it? Feminism does NOT mean "I hate men". Feminism does NOT mean "Men should be stomped on and they can see what it's like". It means equality. I think the social equality bit of the definition is the hardest one.

But, I digress. The conversation had been about why men often act as though they can't do stuff like remember their appointments, or put vacuum cleaners together, or cook, or whatever. Her point was that they weren't designed for this and shouldn't be expected to. Because their job was to be the hunter, and get the dead animal, and that's it. Uh huh. Totally logical. It doesn't surprise me so much to hear this utter fucking bullshit coming out of the occasional male mouth. But it just HURTS to hear it coming from a woman. How utterly revolting.

So, yah. Whaddya do? Me, I bite my tongue, and feel angry, and blog it, and get over it.

*sigh*

Could it be...?

Could it be that attitudes are changing?

There is no doubt that times change. Everyone knows that lovely line about changing times and skirt length, hemlines rise and fall yada yada, and I love the image of this leggy thing with a galloping hemline running wildly back and forth between her knickers and her ankles, desperately chasing the ideal fashion.

But anyway...

Age and beauty. It seems that when men get older (think Harrison Ford, Sean Connery), wrinkles make them sexy and grey hair makes them distinguished. But if a woman has wrinkles and grey hair, she's not sexy or distinguished, she's just old. It's so disappointing. I watched the musical Cats for the first time about 6 months ago. And... yuck. The old male characters were revered and respected, the old female characters were despised, ostracised and at best pitied. Revolting.

So I was enormously pleased to notice that last week's local paper had this delightful cover on it:

The article went on to look at several older, highly respected and undeniably gorgeous female actors, including Helen Mirren. Go see The Queen if it's still on where you live, by the way, it was a top movie. Unfortunately I got carried away with cleaning up the other day and threw the article out, and besides the basic gist of saying how growing  older is getting less daggy and daunting for women, I can't really remember what else it said. Oops.

So yeah. I realise the apparent hypocrisy of holding feminist values true to my heart while frantically trying to lose weight. I think of it this way. Age is something I can't control, and weight is something that I can (sometimes haha). More power to me! Hehe!