Being Amber Rhea

There’s a post at Feministe, linking to this CNN article, about women changing their last name when they get married. The title of the post is, “How about this? Don’t change your name.”

Now first of all, I want to be clear that I’m not saying the tradition of women “taking” their husband’s last name shouldn’t be questioned or challenged. Duh, of course it should - and no woman should do it because she feels like she has to, or because her husband/family/whoever is getting all bent out of shape about it. Likewise, people shouldn’t flip out if a man wants to change his name to his wife’s after marriage (the horror of bucking a traditional gender expectation!) - or if one or both of them want to hyphenate, or whatever else.

With all that being said… what I don’t like is how these conversations (like so many others) all too often take on that unmistakable air of judgment on individual women. People feel free to draw all kinds of conclusions about a woman based on one thing, when in fact they don’t have all the information and therefore, basically, they don’t know shit. It reminds me of the abstinence-only people who wring their hands about teenage girls taking birth control pills - as if the only reason anyone takes the pill is because they’re having sex. (I started taking the pill when I was 14, but didn’t have sex until I was 18. Obviously those intervening four years were just pointless, right?)

Believe it or not, a woman might have a reason other than conforming to patriarchal norms for changing her name. Now you might say, if that’s the case, why not do it independently of marriage? Again, there could be myriad reasons, one of which might be the easiness factor. If you’re getting married it’s easier to change your name, and look, a lot of us (myself included) are pragmatic and a little lazy with things that involve government bureaucracy.

As for me? Yes, I changed my name when I got married in December 2000. I’ve definitely gotten some raised eyebrows for it - not a ton, but enough for me to notice. (I remember in particular going to a presentation by the campus Women’s Studies group in college called “Confessions of a Married Feminist.” But that’s another story for another time.) Upon finding out that I’d changed my name, one of my ex’s friends who was a big-time conservative Christian and generally kind of an ass, said, “Wow, these feminists will surprise you!” I wanted to slap the stupid grin off his stupid face, but it was the day before his wedding and I figured it wouldn’t do for him to show up at the alter with a black eye.

Anyway, so I changed my name when I got married - and when I got divorced in September 2004, I didn’t change it back to my “maiden name” (can we also talk about how much I hate that term?). Whenever I got married again, I don’t plan to change my name again.

This might seem weird to people who, you know, aren’t me, but I don’t care. -And often when I say “I don’t care,” what I really mean is, “I actually do care on some level, and feel insecure and vulnerable, but if I tell myself and everyone else that I don’t care, maybe eventually it’ll be true. Fake it ’til you make it, right?” But in this case, I can say with 100% honesty that I really, truly Do Not Care what anyone else thinks of my decision on this matter. Frankly, it’s nobody’s business but mine, and I have my reasons. And they have nothing to do with traditional patriarchal norms.