There have been quite a few ongoing dialogues lately regarding feminist relationships, marriage, and name changing – and these are great (and important) conversations for us to be having.

I think that the ultimate thing to keep in mind as feminists is that feminism is about choice.  It’s about every person having the right, ability, and power to decide for themselves.  We often think of choice only in terms of reproductive health (or more specifically abortion), but choice is imperative to every aspect of feminism, including fashion, work, marriage, and yes, name changing.  But here’s the thing that’s been bothering me lately *steps up on soapbox*:

A lot of acquaintances of mine have been getting married lately.  Mostly I am aware of this via Facebook since I moved more than 1,000 miles away from my hometown.  Sometimes I get that lovey-dovey little relationship status update – Mindy Morris is married to Joe Joseph – but most of the time I find out because there is suddenly a name I don’t recognize in my feed.  Then I click on my mystery acquaintance only to discover that it was the girl that sat behind me in AP History or the woman who lived across the hall in the dorms.

Now, I recognize that if these were my close friends rather than just acquaintances I would (hopefully) be in the loop enough to know that a marriage was impending and my ladyfriend was potentially changing her name, so I suppose you could argue that it’s none of my business that people that I’m not close to are becoming unrecognizable to me by their titles. But this is only a problem when it comes to the women that I used to know.  The dudes that I knew in high school are also getting married, and I have no problem recognizing them.  They’re still Chad Chadwick and Mike Michelson or whatever.

So what’s been bugging me is that a woman who gets married and changes her name is in some ways erased from the record.  If my good friend Carly M. from college, who eschewed Facebook and never joined (to my knowledge) has married her long-term boyfriend Dan whose last name I can’t remember, I can’t look her up.  Nor could I look her up if I returned to our college town and hit the phone book.  Because Carly M. could well be Carly XYZ now, and that makes her much more difficult to find.  But if my friend Charles H. in the same town got married, he’s just as easy to find as ever.  And that freaks me out.

Just like the Miss/Mrs/Ms vs. Mr situation, women are managed by their marital status while men are men are misters, no name changes, no identification by title.  This is not equitable.  So while it remains a woman’s choice whether or not to change her name, there is something going on in the system that is not right.

What if things could be different?  I mean, why is it that a woman changes her name anyway?  To match her spouse, to be united in some way, to share a name with future offspring?  Sounds great, but why is it the woman who must change her name (lets just skip over the whole historical exchange of property thing and the fact that most men have to pay exorbitant fees to attempt to change their last names while it’s pretty much a freebie for women)?

Check this out: at that folks festival last week I met the most amazing couple.  They had just gotten married and were honeymooning at the festival.  I saw the license plate on their minivan and had to take a picture it was so awesome – “HERLAND.”  I asked why they had chosen that license plate (being an avid fan of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and her Utopian story of Herland) and one of the women informed me that that was their last name, and that they had chosen it themselves.  They had combined their two last names to create a new one and both had their names changed.  Which is not only an awesome way to thumb your nose at a system that says married women must change their names in a state that will refuse to acknowledge this couples (same sex) marriage, but is really a much more beautiful tradition in my opinion.  This name belongs to both of them and will carry so much meaning when it is passed on.

Cindy McCain isn’t the only political wife with different opinions from her husband.  Not that we should be surprised, of course, wives have separate minds from their husbands.  What I guess surprises me is how these women manage to keep quiet about their beliefs for the sakes of their husbands careers.  I get it, relationships require sacrifices.  But when you sit alongside a man with a significant amount of privilege, holding a great deal of privilege yourself, it seems like a good time to stick your neck out for what you believe in.  Especially when your menfolk are running around snatching rights out of the hands of citizens.

On gay marriage:

I think there are a lot of people who have trouble coming to terms with that because they see marriage as traditionally between a man and a woman. But I also know that, you know, when couples are committed to each other and love each other, that they ought to have I think the same sort of rights that everyone has.

She goes on to say that she believes this is a “generational thing” and that “its coming.”

On abortion rights:

She [Katie Couric] asked me if I was for the overturn of Roe versus Wade. And sort of everything went through my mind. This was the very morning my husband was about to be inaugurated. And I thought, do I really want to start my husband’s presidency, you know, suggesting that a Supreme Court rule being overturned. And I said no.  And I think it’s important that it remain legal, because I think it’s important for people, for medical reasons and other reasons.

After this interview it actually sounds like Laura Bush’s book might be worth reading, rather than another regurgitation of the Bush administration’s “world view.”  Anyone read it yet?

Shoutouts to feministing.

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“Because she [Juno] kept the baby everybody said the film was against abortion. But if she’d had an abortion everybody would have been like, “Oh my God”. I am a feminist and I am totally pro-choice, but what’s funny is when you say that people assume that you are pro-abortion. I don’t love abortion but I want women to be able to choose and I don’t want white dudes in an office being able to make laws on things like this. I mean what are we going to do – go back to clothes hangers?”

-Ellen Page

Check out the whole interview at the Guardian.  Also, 10 more reasons to love Ellen Page.

Sentencing for Scott Roeder, the man who murdered women’s health provider Dr. George Tiller, was determined this week.  Roeder was sentenced to “the hard 50″ – 50 years in prison before chance of parole.  As he’s currently 52 years old, it is likely he will never be released.

Sorry the video cuts out the end of the interview – you can find the whole thing here.

For more coverage of this issue, check out Feministing and Ms. Blog.

Released in 1999, I had never seen The Cider House Rules until a few weeks ago.  I’m not usually into period pieces or Tobey Maguire, so I didn’t expect much.  However, there were some powerful lines about the importance of a woman’s right to choose and to have safe medical treatments available to her once she’s made her choice.  Furthermore, there were some powerful examples of times that removing that choice is truly cruel, regardless of your political beliefs on the matter.

The Cider House Rules is the story of Homer, an orphan boy who never made it out of the orphanage, and has been trained as a doctor by his mentor and father figure, Dr. Larch, who runs the orphanage.  In addition to delivering the babies of women giving their children up for adoption, Dr. Larch offers safe medical abortions to any woman who asks for it.  He doesn’t advertise this service (as it is illegal), and he doesn’t suggest it to women no matter how many times he’s delivered their unwanted babies, but he won’t turn away a woman in need.  When Homer accuses him of playing God in this way, Dr. Larch responds:

Dr. Larch: I have been given the opportunity of playing God or leaving practically everything up to chance. Men and women of conscience should seize those moments when it’s possible to play God. There won’t be many. Do I interfere when absolutely helpless women tell me they simply can’t have an abortion – that they simply must go through with having another and yet another orphan? I do not. I do not even recommend. I just give them what they want.

Read the rest of this entry »

CBS doesn’t want America to think about Choice, so we have to do it virally.  Here are some awesome counterpoints to the anti-choice rhetoric that is being crammed down our throats with Doritos and beer this SuperBowl Sunday, starting with Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards explanation of the meaning of Choice:

For a multitude of reasons I will not be watching the SuperBowl today, but welcome any tips on who the winners and losers in advertising are this year.

Obvious Child starring SNL newbie Jenny Slate is kinda like the alternate ending to Juno.  If Juno were a young adult in NY instead of a high schooler in MN.  And her boyfriend was kinda cool instead of Paulie Bleaker.  And she got the abortion.

At only 20 minutes, the short leaves you wishing for more, but it does a lot in that 20 minutes.  Most importantly, it presents abortion as a non-terrifying, non-shameful, individual choice.  Which, you know, legally speaking it is, despite the stigma surrounding it.  The condom broke, and Donna had a choice.  She made it.  And (shock of shocks!!!) her friend supported her, her mom supported her (and shared with her daughter the story of her own abortion), and her partner supported her.

What if instead of shaming issues surrounding sexuality and sexual decision making, from female masturbation and orgasm to the spectrum of sexual attraction to the reality of reproductive health options, we saw them presented non-judgmentally like this on a semi-regular basis?

For other reactions on the short, check out all my faves: Bust, Bitch, Jezebel, and Feministing.

Obvious Child from Gillian Robespierre on Vimeo.

Special note: Happy 200th post to us!  It’s been a fantastic (and challenging) exercise to develop and maintain my own little feminist scrapbook here and it’s been a pleasure to share it with you.  Here’s to 200 more!

“We call on opponents of a woman’s right to choose to end the practice of inflammatory rhetoric and tactics that inspire this kind of violent action from the most extreme factions of the anti-choice movement. No other abortion provider’s family should have to endure the tragedy of seeing their loved one killed for providing an essential and legal health service to women.”

- Nancy Keenan

The president of NARAL Pro-Choice America in response to to a jury’s conviction of Scott Roeder as guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Dr. George Tiller.  From here.

It might be more of a challenge to think of 10 reasons not to love Ellen Page.  Her roles in Hard Candy, Juno, X-Men 3, and the upcoming Whip It get us about halfway there, but let’s let Ellen speak for herself.

1. She’s not afraid of the f-word.

“I call myself a feminist when people ask me if I am, and of course I am ’cause it’s about equality, so I hope everyone is. You know you’re working in a patriarchal society when the word feminist has a weird connotation. “Hippie” has a weird connotation. “Liberal” has a weird connotation.”

2. She loves the empowered characters she’s played as much as we do.

“I feel like I’ve been really, really lucky to play the roles I’ve gotten to play because whole, honest roles for young women don’t often exist. People will be like, ‘Whoa, you’re such a feminist! You play such young, strong women.’ It’s like, if I was a guy, you wouldn’t be saying that to me. If I was a guy you wouldn’t be saying, ‘Wow, you play such strong young male roles.’ The question wouldn’t exist…”

Click here for 8 more reasons to love Ellen