*snorfle*

[asimplechord]

I got this from J, in an email in which she complained about a poorly edited book:

Unless you are writing about a reproductive or urological problem, you probably shouldn’t use the phrase “penile system”. And when you are writing about the criminal justice system, the word should be penal.

Now. I ask you.

Doesn't that just SCREAM for prison AU crack fic?

Comments

[ciel-vert.livejournal.com]

*nods*

[asimplechord.livejournal.com]

I was about to post this when I refreshed and saw her reply.

In a time when women did not work outside the home and had little or no financial security, that tradition continued to make sense. When women had no identity except as someone's daughter, wife, or mother, when they moved from a parent's home to a spouse's home with no independent identity, it made sense.

It is not necessary now. Women have an identity outside of their families, we have social and financial responsibilities and rewards that are untethered to parents or spouse. We don't depend on another person for our own personhood. Why should we depend on them for a name?

Rather than marrying as a teenager, I married at 28. I published papers using my name, I had (and still have) financial interests in my name, my degree was granted to me as Dr. Iris, not Dr. Mrs. Somebody Else (this is important when it comes to things like medical degrees and licenses, actually), all before marriage.

And honestly, it might be easy for someone famous to change or hyphenate their name and not have a recognition problem. Especially someone in a media-related field. But in some fields (like mine), when you change or hyphenate your name, it changes the outcome when you do a literature search.

This sounds trivial, but it can have a huge impact. Scientific success = reputation = number of publications and citations, and changing your name affects that. Scientific search engines won't automatically include Wentz and Simpson if you search Simpson-Wentz.

These are things to be discussed with a potential spouse. And if you have strong feelings about name-taking, they should be shared. Beyond the logical reasons, I like my name. It is mine. I had it for two-and-a-half decades before I agreed to hitch myself to my husband, and I didn't want to change it. It had nothing to do with him. It has nothing to do with not being proud of him or us as a couple.

But you know, I also don't need a band of gold and a hunk of over-valued carbon that DeBeers tells me "is forever" to remind myself that I made a promise.

[ciel-vert.livejournal.com]

That is extremely eloquent.

It was partially my fault for reading too much into things, but I think comments like this one of yours still need to be said. Anyway.