Another strategy would be simply for women not to change their last names after marriage. That's how my wife and I have lived together for 50 years and it has worked just fine. If there was a widespread push to do this specifically because of the issues raised it would drive the Republicans nuts. A policy to disenfranchise women because …
Another strategy would be simply for women not to change their last names after marriage. That's how my wife and I have lived together for 50 years and it has worked just fine. If there was a widespread push to do this specifically because of the issues raised it would drive the Republicans nuts. A policy to disenfranchise women because they weren't legally following tradition had boomeranged into empowering women to clearly and permanently identify themselves.
Yes, but that does not help the millions who already have changed their surname. And then there is the cynicism of many women who simply refuse to understand that they have much more power than they think, via any number of reasonings. Now all the white women who voted for misogyny - 53 percent - appear to be a lost cause. Fewer than 10 percent of Black women went down the rabbit hole of oppression, and less than 50 percent of Hispanas took that route as well. So changing your ID requires a birth certificate. Seriously, how many women have theirs in hand? And how many mothers ever told their daughters to register to vote and get their driver's license in their maiden name? Since 2015, I wondered out loud many times IF women would actually take charge of their lives, and demonstrate that they valued them independently rather than as handmaidens. For Pete's sake, Kamala was a double minority female, so I can only guess that white women are not so liberated at all, and foster a lot of jealousy about the 'other.' As a white male, this is all very tragic to watch.
Unfortunately as a similar person I would agree. A lot of this is cultural, some of it is just social inertia. We have a good friend, a well educated woman, who in the 1970s married a man who eventually became a state assistant attorney general. He died suddenly and she discovered that every single bank account, credit card, the home ownership, etc. was in his name. My wife is an accountant and it took her and an attorney some time to get everything straightened out so her friend could actually access her money and get credit in her own name. Nobody had thought about this as the man just did it. This is something I recommend couples check over!
The idea that these white men somehow think they have the right to stop women voting is about as foolish as them voting for Trump.
Be that as it may, here we are .
If a woman has been married more than once does she need multiple sets of documents illustrating every name change .
I hope women completely stop taking their husbands names , however the thug men that came up with this would no doubt then exclude women who refused to take their husband names, maybe we should just not marry anymore .
This is BS jump through our hoops requirement. It is not law yet . It’s time for women to refuse to put up with any more sleezy tricks from these loser white male magats. Fight this .
I’m sure there is strategy that we can come up with to make this less appealing to these bigots.
I had my checking account, savings account, several credit cards in my name, our home, and a will that we agreed and signed that I was the Trustee in charge for years before my husband died. But there were three specific accounts, my husband's name only on the accounts, vestiges of his days before we married forty years ago, which weren't worth much; nonetheless, I began after his death to clean up our accounts and discovered how difficult the institutions changing to my name could be, and they almost succeeded. I had a hell of a time with all the games they played - as one company manager said, they are sabotaging you. They would speak in code referencing people I know to emphasis 'so you thought this would be easy'.
One incident that especially stands out is that 4 days before my husband died, I tried to comply with Bank Of America's request to close a small account in my husband's name. I discussed this in an officer's office, and he proved it by calling hdqtrs. It could not be done unless my husband came in and signed. Finally, I came in with my husband, who was, of course, very ill but made a great effort to go in. We were informed I didn't have an appointment, so no, they would not allow him to sign.
This is the COVID-19 period and a time when I was also caring for my mentally disabled son and my husband in palliative care and about to transition to hospice care. We had been banking there for more than forty years. They knew us by name, and other employees stood by, unwilling to challenge the manager. I lost it. Not my finest day. After his death, I was in the bank, and one of the officers said to me
we should have taken care of the issue right then, no matter that I didn't have an appointment. The bank atmosphere is like that of Congress; they are very formal and polite and trained to obey and not make waves in the face of death.
I was informed that the manager had written a letter about me.
I remember as a kid in the 1970’s after my parents divorce, my mom couldn’t even get a credit card in her name without threatening a lawsuit.Our house was in my grandparents name on my mom’s side so there were no issues with that, but when they sold it to move to florida, my mom couldn’t get a mortgage in her name to buy her own place, even though she could afford it, even without alimony considering the fact that my dad hardly ever paid either that or child support. The system was always rigged against women. Especially single or divorced women. The one thing she taught me that stuck with me forever is to NEVER depend on a man to support you. Make your own way in life and make sure that you are financially independent without a man.
Wow, thanks for sharing Carol. I am so sorry that you went through this. Credit unions and neighborhood banks might behave better than big ones. But this was criminally stupid of them. When big institutions act like this the best thing is stop giving them business and let others know why. Telling the upper management can’t hurt either. Sometimes they get the message.
I appreciate your affirming comments. It was three years ago, and I still can't believe anyone would act like that. I immediately withdrew what business we had with Bank of America. My credit union, SDCCU, heard my complaint but didn't comment- at least listened. Yes, Credit Unions are much better at helping when one of their employees does something stupid. Of course, I was cited for my outcry protesting the abuse.
Social conditioning, aka brainwashing, is the problem Mick. Women in practically all societies are raised to devalue themselves, that their value springs from having a husband and taken his identity.
A good example is the dowery. Even in in America until the 2nd quarter of the 20th Century women were considered the property of men. In colonial America if the husband sold his land, the wife had to sign away her dowers rights.
And it is the mother who raises the daughter to negate her own existence, not the father, tis the mother who carries forward the tradition of identity negation.
Mother, pastor, peers. Up until the mid 19th Century education of a female was considered a waste, the job was to teach her how to be a good wife, cook, seamstress, chop wood, tend the garden, kill the chicken, maybe slaughter the hog.
It’s absolutely mind boggling how women’s identity, separate from mens, goes back to the beginning of time, it feels like. Because when a baby girl in a Western, Judeo-Christian based society/culture is born, she automatically has her father’s last name. Were the women ever separated from the men??? We are the daughters of our fathers. Our society is so totally based in patriarchy. If I were to adopt my own name, I’d be Mitzi WideOpenHeartedSongstress*. Get rid of all the men’s names. My sons would think I’d flown off the handle- which is also scary to men I guess, because there’s the image of the witch, right there.
It’s hard to live on this planet.
* And if anyone needs proof of the wideopenheartedsongstress part, you can find me under my married name, Mitzi Schwarz, on Spotify 🥰
You can read about how Prince Philip tried to get Queen Elizabeth to be a member of the "House of Mountbatten". He was furious that every other man in the U.K. got to put his name on the family and he had to be a Windsor. But eventually he came to terms with it. Some societies do better than others on this, but it shouldn't take a royal ruling to keep one's birth name. Hilary had to stop being a Rodham to help Bill, and that might have politically driven, but it certainly wasn't right.
I, personally, like the Scandinavia tradition of daughters taking their mother's first name as surname and sons taking their father's. So, the son of Eric takes Ericsson as his surname and Ingrid's daughter takes Ingridsdottir as her last name.
In an age where nearly everyone has their own personal cell phone number, that we just be named by that number. ;) That would certainly minimize systemic and institutional racism, no doubt.
Yes, I saw that in Iceland and it is a good idea, though would be far more complicated in our much larger and far more diverse population where genealogy records don’t go back nearly as far. But there are a lot of alternatives that people do, such as combining or inventing new family names. All of these seem like good ways of getting around racist “tags”. This reminds me a bit of an old MAD magazine page where people are identified solely by numbers (one person was hyphenated by the Queen) but criminals are given names instead!
Another strategy would be simply for women not to change their last names after marriage. That's how my wife and I have lived together for 50 years and it has worked just fine. If there was a widespread push to do this specifically because of the issues raised it would drive the Republicans nuts. A policy to disenfranchise women because they weren't legally following tradition had boomeranged into empowering women to clearly and permanently identify themselves.
Yes, but that does not help the millions who already have changed their surname. And then there is the cynicism of many women who simply refuse to understand that they have much more power than they think, via any number of reasonings. Now all the white women who voted for misogyny - 53 percent - appear to be a lost cause. Fewer than 10 percent of Black women went down the rabbit hole of oppression, and less than 50 percent of Hispanas took that route as well. So changing your ID requires a birth certificate. Seriously, how many women have theirs in hand? And how many mothers ever told their daughters to register to vote and get their driver's license in their maiden name? Since 2015, I wondered out loud many times IF women would actually take charge of their lives, and demonstrate that they valued them independently rather than as handmaidens. For Pete's sake, Kamala was a double minority female, so I can only guess that white women are not so liberated at all, and foster a lot of jealousy about the 'other.' As a white male, this is all very tragic to watch.
Unfortunately as a similar person I would agree. A lot of this is cultural, some of it is just social inertia. We have a good friend, a well educated woman, who in the 1970s married a man who eventually became a state assistant attorney general. He died suddenly and she discovered that every single bank account, credit card, the home ownership, etc. was in his name. My wife is an accountant and it took her and an attorney some time to get everything straightened out so her friend could actually access her money and get credit in her own name. Nobody had thought about this as the man just did it. This is something I recommend couples check over!
The idea that these white men somehow think they have the right to stop women voting is about as foolish as them voting for Trump.
Be that as it may, here we are .
If a woman has been married more than once does she need multiple sets of documents illustrating every name change .
I hope women completely stop taking their husbands names , however the thug men that came up with this would no doubt then exclude women who refused to take their husband names, maybe we should just not marry anymore .
This is BS jump through our hoops requirement. It is not law yet . It’s time for women to refuse to put up with any more sleezy tricks from these loser white male magats. Fight this .
I’m sure there is strategy that we can come up with to make this less appealing to these bigots.
I had my checking account, savings account, several credit cards in my name, our home, and a will that we agreed and signed that I was the Trustee in charge for years before my husband died. But there were three specific accounts, my husband's name only on the accounts, vestiges of his days before we married forty years ago, which weren't worth much; nonetheless, I began after his death to clean up our accounts and discovered how difficult the institutions changing to my name could be, and they almost succeeded. I had a hell of a time with all the games they played - as one company manager said, they are sabotaging you. They would speak in code referencing people I know to emphasis 'so you thought this would be easy'.
One incident that especially stands out is that 4 days before my husband died, I tried to comply with Bank Of America's request to close a small account in my husband's name. I discussed this in an officer's office, and he proved it by calling hdqtrs. It could not be done unless my husband came in and signed. Finally, I came in with my husband, who was, of course, very ill but made a great effort to go in. We were informed I didn't have an appointment, so no, they would not allow him to sign.
This is the COVID-19 period and a time when I was also caring for my mentally disabled son and my husband in palliative care and about to transition to hospice care. We had been banking there for more than forty years. They knew us by name, and other employees stood by, unwilling to challenge the manager. I lost it. Not my finest day. After his death, I was in the bank, and one of the officers said to me
we should have taken care of the issue right then, no matter that I didn't have an appointment. The bank atmosphere is like that of Congress; they are very formal and polite and trained to obey and not make waves in the face of death.
I was informed that the manager had written a letter about me.
I remember as a kid in the 1970’s after my parents divorce, my mom couldn’t even get a credit card in her name without threatening a lawsuit.Our house was in my grandparents name on my mom’s side so there were no issues with that, but when they sold it to move to florida, my mom couldn’t get a mortgage in her name to buy her own place, even though she could afford it, even without alimony considering the fact that my dad hardly ever paid either that or child support. The system was always rigged against women. Especially single or divorced women. The one thing she taught me that stuck with me forever is to NEVER depend on a man to support you. Make your own way in life and make sure that you are financially independent without a man.
Wow, thanks for sharing Carol. I am so sorry that you went through this. Credit unions and neighborhood banks might behave better than big ones. But this was criminally stupid of them. When big institutions act like this the best thing is stop giving them business and let others know why. Telling the upper management can’t hurt either. Sometimes they get the message.
I appreciate your affirming comments. It was three years ago, and I still can't believe anyone would act like that. I immediately withdrew what business we had with Bank of America. My credit union, SDCCU, heard my complaint but didn't comment- at least listened. Yes, Credit Unions are much better at helping when one of their employees does something stupid. Of course, I was cited for my outcry protesting the abuse.
Social conditioning, aka brainwashing, is the problem Mick. Women in practically all societies are raised to devalue themselves, that their value springs from having a husband and taken his identity.
A good example is the dowery. Even in in America until the 2nd quarter of the 20th Century women were considered the property of men. In colonial America if the husband sold his land, the wife had to sign away her dowers rights.
And it is the mother who raises the daughter to negate her own existence, not the father, tis the mother who carries forward the tradition of identity negation.
Mother, pastor, peers. Up until the mid 19th Century education of a female was considered a waste, the job was to teach her how to be a good wife, cook, seamstress, chop wood, tend the garden, kill the chicken, maybe slaughter the hog.
It’s absolutely mind boggling how women’s identity, separate from mens, goes back to the beginning of time, it feels like. Because when a baby girl in a Western, Judeo-Christian based society/culture is born, she automatically has her father’s last name. Were the women ever separated from the men??? We are the daughters of our fathers. Our society is so totally based in patriarchy. If I were to adopt my own name, I’d be Mitzi WideOpenHeartedSongstress*. Get rid of all the men’s names. My sons would think I’d flown off the handle- which is also scary to men I guess, because there’s the image of the witch, right there.
It’s hard to live on this planet.
* And if anyone needs proof of the wideopenheartedsongstress part, you can find me under my married name, Mitzi Schwarz, on Spotify 🥰
You can read about how Prince Philip tried to get Queen Elizabeth to be a member of the "House of Mountbatten". He was furious that every other man in the U.K. got to put his name on the family and he had to be a Windsor. But eventually he came to terms with it. Some societies do better than others on this, but it shouldn't take a royal ruling to keep one's birth name. Hilary had to stop being a Rodham to help Bill, and that might have politically driven, but it certainly wasn't right.
I, personally, like the Scandinavia tradition of daughters taking their mother's first name as surname and sons taking their father's. So, the son of Eric takes Ericsson as his surname and Ingrid's daughter takes Ingridsdottir as her last name.
In an age where nearly everyone has their own personal cell phone number, that we just be named by that number. ;) That would certainly minimize systemic and institutional racism, no doubt.
Yes, I saw that in Iceland and it is a good idea, though would be far more complicated in our much larger and far more diverse population where genealogy records don’t go back nearly as far. But there are a lot of alternatives that people do, such as combining or inventing new family names. All of these seem like good ways of getting around racist “tags”. This reminds me a bit of an old MAD magazine page where people are identified solely by numbers (one person was hyphenated by the Queen) but criminals are given names instead!