Gender Roles

My weird gripe with surnames.

A brief piece about a rather strange thought surrounding gender-roles that has pestered me endlessly for years.

Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash

For the past six centuries it has been written and unwritten custom of the western world’s patriarchy that women should take their husbands last name. While there is frequent debate by people far more qualified than I on why this is, from ownership to “new beginnings”, it is not a debate i’d like to get into today. Instead i’d like to shift focus to solutions.

There’s seemingly 3 major solutions.

1. Single hyphenation
2. Double hyphenation
3. No change.

The example i’m going to use is a fictional couple of Alvin Smith (M) and Scarlett Wilson (F).

1. Single hyphenation — Alvin Smith and Scarlett Wilson-Smith
2. Double hyphenation — Alvin Smith-Wilson and Scarlett Smith-Wilson
3. No change — Alvin Smith and Scarlett Wilson.

The first, single hyphenation, has the problem of being inherently unequal and sexist and was popular when women started to become disavowed with the patriarchy and the name change issue.