The Ms. Revolution

Props to Goldfish who recently wrote about the struggles of being a Ms. Like her, I am not really excited out being a “Ms.”—it’s just that I loathe being called a Miss or a Mrs.

Is it any business to anybody if I am married or not? The idea that my very identity is built on a foundation of my marital status is ridiculous.

But why is it that somehow people assume that women who request to be called “Ms.” are major bra-burning bitches?

Well, HELLOOOOO! I love my bras. But please call me Ms.

And for you naysayers…Okay, okay, so I took my husband’s surname. The truth is, I don’t like the whole system but I’m not throwing it out entirely. In fact I got into a big discussion about this over the weekend with a couple of women who had kept their maiden names. Did I feel like a major sellout? Actually no. (This is progress for me.) People need to get real and see the system for what it is. For the most part, women have 3 basic choices for a last name:
1- Keep your dad’s last name
2- Take your spouse’s last name (that came from his dad)
3- Make some kind of complicated hyphenation of names of the two dads, thus representing the joint male lineage that you should be so lucky to pass on.

The good news is that it’s becoming increasingly common for women to actually think it over and make their own decisions. Whether this is primarily driven by later age at marriage or other factors I’m not sure.