quote:Originally posted by London: But that doesn’t mean that, in accepting that, you have to swallow wholesale all the traditions and ties that have evolved to go along with it.
Of course. Thing is, 'swallowing wholesale' implies an unthinking, undiscriminating submission to a whole range of accrued tradition - regardless of the cost to one's integrity. I don't think it's fair to issue this as a blanket condemnation purely on the name-change thing, particularly since people have clearly given it an awful lot of consideration when it applies to their own situation (ie. Louche's prenuptial agonising).
quote:Originally posted by London: I’m just questioning those rituals and whether they have a place, what that meaning is. I’m trying to separate feminist doctrine from human experience, and human experience from post-feminist thought, and so on and so forth. I don’t buy this whole ‘you have no right to comment on the personal lives of others’ thing that Thorn’s pushing because, as Benway pointed out, the personal is political.
I fairness, I don't think Thorn was challenging your right to comment so much as your right to condemn. Blanket condemnation, readings of the riot act, hyperbole and condescension have their uses - I use them all often enough, ffs - but it's a bit disingenuous to switch into brow-furrowing-seeker-of-TEH-SIMPLE-TRUTH-FFS mode when people react to provocation.
quote:Originally posted by London: What else, historically, have women had? The domestic realm was pretty much all they were allowed to access or influence; to speak of women’s lives at all was to speak of their personal lives.
I dig this - but when descriptive bleeds into proscriptive and finally into "y'all are just gimps anyhow, sheeit" people are going to call you out on it.
quote:Originally posted by London: If Dang's just planning on carrying on as normal anyway, why does he even have to tell the children? It can just be mummy and daddys 'cool little sercret', surely?
Please say you were joshing Amp, because this would be the most brain-breaking thing to do. Dang. Pushing 103 years old into the ground. Laying in intensive care, the children all sat around the bed. He announces that 'children, your mother and I haven't been married since 2006' and their world falls apart. The oldest falls into a crack den. The youngest knocks back scotch in a titty bar repeating 'I luff you mum n dwaddy' into a tear-soaked jacket sleeve. This is the most dangerous thing to do. To keep it quiet.
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: I guess it's the whole "Women died so that you didn't have to do what they tell you, so you'd damn well better do this," thing. It's not really progress. It's not really any different at all.
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It's telling people what they should be doing - that's the parallel between 2000 years of patriarchy.
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You're advocating using feminist rhetoric to make women feel bad, and to urge them to do what you think is best. It really annoys me. It's just swapping in one set of bullying for another.
I don't know - I mean, I did actually use that phrase - semi-ironically (of course!) but with some serious intent, at the time of the election last year. My sister and my best friend weren't registered to vote. I even downloaded a voting form and gave it to my friend, and I said, please register to vote! Voting is important! And women DID die so you can have the vote! And you're just chucking that away!'
It seems that we're only allowed to say 'I vote, but if you don't want to, that's cool, baby, your choice baby, stay beautiful yeah?' Surely the whole point of having any kind of political opinion, as Benway pointed out, is to want to mobilise some kind of change? It just seems so apathetic to just wave your hands and say '*I* believe this, but this has no meaning in the world out there at large'. I dunno, it reminds me of the old arguments about female genital mutilation or whatever in Africa and Egypt. People rubbing their chins and going 'yeah well it's horrific, course it is, but it's their culture, you know? It'd be, like, wrong to dismiss it out of hand? What do we know about their rituals? I hear it's the women that enforce it anyway, so what can we do?' Surely we're allowed to say that that is a wrong thing to do to women?
Before anyone jumps in and says 'London just compared a woman taking a man's name at marriage to FGM': I did NOT. I'm just questioning this notion that the only opinions you're allowed to hold are those that pertain to your own life, and you're seemingly not allowed to question the choices of others in any way, shape or form.
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quote:Originally posted by ben: I dig this - but when descriptive bleeds into proscriptive and finally into "y'all are just gimps anyhow, sheeit" people are going to call you out on it.
As I recall it didn't 'bleed into' anything: I started the whole thing with an off-the-cuff 'might as well wear a gimp mask' thing so I think we all knew what was gonna happen. I didn't know I was dissing Louche when I said that though. I was only trying to diss Ubertrick!
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quote:Originally posted by New Way Of Decay: Please say you were joshing Amp, because this would be the most brain-breaking thing to do. Dang. Pushing 103 years old into the ground. Laying in intensive care, the children all sat around the bed. He announces that 'children, your mother and I haven't been married since 2006' and their world falls apart. The oldest falls into a crack den. The youngest knocks back scotch in a titty bar repeating 'I luff you mum n dwaddy' into a tear-soaked jacket sleeve. This is the most dangerous thing to do. To keep it quiet.
Doh - the flaw here is that the secret is revealed. Announced, even. Secrets should go to the grave, that's why they're secrets. Otherwise they're just gossip.
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quote:Originally posted by London: I'm just questioning this notion that the only opinions you're allowed to hold are those that pertain to your own life, and you're seemingly not allowed to question the choices of others in any way, shape or form.
Come off it - there's a big difference between questioning someone's opinion and laying into them for it - actually ben's already made this point.
Actually, one other thing that sprung to mind - and I'm genuinely curious about how you square this. You've also mentioned how you dig depraved pornography, something which - it is frequently argued - demeans women. You've posted quite a lot of stuff about how you get off on being abused by guys. If the private is political isn't an extreme submissive sex life - drinking spoonfuls of cum until you cry or throw up - several leagues beyond taking your husband's surname? Does that make you a hypocrite? Should women be telling you not to do that stuff? Or is it no-one's goddamn business?
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quote:Originally posted by London: Before anyone jumps in and says 'London just compared a woman taking a man's name at marriage to FGM': I did NOT.
Well, ok, I can see what you are saying, but not to back track I just wanted to single this paragraph out:
quote:Abandoning that identity - in formal, legal, language terms at least - has shades of days when the married woman left to live with her husband's family; when she had no identity beyond his (no longer Miss Ruth Lucas, just Mrs James Payne, a female adjunct to his independent life); when she had no right to own property; when she had no right to a divorce; when she had no right to refuse sex and there was no such thing as rape in marriage; when, essentially, her body was no longer her own, but his. When she had no right to an education or a vote. When she was invisible in legal terms.
Genuinely I feel that while there may be an intrinsic link through history to suggest that yes, before the freedom was won for women to lead (a slightly more equal) role in society, that taking a surname was another part of the ritual ownership of women, I believe with absoloute resoloution that the average british women today would be happy to take their husbands surname for their own personal agenda, not because they are thick and weak and letting the side down.
Bonus: In that case, I'm sure it will all be good for them. Gossip never killed anyone.
[ 23.02.2006, 06:31: Message edited by: New Way Of Decay ]
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If it's any help, Dummer, my name is Payne, and there's a girl at work whose surname is Cumming. Zoe Cumming. Oh and my friend goes by the name H0rt0n Jupiter, but his real name is Michael Bottoms. And there was a boy at college called Matthew Raper!
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quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: Actually, one other thing that sprung to mind - and I'm genuinely curious about how you square this. You've also mentioned how you dig depraved pornography, something which - it is frequently argued - demeans women. You've posted quite a lot of stuff about how you get off on being abused by guys. If the private is political isn't an extreme submissive sex life - drinking spoonfuls of cum until you cry or throw up - several leagues beyond taking your husband's surname? Does that make you a hypocrite? Should women be telling you not to do that stuff? Or is it no-one's goddamn business?
That was ages ago! Anyway, I can't really square it, and if I could, it wouldn't be hot. There's a lot of discussion within feminism itself about this very subject: Pat Califia, Suzy Bright, etc. Lots of third wave thinking is about examining things that were dismissed out of hand before, like S/M.
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: If the private is political isn't an extreme submissive sex life several leagues beyond taking your husband's surname?
It would be if the person advocating all this stuff was getting properly abused by someone who beat the shit out of them, wouldn't let them leave the house, blah de blah, and if they didn't enjoy that and hadn't chosen that, obviously. But I guess ultimately I don't see consensual stuff as contradicting anything I might say in the wider world, do you? Just like the way you might wank to (fake) rape porn but you wouldn't actually rape a woman.
quote:Originally posted by London: It would be if the person advocating all this stuff was getting properly abused by someone who beat the shit out of them, wouldn't let them leave the house, blah de blah, and if they didn't enjoy that and hadn't chosen that, obviously. But I guess ultimately I don't see consensual stuff as contradicting anything I might say in the wider world, do you?
So. The taking the name in marriage thing. I can see how it would be a problem for the feminist viewpoint if the woman taking her husband's name really was becoming his property, didn't have any rights over money, or her body. And how she had to take his name, and didn't want that and hadn't chosen it. But I guess ultimately I don't see consensual stuff as contradicting the legacy of feminism in the wider world.
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But doing something in the bedroom isn't in the wider world, it's in the bedroom. Changing your name isn't something you do in the bedroom - you keep your name change everywhere.
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But, really it's still a personal decision. The wider world doesn't have any claim over your name. The presence of your name in the wider world is roughly the same as - say - writing a piece of journalism, or something on a public discussion board about getting off on being abused during sex.
ETA
quote:Originally posted by London: But doing something in the bedroom isn't in the wider world, it's in the bedroom. Changing your name isn't something you do in the bedroom - you keep your name change everywhere.
Also - the private is political. Up until recently to discuss women's presence in the world was to discuss their private life.