I followed from the catholicism community to your LJ here and read a few of your posts.
Reading this particular post, you make a connection to women shaving their legs and patriarchy. I don't quite understand. Couldn't the same be construed the other way around? For instance, I shave my face everyday so it's baby-smooth because that's what my girlfriend likes. The same applies for when I get haircuts, dress in fine clothes for dates, (occassionally) shave my legs, open doors, and act gentlemanly all around. I do all those things because my girlfriend likes it, even though she doesn't specifically ask me to do them.
I don't think this means I'm submitting to matriarchy or anything like that. Nor does she interpret dressing up or shaving legs to be submitting to patriarchy. I guess what I'm trying to ask is why doing things to please the opposite sex should be interpreted as something bad, instead of things done voluntarily out of love.
And about the name-changing. I asked my girlfriend what she thought about it a few months back, when we were discussing marriage. She said that she'd much rather have my last name than her dad's, because she'd rather have a stronger familial connection with her husband than with her father.
I also asked my mom about it. In particular, I was musing about what if I had her maiden name for my last name instead of my dad's last name. My mom said that it was better for last names to be handed down through the fathers because it evened out the playing field of parent-child relationships. She said that mothers start out with an advantage because they carry their kids in the womb and the kids start out more attached to their moms. By having them use the dad's last name, my mom argued, it helps so that the dad doesn't feel completely left out of the equation. I can see the reasoning behind that, because I might get a little "jealous" of my wife in the first few months or years after having kids, because on average, kids are more attached to their moms. Historically speaking, matricide was considered a much greater crime than patricide, and I suspect this connection to the mother is involved.
First: I want to question whether you really shave your face every day because your girlfriend likes it. When you didn't have a girlfriend, did you also shave? If your girlfriend decided she preferred you with a beard, would you just grow a beard? The truth is I barely ever see men with beards, or really much facial hair at all. It's just not fashionable now. At times it's been fashionable. Are you really sure that your (and your girlfriend's) personal preferences are completely unaffected by fashion?
Part of my response is that our preferences and choices don't happen in a vacuum. And some choices have more social baggage than others. So while I am free to not shave my legs, the choice not to has more and different consequences than the choice to wear a green shirt or a yellow shirt. I think it's more comparable to the choice of a woman in the fifties to wear pants rather than skirts. It's do-able, but it's a choice that has meaning and impact, and that other people take as *meaning* something, whether or not you intend it to. Some choices are approved than others, or fashionable, if you will.
It's all about the context.
It's about the context for last names also. It's not just about familial connection, either, because if it were than both people would take the last name of whichever parent they felt the closest to. So if you're really close to your mom but not your dad, and your girlfriend is estranged from both her parents, then you would all take your mother's last name. Generally, we would expect all couples to have the same last name but for it to be equally often the woman's last name. In terms of kids too, I wouldn't expect all dads to expect to feel distant from their children and to feel jealous of their children's mother. It's a convention that children have their father's last name that has nothing to do with the individual feelings of each family and each family member.
Anyway, clearly there is lots of disagreement about these issues even among feminists. But I think the main problem I have with your reasoning is that it ignores context and that it assumes that the way things are is the way things should be. My disagreement is with your process, and less so with your outcomes.
First: I want to question whether you really shave your face every day because your girlfriend likes it. When you didn't have a girlfriend, did you also shave? If your girlfriend decided she preferred you with a beard, would you just grow a beard? The truth is I barely ever see men with beards, or really much facial hair at all. It's just not fashionable now. At times it's been fashionable. Are you really sure that your (and your girlfriend's) personal preferences are completely unaffected by fashion?
Before I met my girlfriend, I shaved about once a week, as opposed to every day. I think having a full mustache (I'm Asian, so I don't actually grow any hair on my cheeks) would be annoying. But if my girlfriend liked mustaches, then yeah, I would grow one.
I'm pretty neutral on fashion. If I'm not out with my girlfriend or attending Mass, then I wear whatever appears first in the closet. My girlfriend is even more apathetic towards fashion than I am. Before we got together, she wore fairly baggy clothes and no makeup. After we got together, she went out to buy more fashionable clothing just to please me (even though I'm not the type to really care what she wears). I encourage her to continue not wearing makeup, for various reasons.
Back to the names:
I'm not really sure what's so wrong with the patriarchial system. If last names were all matriarchially based, it wouldn't bother me at all. I don't think my girlfriend would be helping me out on that either, LOL. Even though she was raised in what I would call a "wealthy liberal elite" household, she's a very conservative, traditionally-minded Catholic convert, and an anti-feminist. Her parents are trying to force her into Harvard to be a doctor, but she'd rather be a housewife, have lots of kids, and write books.
Reading this particular post, you make a connection to women shaving their legs and patriarchy. I don't quite understand. Couldn't the same be construed the other way around? For instance, I shave my face everyday so it's baby-smooth because that's what my girlfriend likes. The same applies for when I get haircuts, dress in fine clothes for dates, (occassionally) shave my legs, open doors, and act gentlemanly all around. I do all those things because my girlfriend likes it, even though she doesn't specifically ask me to do them.
I don't think this means I'm submitting to matriarchy or anything like that. Nor does she interpret dressing up or shaving legs to be submitting to patriarchy. I guess what I'm trying to ask is why doing things to please the opposite sex should be interpreted as something bad, instead of things done voluntarily out of love.
And about the name-changing. I asked my girlfriend what she thought about it a few months back, when we were discussing marriage. She said that she'd much rather have my last name than her dad's, because she'd rather have a stronger familial connection with her husband than with her father.
I also asked my mom about it. In particular, I was musing about what if I had her maiden name for my last name instead of my dad's last name. My mom said that it was better for last names to be handed down through the fathers because it evened out the playing field of parent-child relationships. She said that mothers start out with an advantage because they carry their kids in the womb and the kids start out more attached to their moms. By having them use the dad's last name, my mom argued, it helps so that the dad doesn't feel completely left out of the equation. I can see the reasoning behind that, because I might get a little "jealous" of my wife in the first few months or years after having kids, because on average, kids are more attached to their moms. Historically speaking, matricide was considered a much greater crime than patricide, and I suspect this connection to the mother is involved.
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First: I want to question whether you really shave your face every day because your girlfriend likes it. When you didn't have a girlfriend, did you also shave? If your girlfriend decided she preferred you with a beard, would you just grow a beard? The truth is I barely ever see men with beards, or really much facial hair at all. It's just not fashionable now. At times it's been fashionable. Are you really sure that your (and your girlfriend's) personal preferences are completely unaffected by fashion?
Part of my response is that our preferences and choices don't happen in a vacuum. And some choices have more social baggage than others. So while I am free to not shave my legs, the choice not to has more and different consequences than the choice to wear a green shirt or a yellow shirt. I think it's more comparable to the choice of a woman in the fifties to wear pants rather than skirts. It's do-able, but it's a choice that has meaning and impact, and that other people take as *meaning* something, whether or not you intend it to. Some choices are approved than others, or fashionable, if you will.
It's all about the context.
It's about the context for last names also. It's not just about familial connection, either, because if it were than both people would take the last name of whichever parent they felt the closest to. So if you're really close to your mom but not your dad, and your girlfriend is estranged from both her parents, then you would all take your mother's last name. Generally, we would expect all couples to have the same last name but for it to be equally often the woman's last name. In terms of kids too, I wouldn't expect all dads to expect to feel distant from their children and to feel jealous of their children's mother. It's a convention that children have their father's last name that has nothing to do with the individual feelings of each family and each family member.
Anyway, clearly there is lots of disagreement about these issues even among feminists. But I think the main problem I have with your reasoning is that it ignores context and that it assumes that the way things are is the way things should be. My disagreement is with your process, and less so with your outcomes.
Reply
Before I met my girlfriend, I shaved about once a week, as opposed to every day. I think having a full mustache (I'm Asian, so I don't actually grow any hair on my cheeks) would be annoying. But if my girlfriend liked mustaches, then yeah, I would grow one.
I'm pretty neutral on fashion. If I'm not out with my girlfriend or attending Mass, then I wear whatever appears first in the closet. My girlfriend is even more apathetic towards fashion than I am. Before we got together, she wore fairly baggy clothes and no makeup. After we got together, she went out to buy more fashionable clothing just to please me (even though I'm not the type to really care what she wears). I encourage her to continue not wearing makeup, for various reasons.
Back to the names:
I'm not really sure what's so wrong with the patriarchial system. If last names were all matriarchially based, it wouldn't bother me at all. I don't think my girlfriend would be helping me out on that either, LOL. Even though she was raised in what I would call a "wealthy liberal elite" household, she's a very conservative, traditionally-minded Catholic convert, and an anti-feminist. Her parents are trying to force her into Harvard to be a doctor, but she'd rather be a housewife, have lots of kids, and write books.
Reply
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