Every time, I think of these thoughts I am about to pen down, Shakespear’s famous saying comes to my head, ‘What’s in the name?’
Turns out Mr.Shakespear, it has quite a lot to do with a lot of things!
I want to dwell a little about where I am coming from. I remember the first time when I saw my name from a third-party point of view, it was when I had an opportunity to lead my college robotics team. I saw my name flash on the screen when our team was introduced. ‘Team Leader Akaknsha Devkar’, as much as I loved being the captain and so seeing the tag ‘Team Leader’ in front of it, that was the day when I fell in love with my name. It felt like I had an awesome name, in my eyes, it was heavy and powerful, I took pride in telling my name and being known as ‘Akanksha Devkar’.
After that, I always looked at my name with a pumped-up heart until very recently. Got so attached to my name and the identity that I was fiercely against changing my name or adding my husband’s last name to my name (No one asked me to change my name but I had discussed how much I despise girls changing their name after the wedding with my now-husband well before getting married!)
I was in awe of the girls who changed their name on social media after the wedding, first of all, I was surprised about how easily they were giving up their ‘identity’ of 25+ years. But what stunned me more was the girls who would put their names as just their first name-last name before the wedding but after the wedding would change it to first name-husband’s name-husband’s last name, how very proud they were to embrace their new identity and don their husband’s names. Let me confess, as a teenager, even I adored the idea of changing my name and would play out how my name would sound with my crush’s last name. Silly things! But then one of my dear feminist friends came up one day very strongly about how she would not change her name after getting married and that was an eye-opener. Do men change their name or show any kind of other connection to their wives after the wedding using the name? NO, then why should women do it?
I said to myself as a 21-year-old, ‘No way in hell I’m changing my name!!’.
And then without even realizing it, I started ‘respecting’ women who didn’t change their names after the wedding.
Fast forward a few years, I started wondering why the hell do kids get to keep their father’s name and have no identity connection with their mother’s in the full name? Maybe keeping the family name made sense in older days or maybe it was always patriarchal, but I think it won’t be hard to agree that last names are not required in today’s society. In fact, getting rid of last names would be the start of solving India’s crucial problem, if you know what I mean.
And while I sat getting offended as a woman about how society still blindly follows the patriarchy, I felt absolutely astounded when I saw women sharing their baby pictures on Instagram/Facebook and introducing the babies to the world proudly as baby name-father’s name-father’s last name.
In my head, I went, ‘Dude!! you literally carried that baby in your womb for 9 months, took horrible pain, and are most probably going through postnatal difficulties and more importantly, you have been going through pain and discomfort all your life since you were a teen just to be a mother and how easily you give up everything and happily look at the baby as your husband’s property.’ This made me deeply ponder if women’s DNA is by default more altruistic as compared to men’s DNA.
But then, I know where these women come from, it’s nothing but brainwashing that our society has done for all these years. How perfect, how smooth, how very cunning.
Rule the woman yet make her happily submit. Slow claps for that fantastic patriarchy. Women are programmed to find changing their names adorable, women are taught to find it romantic to adopt their husband’s name in order to extend the already established connection. Women are wired to imagine their family united by their husband’s last name.
Ladies, just mention it to your partner if he would even entertain the idea of taking your last name, and watch him revolt! See his smug face, which shouts in surprise, ‘Why do I need to?’ and then ask yourself, ‘Why do you need to?’
The most well-educated and feminist men find it ‘nice’ to have their wife take their name.
This is not about the husband taking the wife’s family name or it is not even about stopping anyone from doing what they like and judging them for it but it is about what we are telling our next generation by following such stupid yet dangerous traditions.
Dangerous because we are teaching our kids that your father is higher than your mother so you get his name. We are teaching our children that somehow they got more of their father and his family because they share the last name.
In fact, some feminist women didn’t change their name after the wedding but changed their name after having a baby, just to feel connected with their baby as one family!
When I thought over the above things, I realized how stupid I was to be wearing this ‘Akanksha Devkar’ mask with no representation whatsoever of my sweet mom in my name. So I decided to drop my last name and thought it would be nice to represent my name as Akanksha Nayana Chandrakant. That according to me is a perfect identity for myself, representing where I came from. Hoping to change it officially soon.
From where I stand, it looks like our name is a subtle way in which men assert their power over women, and more astonishingly, it is a way in which most women let men rule them. Don’t take me for a stereotypical feminist but hoping you would ‘think’ about it. The idea of the above note is only to make one and all think about this name factor being a potential hazard for us ever achieving gender equality.
