changing names

there's this whole discussion happening about women changing their names after marriage, again.  there's a good rundown of how this discussion started & how it developed here (via here).

mostly i feel really bemused by these discussions and how much passion the issue generates.  i've noticed that posts on the topic tend to be some of the most commented on, it seems to be a thing on which everyone has a really decisive opinion which they don't hesitate to share.

it has traditionally been a western issue.  for many women in the east, changing names was never a thing.  you got given your name at birth and that was the name you had until you died.  and naming conventions also vary in the east.  for many cultures, there isn't any such thing as a surname or family name.  you have your own name(s), and this may be connected to your father's name, or not; it may be connected to the name of the village/district where you were born, or not.  but it's not necessarily a name that passed on from generation to generation, and certainly not something that needs to be changed on marriage.

but globalisation has tended to change some of that.  because many eastern cultures absorbed the notion that western cultures were more advanced and modern, they have adopted some of the cultural norms of the west.  with the result that women who were never expected to change their names on marriage are now pressured to do so.  the societal pressure that was so absent is now building & has been for some time now.

for women of eastern heritage growing up in the west, the pressure is pretty much the same as women of western heritage.  women who migrated to western countries were forced to take their husbands names in order to enter the country.  they weren't allowed a choice, there was no respect for nor even acknowledgement of their own traditions.  and many of their sons and daughters have lost the knowledge that women kept their own names as of right.  so often, it's not a topic of discussion but just a given that the name change will happen.

for me, it's that loss of our traditions, that pressure to absorb a cultural practice that is not authentic  to me nor of any value, that rankles the most.  it's the fact that i had to battle a borrowed pressure (as if we didn't have enough of our own to push back against) that totally annoys me.  at the heart of it is the hypocrisy: so many oppressive cultural traditions that need to go are defended on the basis that they are "traditional", but when you try to use the argument that name-changing on marriage isn't "traditional" for us, was never part of our culture, then suddenly "tradition" doesn't matter anymore.  heads i win, tails you lose.

i don't believe in shaming women for choosing to change their names, just as i hate any kind of societal pressure or expectation that they must or should change their names.  in an ideal world, women would be able to make that decision without being judged for it.  and we certainly wouldn't have to be drawn in to face pressures created by other cultural traditions, as an act of cultural domination.

NZ Speculative Fiction Blogging Week: Women in Power

I'm super happy to be able to kill two birds with one stone and write a post that serves as not only a suffrage day post but also part of NZ Speculative Fiction Blogging Week. It's a snapshot of an honours research essay in progress and all my half formed ideas about the texts, so my apologies for this being so 'bitty' and the lack of conclusions - I'm not even going to make an attempt to have the paragraphs naturally flow into each other.

The topic is looking at two novels written the late nineteenth century which portray a future New Zealand in which women hold political office. I'm looking at how far these matched and related to the reality and the conceptions of gender they explore.

The two main texts (their titles link to free ebooks via the NZETC):

Julius Vogel's ‘Anno Domini 2000: Woman’s Destiny’ imagines the world in the year 2000, in which women, by common though not universal assent, are the primary holders of political office simply because they are believed to be better suited to the task. It primarily follows both the political career and romantic exploits of 23 year old Under Secretary for Home Affairs (later Imperial Prime Minister) Hilda Fitzherbert, but large sections of the novel are devoted to explorations of both political systems and technological developments. Vogel was a prime minister of New Zealand, responsible for introducing an earlier (unsuccessful) suffrage bill, and 'Anno Domini'  is widely - though inaccurately - considered to the the first NZ science fiction novel (though it was certainly one of the earliest). It received a lot of attention in the year 2000 for the accuracy of its prediction, not just in terms of women's place in society - in his introduction to the rereleased version Roger Robinson lists some of these (I would dispute some of his points, but they are still significant).

Less well known, and considerably more bizarre, is Edward Tregear's 'Hedged with Divinities' which follows the journey of a male protagonist who wakes us from a trance to find that all men (globally) have died of a plague which remains unexplained. In their absence, and in the face of the incompetence and shock of the remaining women – the socio-political institutions and the infrastructure of the country have collapsed, and Jack (the protagonist) sets about restoring the country to a functioning society. However the question of repopulation remains, and he reluctantly agrees to a mass marriage, despite his only interest being in his lover, Nelly, and at the end of the novel, as babies (both male and female) are born to his wives, he sets sail for a remote pacific island with her.

Things I am writing about, or that I've noticed, include:

To learn more...

In October of last year, this blog was part of a debate about Te Papa and the tikanga they used for some taonga.

As a follow-up to that I wanted to draw attention to Kim's post The tapu of taonga and wāhine in a colonised land.

Her post discusses lots of different aspects of the collection itself, the tikanga, and the debate about it in the media and on blogs:

And this is the real issue, while Māori must understand a European worldview and law to survive in this land, colonisation has meant that very few people have any understanding of mātauranga Māori, or, in fact, of colonisation. Whenever an issue requires some understanding, whether it be the significance of te reo Māori, or kaitiakitanga, or whatever, the ignorance of most New Zealanders makes dialogue impossible. And thanks again to colonisation, this creates a problem not for those who are ignorant, but for Māori. Māori must repeatedly start from the beginning and attempt to explain their whole culture—this occurs in conversations, the media, court hearings, tribunal hearings. At some point, tauiwi need to take some responsibility for understanding the indigenous culture, and for understanding how their ignorance contributes to cultural imperialism, to Māori perspectives being marginalised and foreign in their own land.

I recommend reading whole post.

Open thread about Egypt and Tunisia

I haven't had time to keep up with everything happening in Egypt and Tunisia. I have just ducked in and out of news sites, and seen so many stories of the incredible strenght of collective revolt (and prison break-out - I do love stories of prison break out). I thought I'd start an open thread where people can contribute plcaes for good sources of news, and interesting links

My contribution is this amazing gallery of images Women of Egypt.

My only comment I can give at this point of ignorance is: know where you stand. I've read a lot of supposedly progressive blogs, particualrly from America, which talk about 'we' and 'us' as if the author's stand with the American government. I know I don't stand with the NZ government, or any government. I stand with people fighting for their liberation.