| OCR Text |
Show S T M R QO IO i E A F C who I am. Keeping my name wasn't really a statement of anything, except perhaps stubbornness. After all, why should I have to change my name? I considered hyphenating, but Wilson-Lawson has no resonance of any kind. In fact, it just sounds stupid. At one point Peter jokingly suggested that we combine our respective last names into a new one. We could use the first three letters of his last name and the last three letters of mine. I, in turn, proposed we try it the other way...I’m sure you get the picture. In the end, we decided that “to each his (or her) own” would be the best solution. And so Anne Wilson I remained. Unthinkable as it is, our society in the year 2000 continues to operate for the most part on the premise that when a man and a woman marry, the woman will take the man's surname. End of story. This means that the small act of keeping your name in this country adds certain minor complications to your life. = I didn't anticipate any of these inconveniences. The only dilemma I could imagine involved monograms, which just didn't seem that critical. Traditionally a woman comes S to a marriage with her dowry linens monogrammed with her maiden name initials. After marriage, she uses her married initials. When possessed with the desire to monogram I will simply (and properly,I might add) use my “maiden monogram”. With any, luck, Peter will think of me as a maiden forever. The delicate issue of monogramming aside, I have discovered other inconveniences in the five years of our marriage. — The most annoying one is that we always receive mail order catalogues in multiple - By ; combinations of both of our last and first names. Anne Wilson (e.g., Anne Wilson, Anne Lawson, Peter Lawson, Peter Wilson). They come addressed to us individually, as a couple, and in different spellings of our names. If I start multiplying those possibilities, I can see that = keeping my name actually makes a significant contribution to deforestation on a global “How my ‘Wil' Overcame his ‘Law"’ ae You should never S the truth eu in the way ofa good story, but in reality ans It might be because I'm a Smith College graduate that Stiles thinks I have a feminist _ the largest number of catalogues I ever received at once from any one company, was six. voice to express. After all, Smith birthed both Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem. Ormaybe _— jj.) he just thinks I have feminist tendencies. After all, I kept my “maiden” name when I I've also found that if your spouse carries your health insurance coverage, the company married. worn me feminism, is Wilson, He continues to crow about the pun above because he came up with it. It has —_ down. I'm not prepared for an intellectual, or even intelligent discourse about so we'll just have some fun. (By the way, the clue to the pun is that my lastname _ while my husband's is Lawson.) sgmetimes has trouble figuring out who you are and to whom you “belong”. Plus, I always worry that if something happens to me, no one will be able to figure out who my next of kin is. Hopefully, the E.R. would find my insurance card before they go flipping through my address book. I don't particularly think of myself as a feminist. Afterall—shh, don't tell anyone--I never quite finished reading "The Feminist Mystique." Of course, the damn book is 417 pages long. Not including 25 pages of endnotes. (And yes, it was prescribed reading in more than one of my college courses.) Frankly, I came of age in the late ‘80’s and I pretty much figured the Equal Rights Movement and the path paved by that generation of women had solved the issue of equality. I didn't have to prove I was equal to men. I simply knew I don't think o f m yself asa feminis t... The moral values I “ : I wee EobleGaow 1 anc hold about equality and rights, I have always referred The moral values I hold about equality and rights I have always referred to as to. as humanist. because I believe the y apply to society in its entirety, not just any segment of it. humanist, because I believe they apply to society in its entirety, not just any segment of it. Here are a few examples of my political ideology on this topic. I believe in equal pay for equal work. I believe in family leave. In factI think it should be mandatory for women and men if they decide to have kids. I think we should be able to count our parents as dependents on our taxes when they become that. I believe that everyone, including men, the rich, and the powerful, should have to wash their own dishes and clean their own toilets occasionally. else. That way we'd all remember that we're basically the same as everyone A recently discovered inconvenience is that when you go to Mexico with your husband and his kids, you have to have a certified letter from the last wife stating that it is okay for If the truth be known, there's another reason te be a humanist rather than a feminist. _ the kids to travel with you. For some reason, the equation of a man and his children plus The feminist label is similar to the environmentalist label. Dirty, nasty words. Or, more a woman with a different last name equals an abduction profile. And here I thought I was eruditely expressed, for better or worse, these words carry a negative connotation in today's _ too bland and nondescript to ever be profiled. society. We were certainly aware of it during my years at Smith. You might think it was There are a myriad of glitches in social situations. For example, take the party where (is) one of the bastions of feminism, but there was actually quite a continuum of beliefon —_ most people are, say, acquaintances of your husband's family. Your husband, being a smart the subject. To my shock there were many women enrolled who--this is just 10 years ago--intended _ to marry right out of college and not work. Their Smith diploma was another addition to their pedigree. I think their lips curled in distaste at the mere thought of feminism. We also had our the hard-core, serious, feminist, P.C., watchdogs at Smith. They were fairly _ man, knows to introduce you using both your first and last name (the correct way to do this is actually addressed in several etiquette books). Despite this, if you call these people _at a later date they have no idea who you are until you add the caveat, “I am so-and-so's wife”. SometimesI even give up and say, “Lawson. This is Anne Lawson.” “Oh,” they say, in a tone that ever so slightly conveys, “You're one of those women”, or “Why didn't you intimidating, for you were bound to offend someone whenever you opened your mouth. The _just say so in the first place?” rest of us fell somewhere in between those two extremes and didn't think inequality was Of course, one of the biggest issues is that when you decide to marry, you have to tell still such a big issue. On the other hand we were living in, and learning from, an _ your family you are keeping your name. I would have had no worries had my parents institution that prized and valued women. It existed for women. No wonder we didn't __ been think equality problems existed. For certain friends, there were rude awakenings awaiting after they left Smith, depending upon their chosen career paths. At any rate, whateverI consider myself, most people probably would call me a feminist. Whether that is because of my beliefs, or simply because I kept my last name depends on their values. I don't consider name retention to be a radical statement, but some people would take issue with that. I was 27 when I married. No spring chicken in these stomping grounds. Any living. However, both my parents were dead, which was one of the reasons I remained a Wilson. I got to tell my grandfather instead, which is another story. My grandfather is very...well, the adjectives proper and traditional begin to paint an accurate picture. The day before my wedding my grandfather begins crafting the i He's very proud. “Uh, Grandpa?” I say, my voice wavering just the tiniest bit. well-bred, well-adjusted young Utah woman would have married long before then and delivered, oh, let me do some quick math, anywhere from 5-7 children prior to reaching Something hit the proverbial fan when he discovered I was not becoming Mrs. Lawson. Basically it came down to the fact that he thought I was dishonoring Peter, who luckily that age. It’s one area whereI don't mind beinga late bloomer. Anyway, by the timeI was ready to jump on the marriage bandwagon I was pretty used to being Anne Wilson. It's enough, (and through no wile of his own) managed to be absent during the fray. Prevailed, but was close to tears for the entire day. COCHISE a eo ee samen yy UTAH SPORTS COLLECTIBLES A Portable Traveling Planetarium Serving the Schools of Western Colorado From Tobacco | Cards to N S 4 ~~ ** Roa z ¥ Cieterss eek eae STON OHIES etsfeisei.s reve oe ste, a SCHOOLS! ewe 1043 North Avenue (across from Mesa State College) 970.243.9744 cochises@gi.net enna (and Flat-Earth Utah) oe, t for publication in various newspapers. He gets to the end where he reads aloud, “Mr. and Mrs. Lawson will make their home on Professor Valley Ranch, outside of Moab, Utah.” For more information contact: DAN ROSEN bby cea eb SRS I |
