with no ill will for you, OP, genuinely fuck this boomer ass “joke”
a woman’s name is her name. she lives with it for 1 lifetime, absolutely no shorter than her grandfather does. “male” is not somehow the default human identity. stop trying to enforce that standard.
in my friend group we have a guy we describe as “default {name}”, in order to differentiate him from the other {name}s in the group. He’s a cisgender heterosexual white christian male (a rarity among us). Mostly it’s a joke, because we all agree that being mildly offensive is kinda funny, but it’s also a commentary on society at large. If you’re online talking to people you know nothing about, it’s a safe assumption (christian less and less as the years go by though).
It is absolutely ok to not be “default settings”. You’re not doing anything wrong by not confirming to that standard. I didn’t decide what default is, I learned it by observing society.
I think the point of the joke might be more that an attempt to start a matrilineal naming scheme is foiled somewhat from the fact that the maiden name of the mother is derived from her father, i.e. you can’t escape that the last names all come from patrilineal sources for generations.
…yeah? exactly what i said? i don’t disagree at all except you possibly ignore that the butt of the joke is the woman, normalizing the very repression she attempts to subvert. it’s undermining and mocking the woman’s identity intentionally by asserting the dominance of patriarchal schemes over her own life and decision. (perhaps unintentionally, but nevertheless really.)
in America, historically Black names are also dominated by the history of slavery and white supremacy (different functions, but the end result: subjugation, is parallel). i would post a similar comment hating on a post mocking Black folk for resisting these patterns as well! :)
If a woman is committed to the idea, she could break the patrilineal naming convention simply by creating herself a new last name, and encouraging her children to take that name instead of their father’s.
with no ill will for you, OP, genuinely fuck this boomer ass “joke”
a woman’s name is her name. she lives with it for 1 lifetime, absolutely no shorter than her grandfather does. “male” is not somehow the default human identity. stop trying to enforce that standard.
in my friend group we have a guy we describe as “default {name}”, in order to differentiate him from the other {name}s in the group. He’s a cisgender heterosexual white christian male (a rarity among us). Mostly it’s a joke, because we all agree that being mildly offensive is kinda funny, but it’s also a commentary on society at large. If you’re online talking to people you know nothing about, it’s a safe assumption (christian less and less as the years go by though).
It is absolutely ok to not be “default settings”. You’re not doing anything wrong by not confirming to that standard. I didn’t decide what default is, I learned it by observing society.
I think the point of the joke might be more that an attempt to start a matrilineal naming scheme is foiled somewhat from the fact that the maiden name of the mother is derived from her father, i.e. you can’t escape that the last names all come from patrilineal sources for generations.
…yeah? exactly what i said? i don’t disagree at all except you possibly ignore that the butt of the joke is the woman, normalizing the very repression she attempts to subvert. it’s undermining and mocking the woman’s identity intentionally by asserting the dominance of patriarchal schemes over her own life and decision. (perhaps unintentionally, but nevertheless really.)
in America, historically Black names are also dominated by the history of slavery and white supremacy (different functions, but the end result: subjugation, is parallel). i would post a similar comment hating on a post mocking Black folk for resisting these patterns as well! :)
If a woman is committed to the idea, she could break the patrilineal naming convention simply by creating herself a new last name, and encouraging her children to take that name instead of their father’s.