Named and Shamed/Freedom vs. Equality

This is a response to the explosive op-ed piece 'Named & Shamed' found below, to which I will add my combustability.

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/named-and-shamed-20100223-p0ty.html

The basic argument is that whilst many women now choose to keep or hyphenate their maiden* name, most kids are automatically given their paternal surname. This should change, that kids may have their maternal surname...?

I won't really argue against it, in fact I guess it's the same sort of consciousness raising as pointing out how referring to human achievements as 'man's achievements' and 'mankind' and all that shit makes women feel, and if it makes them feel small, belittled or disrespected it should stop. So really as far as I can be 'for' this maternal surname recognition equality stuff, I guess I'm for it.

But I just see this as an argument between two parents ego's. Striving for equality (and it is unequal now) rather than freedom which is the viewpoint and rights of a child:

1. The 'Family' line is a Fantasy.

One of the most powerful passages (when you think of history and how many people have died or been forced into marriages to protect a family dynasty) in Dawkins 'The Selfish Gene is as follows:

When we die there are two things we can leave behind us: our genes and memes. We are built as gene machines, created to pass on our genes. But that aspect of us will be forgotten within three generations. Your child, even your grandchild may bear a resemblance to you, perhaps in facial features, or a talent for music, in the colour of her hair. But as each generation passes, the contribution of your genes is halved. It does not take long for it to reach negligable proportions. Our genes may be immortal but the collection of genes that is any one of us is bound to crumble away. Elizabeth II is a direct descendant of William the Conquerer. Yet it is quite probable that she bears not a single one of the old king's genes.

Gene's and memes. That's it, and neither are preserved with much fidelity between generations. I mean even with memes much of the core values my grandparents possess like views on foreigners, religion, homosexuality, freedom, nationalism etc. are already lost on me, which means they are lost within 2 generations. My gene composition resemblance should last a generation longer. Thus I would argue that the family line is a temporary state centered on the parental generation as a medium between their parents and their children, the family is really a unit most concentrated between parents and children in their youth till majority.
The influence of family on identity deteriorates from there.

The point being, that there isn't much point to being named after somebody four generations your senior, the chances of you resembling them beynd being a member of the human race, or thinking like them are slim to nil.

2. A Question of Ownership

Parents don't own their children, their children own them. Parent(s) choose to bring a child into the world, the child doesn't choose them. I also kind of think all children are accidents. My birth was planned, but seriously my parents couldn't have planned on having me. They had trouble planning whether I was a boy or a girl.
Parents are responsible for providing their children with food, shelter, & security through their vulnerable infancy, and that's all. That they effect the identity of their offspring is an inevitable by product of rendering these services. If they are unable then the responsibility is taken up by the state via the social safety net.
Germane Greer in the Female Eunuch talks about the tyranny of mother-hood in the chapter 'Baby' as below, I was glad to see this prejudice or allusion to a child being the mothers property or even achievement was addressed:

'The intense absorption of the baby in one human being... is a necessary factor in the development of the character which is considered normal in our society. The prejudice against the substitution of any other person or number of persons for the omnipotent mother is very strong indeed'

3. What's in a Name?

My name is 'tohm' that's how I think of it. The name on my license, passport and birthcertificate are the names of a stranger, I don't identify with my full name. When I hear it, or even derivations like 'Tom' I think 'how quaint' or 'gee this person hasn't seen me in ages'.
Most people though stick with what I consider a 'placeholder name'. That is some given name decided on by the parents and as per convention a surname same as the father. Then you can trace that surname's derivations through the paternal line (which is largely meaningless) back to some ancestor. I know of at least one 'rare' family name that came about through a clerical error when the family migrated to Australia, specifically a typo changing their official name.
Most though in the western sphere are regional based some paternal ancestors home town like 'Da Vinci' means 'Of Vinci' and 'Toscano' means 'Tuscan' and largely shed no light on the family identity apart from the knowledge that they didn't have a vocation (eg. Medici) esteemed enough to warrant a vocation based surname. But very few Smiths are still Smiths, even fewer Fletchers are still Fletchers and the 'Hill' for which my Grandfather was named is now long lost to memory.

Names have little intrinsic information as to somebodies identity. They may prejudice people one way or another given your older siblings, father, mother etc. but their main use is to distinguish two people in a group that share the same common name. Though more often a nickname will suffice.

I like nicknames by the way, they are peer given and more often telling of character than given names or surnames.

4. Who's Ego?

All surnames in our society are paternal, which was the first thing that struck me. The argument then is not really about women's right to name their children for their father over their husband. I'm sure nobody thinks of it that way, but that they be able to name the child after a name they have come to identify with themselves.

Setting aside how uneven the current convention is, if the mother has come to identify with a paternally derived surname then it suggests that people would adopt any name given them into their identity.

My mother gets upset that I insist on being 'tohm' and her feelings are hurt that I won't keep the name she chose me. But she could have called me 'Penis Dickface Cock' (which if I survived childhood I probably would have kept) and wider society wouldn't blame me for adopting a new name. Her feelings are hurt because she interprets it as resistance to her ownership of me. Which is true, I don't understand the way she talks about my achievements (or lack thereof) as if they are her own particularly when more often than not she hasn't contributed or has actively opposed my efforts to get them.

Which makes her sound like a bitch, but she isn't she's just a standard mother. Loving, supporting, anxious. I wouldn't take her maiden name ever though because I associate it with her father, who was a dick, and 'head' of the family. Even the word 'maiden' name is these days a misnomer. Few brides are 'maidens' having already broken their 'maidenhead' long before marriage.

5. Property Rights.

The 'Named and Shamed' article builds the child's surname argument from the more accepted practice of Brides that keep their own names or hyphenate. Identity is part of this argument, but the major hurdle it overcomes is the tradition of marriage that is a property transaction between father to son-in-law. Over many years western society has gotten rid of the dowry, the payment to relieve the son-in-law's family from the burden of taking on another woman. But the father still 'gives away' the bride, the engagement ring still marks the bride as the groom's property, and the surname indicates that the grooms family has taken possession of the bride.

I get slightly annoyed at the number of girls that will be all 'that's right' and 'rock on' for the keeping the surname argument but will then flash their engagement rings in a display of conspicuous consumption.

But I would say, the surname argument begins and ends with property, and as it applies to children I happily agree that as it stands it could be more equal (given that surnames have no intrinsic meaning) and would cost little but ego to do so to aportion the egotism more evenly between the genders.

But this would mean that both were doing something that deep down is really vile equally. And equality isn't freedom.

6. Japan!

In Japan if a family produces only daughters (like commodities) then traditionally the parents would find a second son from another family to adopt into the family. He takes his brides surname and becomes head of the family or the next generation. This is because the Japanese take the 'family identity' thing really, really, seriously to the extent that a man with no male heirs will adopt a son just to preserve the family name.

In Japan, unless you are an intimate friend of somebody you refer to them as 'Handa san' or 'Kimura san' or 'Takehashi san' not their first names, but their family names. In Japanese highschools not only do the students address teachers as 'Mr Smith' but the teachers address students by surname as well.

As a foreigner you may not notice it in your direct experience. Most Japanese people adopt a 'When in Rome' attitude to living in our first name societies, plus foreigners never suspect anything is wrong with referring to somebody by first name. ur intimate treatment of strangers in Japan probably endears foreigners to the locals.

So Japan is like a step backwards with its emphasis on being identified with a family or clan first and individual second, and it is a very very patriarchal society, but the answer also comes from Japan.

The samurai traditionally were given a name at birth, that was kind of like a nickname:

A samurai was usually named by combining one kanji from his father or grandfather and one new kanji. Samurai normally used only a small part of their total name.
For example, the full name of Oda Nobunaga would be "Oda Kazusanosuke Saburo Nobunaga" (織田上総介三郎信長), in which "Oda" is a clan or family name, "Kazusanosuke" is a title of vice-governor of Kazusa province, "Saburo" is a name before genpuku, a coming of age ceremony, and "Nobunaga" is an adult name. Samurai were able to choose their own first names.

Tokugawa Ieyasu the most famous and influential shogun. Arguably the supreme patriarch of Japan's cultural heritage was born Matsudaira Takechiyo, he chose his own name and made up the most (or second most, after the Emperor's) famous family name in Japan's history.

7. Frank and Franklin Jr.

Show me somebody who knows who their great great grandfather was and I will show you 4 generations of under achievers. The only real time a person would arguably gain from adopting their parents identity over their own is when they can ride on the previous generations coat tails.
But more often than not, you do your child no favors by calling them Jr. Just look at the success of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's son FDRJR in politics, who was crushed by the expectations heaped upon him, or the dazzling career of Frank Sinatra Jr as a singer.
I haven't thought much about having kids, but I actually don't like the idea of them being associated with me by my name. I don't like the thought of them inheriting some legacy or being judged by my actions. I want them to have a clean slate, neither unduly advantaged or disadvantaged. In the same way that Gates and Buffet will give away their vast fortunes for charity rather than passing it on to their children who haven't done anything to earn it.
Ideally my kid would be given a place holder name, and then I have no doubt that when they reach 16-18 somewhere they would choose their own name through a natural trial and error evolution process like I did.

8. Freedom

In Nelson Mandela's long walk to freedom that he is still walking as far as I know, I was surprised to learn that South African Apartheid was arranged into 3 tiers, first there was the white master race, then the intermediary 'coloureds' like the Indian workers (Ghandi being the most famous of them) and way down at the bottom the indegenous Africans.
In prison, Mandela was forced to wear shorts (initially) to infantilise him and his peers, where the Indian prisoners recieved pants.
To me the argument of maternal surname (which is maternal's paternal) vs paternal surname is like putting energy into Africans right to wear pants in prison. It puts them on equal footing with another slightly less oppressed ethnicity, but it is a far cry from freedom which is the real prize.

Evening up the naming rights would be an improvement to a practice I find fundamentally wrong. The only arguments for surnames are the practical ones - the only one being to distinguish between two people with the same first name. But why not just use street name or suburb? (sure it would make it easier for kidnappers) or any arbitrary surname. Anything but one that suggests that children don't belong to themselves. Why not name them for the families breed of dog. At least Labradors have intrinsic associated qualities (hungry and friendly), unlike Fletchers, Smiths, Bakers and Farriers.

Furthermore, your husband or wife is somebody you have chosen to be with (in most countries) so why not take their surname. You didn't choose your parents. Why not institute a surname swap, or have some standard 'Von' type prefix and then take their first name as your surname, 'tohm of michelle's' or something, we should fancy it up with some French.

Maybe I'm the only one who sees it this way, but I doubt it after all there is a book on family called 'they screw you up'. I know too many great people that have been completely fucked over by the 'property of the family' treatment, parental expectations, institutionalised feelings of guilt and debt to people you would never choose as friends. I've been lucky my family is pretty benign, but why take the risk? I would definitely allow for the possibility my kids will think I'm a total cunt, its their life I hope they choose to spend time with me not feel obliged to.


9. Men are Not Free

Every time the Women's movement seems to get derailed, it is usually because it has been striving for equality rather than freedom. A woman's choice of profession is an important right, but to have a 'career' under the same system as men is equality not freedom.

The one time I walked out on Claire in our relationship was when she treated me like a man, namely I had quit my shitty job and she blasted me (as far as she blasts anything, which isn't as explosiony as it sounds, more like a nagging lecture) about being responsible and shit. Which ticked me off, I had no fiscal responsibility to her, we weren't sharing rent or anything like it, she was just my girlfriend. If the situation had reversed I would have been all like 'good on you' and looked forward to sleeping in. I would have paid her the respect of assuming she knew her own financial situation well enough to make the call.

Men have the advantage over women of seldom considering their partner's income when forging their financial goals, but men are still expected to be breadwinners, as Greer points out when she talks about 'How much men hate women' they do percieve women as a trap (or did traditionally) they get married, have kids, get a mortgage and bang! trapped in their life. The lack of insecurity to pursue different interests and career paths is not freedom, men are not free. Having a job that draws on the talent reservoir is preferable to being trapped in a house doing cleaning and fussing over kids, and equality in career paths is a step forward. But now the way everyone approaches work (as just one example) needs to be rethought to achieve freedom. As Greer sagely notes, until we recognise Insecurity is freedom, we cannot be free.

Ben Franklin or Jefferson or one of them said 'Those who would trade their liberty for a little security deserve neither' and this was way before women's suffrage. (I guess its fair to assume the 'those' they were talking about were white men). Equality is only the big picture when you are striving for equality with somebody free. A jailor is relatively free, in that they can quit their job where the prisoner can't, but they still have to go to prison.

It's easy in South Africa for the indigenous Africans to see that it was the Whites they had to strive for equal footing with not the Indians, and they ended up taking all oppressed minorities (majorities) with them. With Gender it's different, Men occupy the superior, but no such truly free gender exists, everyone suffers in some way from the gender role subscribed to them, the male role is preferable but far from perfect. Fighting for an equal opportunity to be a wage slave, or to foist your identity on an unsuspecting child may be valid in terms of equality but they are battles, when nobody seems to be fighting the war.