Because their entire poltical and world view is based on identity politics. They cannot simply say "that joke sucked" and move on, they have to make it into yet another virtue signalling exercise and lecture everyone else because that is the behaviour they associate with being a "good person".
People online do not understand jokes. I refuse to believe anyone in real life would be this dense.
In real life people would see this lol and move on, on the internet they write dissertations about some BS to virtue signal to other strangers how enlightened they are..... 🙄
Probably anyone who ever gotten any pressure about handling last-names after marriage might care. It's definitely something that some people care about, and some people cop flack for their decision.
The joke is just a joke, but the problem is that this joke punches down. That's generally poor form.
if you are getting "punched down" (aka offended) by a joke posted on lemmy, by a random guy, you should realize that it is simply not that deep
yeah i didnt get any pressure about handling last names, so you might say "you just dont get it" but when i go to linuxmemes and see a meme about a distro i use, i dont go to comments and start a war about it bc it is just a fucking meme, same concept
It’s one of those posts that IS funny, but makes OP’s viewpoint ambiguous. And if this was reddit, incels would come out of the woodwork to support the meme.
Yeah... it can be interpreted that way. But even as a feminist myself, it is a dumb performative sort of protest. Paternal surnames are the least important fixtures of our patriarchal society, and, unless it was created wholecloth, there are no surnames that aren't patriarchal historically, as the meme points out.
If they think their actions are having much effect, sure, but otherwise I think you're making assumptions and overreacting. Not everything is for show, people can do things like that just because they personally want to.
Not so sure. It may just as well be that OP thinks Homelander is the cool guy and the meme is meant unironically. Their comments here suggest that and their posts are mostly comprised of golf and borderline sexist / boomer jokes
In Germany the current government had the idea (but never follow through on it) to allow a married couple to form a new last name based on their last names. Funnily enough the article mentions that this meshing of names is already possible and getting more popular in the USA and Great Britain.
Yeah, you can legally change your first and your last name to pretty much whatever you want as long as it isn't deemed too offensive in both the U.S. and the UK.
A coworker of mine did this. He and his new wife took parts of their last names and blended them together to create a unique new last name for both of them.
A lot of last names here are frozen patronyms (e.g. at some point some dude named Hans had kids; now there are lots of people calling themselves his son, Hansen) or place names. I kinda like the place name bit: Just give kids last names to a place they have a connection to. Where they were born or conceived or something.
“Tallahassee”: Pretty frickin’ awesome as a nickname but not sure formally.
“Syracuse”: I syr-acuse that of sounding dumb.
But regardless, besides all the “Von” or “De” or whatever names I’m willing to bet that modified or old spelling last names based on places are totally a thing that we also just decided to stop doing.
Terrible idea. People clearly already struggling at naming kids. Coming up with a family name will be endless letters making the wrong sound, random sections being 'silent', so many puns or references to things, corporate advertising "oh it's the X.com family!"... Terrible, just terrible.
Are you saying that the people who came up with the original surnames are more qualified than people today? At least with my idea when people come up with a new name they have to use it themselves, rather than their defenseless children.
My wife and I actually did this, sort of. Not a completely new name, but we took her grandmother's name, rather than either of ours. Or, her great grandfather's name, I suppose.
The only reason I wouldn't want to take my partner's name, or have the partner take mine, is the same reason I wouldn't want to blend. It's just a headache to make sure everything is changed. It's why you see a lot of people who published research before their marriage continue to publish under the same name even if they changed their name. It's a major hassle.
It is a pain in the ass, a burden that is put on the woman. Men don't even have to consider changing their last name if they don't want to, (straight, married) women have to consider if they will betray expectations by not taking her husband's last name.
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.
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.
... just pass on the mother's name to your children? Eventually it matters as much as that your ancestor was a smith. (and that's besides the "not everyone wants to lose their name on marrying" point)
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.
…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! :)
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.
appreciate your insight! i fully agree with everything except perhaps:
You’re not doing anything wrong by not confirming to that standard.
still a correct statement on its own, but needs the clarification that it’s not chill to mock or hamper the efforts of that “Othered” community to subvert or reclaim their repression. while it’s certainly not wrong for a woman to conform to the patrilineal system, it’s not chill to “gotcha”-laugh at this woman for using the same name she and her mother have owned their whole lives.
it’s a very Rush Limbaugh-esque “you claim to he a feminist, yet you live under the forces and histories of the patriarchy, curious 🧐” joke, in that it’s not wrong, it’s just intensely and obviously comes from a place of ignorant disrespect.
I think it's gone down tbh. The average human is not experiencing the same novel problems that require troubleshooting and focus. A lot of thought is just decision based these days.
Reminder that surnames didn't exist before the middle ages, you just had a singular name that people shouted to get your attention. Since you lived in a community of several dozen people, you didn't need to do much to differentiate yourself from the other "John" in your town because everyone knows each other. You lived and died just as "John" and would be remembered by your kids for a generation if you were lucky. There was no need to keep track of genealogy, you were a pair of hands and legs, you were supposed to get out there and plow that field and that's all your baron or lord cared about.
But somewhere after the black plague ravaged Europe and we lost a sizeable chunk of the human population, suddenly workers became in high-demand. Industrialist lords and landowners suddenly didn't have people smithing their horse shoes or making their bread, so they had to go poach people from far away towns and suddenly workers had power and options. As a way to get noticed for your family's tradeskill, you would have been wise to advertise this to wealthy employers, the best way was to attach your trade to your name. You were now John Baker to differentiate yourself from John the Drunkard if anyone came looking to hire someone who could cook bread.
So surnames are advertising. It's all it's ever been. There's nothing ancient and special about your name, it was just how your ancestors tried to make a buck.
To be fair, even before the plagues, workers were way in demand (and hence every single adult that reaches majority, or youth that wishes to pretend). Throughout the agrarian age, societies suffered from a stark labor shortage, which is why even bastard kids were not too frowned upon, and even those with disabilities were sought for anything they might be able to do.
That all changed in the industrial age, when fewer people were necessary to run machines that did work.
In modern day, this is an issue with religious movements (cults whether dangerous or not) who decide to create their own commune. Either the intentional community has too few people to complete all the necessary tasks, or enough that renegade behavior (corruption, antisocial behavior, etc.) becomes a problem, since security details cannot help but become political.
Yeah I've always thought it was weird that women are supposed to give up their identity to a man to be married. I'm not really sure why hyphenated names aren't as popular in the western world or why people don't occasionally chose to take the woman's name. I know that women don't have to change their names, but then often you'll have the kids as the same name as the father anyway but not the mother. So I've heard many women say that they did it so their kids would share their last name.
Hell, I don't even like my father. But my name is who I am and I like it.
Hyphenated names are too long. One of my good friends has one and people just refer to him and his siblings by the initials of their last name, like "Tim MP"
with hyphenated names: what would the children do then? you can't keep adding more and more names like that (both practically and legally in some cases). serious question because I've also thought about that
The way that I'm gonna do it is whoever has the coolest/most unique last name is the one whose name is adopted. If they're both equally cool, then hyphenated it is.
How do hyphenated names work after the next generation? Seems like that would get out of hand quickly when people with hyphenated last names start having kids with each other.
It is weird because we as a civilization believe women are persons and corporations are not. And sooner or later, Molotovs will be thrown in support of this notion, since silence is being interpreted as consent.
Been divorced twice, neither of them gave much of a shit and never changed their surname back. My wife's Filipino and was very proud to take my surname. Ran right out and changed all her documents. Her enthusiasm was touching!
I'm in the opposite place! Met my dad when I was 20 and he really wanted me to change to his surname. Sorry dad, that would have felt really weird.
Why would that be the case? How would marriage between two equals in a non-patriarchy be patriarchal? What about marriage between two women?
What about last names in a society of beings without gender?
Maybe all my downvotes come from people who say it's the latter? I've been in bubbles that see it as a well known fact, I've talked to left leaning people who didn't. Maybe it's just a wording I used to attract attention, maybe not, we will never know for sure.
An aspect of patriarchy is patrilineality. Belonging to your fathers lineage rather than your mother's or even being stripped of your heritage and being a mere adjunct to your husband isn't materially benefiting the man but lays the ground for that
the patriarchy doesn’t benefit the male. in fact, most men are overall harmed by the forces of patriarchy.
the goal of patriarchy is to subjugate and repress an “other,” that is, women. it’s true that patriarchy gives privelege to men, but equating privilege and benefit is to misunderstand the core components of the system.
Unpopular opinion: Patriarchy as defined by feminists is a nebulous and unfalsifiable concept that can be replaced by "the devil" without changing the meaning of the sentence it's used in.
you could swap the subject of criticism with "the devil" in any sentence and it would be the same though?
"the devil (covid-19) caused a pandemic"
"the devil (billionaires) is pushing more people into poverty"
"the devil (adhd) is making me procrastinate doing the dishes"
"the devil (you) has really weak criticisms of feminism, since if only he read about it, he'd realise he can see and feel the effects of the patriarchy everywhere. and the way he talks right now makes me believe he only knows the concept from strawman memes"
If you didn't know, Spanish people have two names: the first name of their father and the first name of their mother.
Since these names are their grandfathers names, here's a better proposal : the first name of your father and the second name of your mother. In that case, your first name corresponds to a bloodline of men and your second name to a bloodline of women... Unless their was a same-sex couple in your family, obviously.
Bonus point, since you get your Y chromosome (if you have one) from your biological father and your mitochondrial DNA from your biological mother, your names correspond to your actual DNA... Unless you're adopted or illegitimate, obviously.
Yeah, my mom said she didn't care about taking my dad's last name, that it didn't matter since, in her words "women don't have last names anyway" they are just a way of tracing men's family lines.
It’s more that it’s kinda missing the point. Everything is something else if you try hard enough but in this case the intention behind it is to honour the father instead of the mother and that’s still working fine.