PHILOSOPHY: Women choosing last names
The taking on of the father's or husband's name, exists to trace your lineage in a patriarchal society. It would be the other way around in a matriarchal society where matrilineality dominates. I have read that in earlier times where the origin of pregnancy was a mystery, matrilineality tends to dominate. Also, another factor is that the mother is known but the father unknown, so the kids inherit everything from her family.
I don't really think that the majority of the world is going to get to that stage i.e. matriarchal society. Unfortunately, the women of today are destined to suffer unless they figure out how to usurp the current status quo.
In the beginning remember we (the human race) had no names, forget surnames.
[An interesting story I have read is the pain and anguish American slaves went through when they were forced to take on some kind of surname, and their subsequent conversion to Christianity from their native religions. As an aside, it is not for nothing that the greatest music in modern year’s aka jazz, reggae, and maybe blues, has come from the American South, due to its African rhythmic origins.]
In the ensuring compact between the sexes, women were 'confined' to the house, while men fought outside. This has led to the fostering of stereotypes, deep brainwashing to hammer into a young girl’s mind, that, you can play with Barbie dolls but not ‘boyz stuff’. And the reverse is usually true for boys. This cultural stereotype is thousands of years old, and to get rid of it is a daunting challenge. I have written in a comment at Tim Worstall’s blog that the juggernaut of change lags behind by a lot. Somebody has to distribute the idea of the change for it to have any effect.
[Again, this compact has led to lots of other problems like mothers favoring sons over daughters, women being treated as sex objects but not men etc...]
Women are not confined to the house now, but I observe the stereotypes are still being followed. If not by their parents, by their peers at school.
I don't really think that the majority of the world is going to get to that stage i.e. matriarchal society. Unfortunately, the women of today are destined to suffer unless they figure out how to usurp the current status quo.
In the beginning remember we (the human race) had no names, forget surnames.
[An interesting story I have read is the pain and anguish American slaves went through when they were forced to take on some kind of surname, and their subsequent conversion to Christianity from their native religions. As an aside, it is not for nothing that the greatest music in modern year’s aka jazz, reggae, and maybe blues, has come from the American South, due to its African rhythmic origins.]
In the ensuring compact between the sexes, women were 'confined' to the house, while men fought outside. This has led to the fostering of stereotypes, deep brainwashing to hammer into a young girl’s mind, that, you can play with Barbie dolls but not ‘boyz stuff’. And the reverse is usually true for boys. This cultural stereotype is thousands of years old, and to get rid of it is a daunting challenge. I have written in a comment at Tim Worstall’s blog that the juggernaut of change lags behind by a lot. Somebody has to distribute the idea of the change for it to have any effect.
[Again, this compact has led to lots of other problems like mothers favoring sons over daughters, women being treated as sex objects but not men etc...]
Women are not confined to the house now, but I observe the stereotypes are still being followed. If not by their parents, by their peers at school.
posted by Amit Kulkarni at 4/11/2006 05:48:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home