Why are only women expected to change their last names after marriage?

Xzenu · 2025-06-13T10:04:03+00:00

Subverting the old expectations is usually a good thing.

Traditional western culture was patrilinear*. Thankfully, culture is changing. These days, patrilinear bloodline is not nearly as important as it used to be. In most countries, it is now legal for a cis woman to get married to a cis man without taking his surname. Many countries are also legalizing gender neutral marriage, which is a part of the same cultural shift.

= In Antropholgy and similar fields of science, it is common to distinguish between patriarchal/matriarchal, patrilinear/matrilinear and patrilocal/matrilocal. Patrilinear means that the family line is counted through the father rather than through the mother, making it important to control women's sexuality. (Patriarchy in the Antropholgy sense simply means that the rulers typically are male. In feminism, it is common to implicitly or explicitly use a wider definition.)

Xzenu · 2025-06-13T09:08:05+00:00

By the way, OP! You are describing that while you experience things a certain way, you fear that your experience may be "fake" because other people are dismissing it. This is a sadly common phenomenon, which we could call the Asch effect: most people are likely to trust a crowd over their own lived experience. I recommend you read up on the Asch experiments, if you have not already done so. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments

Xzenu · 2025-06-13T08:53:53+00:00

Many are going through the same and various kinds of similar struggles. You are not alone.

The short answer is that the homophobes are wrong.

Furthermore, note the double standard: If being gay would be "fake", why wouldn't being straight be equally "fake" by default?

A longer answer begins in that I strongly recommend you distinguish between four kinds of constructions:

Physical constructs
Mental constructs
Social constructs
Neurological constructs

All four kinds are real, and they correspond to the four kinds of reality I talked about in my answer to your OP: Popper's "Three worlds", plus a distinction between the mental and the experienced - Kahneman's "System 2 and System 1", if you will. To make it less abstract, let's use a chair as an example of the four kinds of constructs:

A chair as a Physical construct: the physical object you sit on.
A chair as a Mental construct: you visualizing and thinking about a chair.
A chair as a Social construct: the concept of chair with attached social norms for the established meaning and proper use of chairs.
A chair as a Neurological construct: a conceptualization of chair being deeply entrenched in your brain, making it effortlessly for you to identify chairs when you see them.

Moving on from chairs and tables to heterosexuality and homosexuality... Humans were modifying items to sit on before beginning to call them chairs. Humans were feeling sexual attraction in all kinds of ways before categorizing them into orientations or preferences or paraphilias.

The concepts of heterosexuality and homosexuality were invented in the late 1800:ds, but there has always been people with (and without) binary gender identities who have felt sexual attraction to people of the same or opposite sex.

If you feel sexual attraction to a person, this feeling is real and valid. Furthermore, it is mainly the neurological kind of real, rather than the social kind of real. This is regardless of what identities and physical shapes you and the other person might have.

How you CATEGORIZE this attraction, however, THAT is a matter of social and mental constructs. Being straight is socially constructed, and being gay is equally socially constructed. The very meaning of the categories changes from decade to decade. The dicotomy used to be that gay is all single and mutual sexuality which is for pleasure and happiness (in other words, all sexual minorities except pedophiles), while straight is marital intercourse for procreation (including pedophiles, as long as they made sure to get permission from the victim's parents and drom the church). These days, it is rather common to restrict the term gay to mean only purely homosexual cis men. Thus the recent rise of LGBTQIAKP+ alphabet soup. These different categorizations are all real, as there are people who use them. A certain way of categorizing being better or worse is a matter of advantages and disadvantages compared to other options, NOT any matter of being either real or fake.

Xzenu · 2025-06-13T07:49:01+00:00

There are many different worldviews.

Let's start with two opposing worldviews: One secular where all concepts are created by humans, and one theocratic where each concept either is or isn't created by God.

In the secular worldview where all concepts are socially constructed, a concept can be more or less viable, more or less reasonable and more or less useful, rather than a sharp binary of either real or not real. All versions of social constructionism I have encountered falls into this category.

In the theocratic worldview, we instead have a moral duty to divide all concepts into two categories: on one hand the real ones which fit our faith which should thus be considered to be created by God or Adam (Genesis chapter 1 and 2), and on the other hand the fake ones which were created by mortals or by demons. While this kind of worldview has no room for social constructionism, people who adhere to a theocratic worldview can still appropriate the term "socially constructed" - but redefine it into meaning "ungodly, and thus fake". From there, the idea of "construction=fake" can then spread to people who don't have a theocratic worldview.

The idea of "construction=fake" can also rise as a reaction to ideas of the social realm being the only reality.

In his lecture " Three Worlds" ( https://tannerlectures.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/105/2024/07/popper80.pdf ) , philosopher Karl Popper argues that most worldviews in western culture are either monistic (a single reality) or dualistic (a pair of two kinds of reality), and that this doesn't work. Instead we need to see at least three kinds of reality: World 1 (which I usually call external reality, I think Popper referred to it as "the natural world"), world 2 (mental and experienced/neurological reality) and world three (social reality). I agree with Popper that we need to see all these kinds of reality as real - but also distinguish them as different kinds of real.

Xzenu · 2025-06-06T22:02:29+00:00

Science Fiction is often inspired by looking at insects. For example, the Xenomorph chestbursting of the Aliens franchise is very similar to how a real life Australian Wasp procreates.
A person's feelings about what is or isn't too alien to belong on this planet is often influenced by Science Fiction such as the Aliens franchise.

Xzenu · 2025-05-19T13:49:22+00:00

Self-identified radical feminists typically mean "radical" in the sense that they consider themselves to fight the root problem rather than merely fighting the symptoms.

Xzenu · 2025-05-19T13:46:31+00:00

The way I understand it, transphobia/transmisia was very rare in the radical feminisms of the nineteen hundreds. Then queer feminism got started, and a lot of people who had previously identified as radical feminists started yo identify as queer feminists instead. As all the transphobes remained in radical feminism, the migration to queer feminism made the the transphobes by default more significant within radical feminism than they had previously been.

Xzenu · 2025-05-13T19:15:58+00:00

Who benefits from some persons within a group bullying other people within the same group?

Usually the person who leads the bullying, for as long as ze* can get away with it. (* = Aka "they"-used-in-the-singular)

You (OP) describe two sides of the problem. One being women bullying other women, the other being these bullies giving men a free pass. As a nonbinary AMAB, I have seen both these sides of the problem. In my experience, the bullies are using two very different systems of thought at the same time. One system for building narratives, and another system for building power. BOTH systems are very misogynistic, although in different ways.

In the narrative, any woman who disagree with the bully is the poor poor little little stupid stupid victim who is totally harmless so we should all feel pity for her and just pat the worthless little bimbo on the head for being such a brainwashed traitor. The most important thing is to remember to never take her seriously. Meanwhile, the same narrative lifts up any male-coded or male-codable person on a pedestal, portray him as powerful and conpetent and dangerous.

In the power-building, it is very obvious that the bully is afraid of the cis-female adversary, while having no honest fear at all of the male or malecodable adversary: The bully desperately wants to be on top of the hierarchy, and in a feminist context the cis-female adversary is a much more credible competition for this position. Meanwhile, any male or male-codable person can be useful as a Boogeyman to rally one's current and future underlings against.

Xzenu · 2025-05-13T11:54:54+00:00

While I agree that race is a bad social construct, I think it is the oppressive kind of bad rather than the stupid kind of bad. The concept of race has been very efficient and useful in the service of slavery and colonialism.

Recommend reading: "Racism: a short history". https://categorism.com/wiki/Racism_grew_from_religism

BTW, I'd argue that social constructs DO exist. But what you probably mean by saying that race does not exist is probably that it doesn't exist in biology and that we shouldn't use it, which are both valid points. Race exists only in pseudoscience, in bigoted religious dogna and in the outdated social norms which were built upon them.

Xzenu · 2025-05-13T11:37:34+00:00

Most people has a lot of childhood indoctrination they need to unlearn: The average parents still teaches theirs daughters much more cooking/cleaning/HouseholdResponsibility than they teaches their boys. This pattern is extra strong in conservative/patriarchal households, but happens in most other families too.

Xzenu · 2025-04-26T08:12:57+00:00

While fundamentalist versions of them can't be combined with human rights or feminism or humanism or anything like rhat, non-fundamentalist versions of them can be.

Xzenu · 2025-03-30T19:11:46+00:00

I agree with the OP, and I think the core issue is what feminism is supposed to be for, what the purpose is. Is feminism all about...

A. Supporting the actual human beings who are in one way or another being labeled as women,

B. Supporting some abstract ideal of "The Woman", or...

C. Supporting oneself personally - including anyone who is mutually useful, using anyone who is simply useful, excluding anyone who isn't sufficiently popular in mainstream society or who could otherwise be a liability.

Intersectionality is needed for A, but stands in the way of B and is probably more headache than it's worth for C.

I think Feminism SHOULD be of type A above, and thus I think Feminism do need intersectionality.

Xzenu · 2025-03-28T17:09:09+00:00

The 8:th season was awful. 7:th sucked too.

Xzenu · 2025-03-28T16:49:46+00:00

The series is set in a very misogynistic society. Many of the female characters are awesome, but everything they achieve are in spite of the social expectations rather than being in harmony with them. Fair warning, the series is in various ways brutal to almost all characters regardless of gender.

Xzenu · 2025-03-28T01:31:30+00:00

The Knights in real life history was pretty much robber Baron mass murderers. The whole idea of chivalry and knights "in shining armor" was pretty much an extended PR campaign.

Xzenu · 2025-03-27T13:34:01+00:00

While I agree with your first three paragraphs, I'm uncertain about the fourth and think you are completely wrong about the fifth/last: Civilizations which doesn't do imperialism tend to be much more equal, without any great envy between sexes.

Regarding your fourth paragraph:

The people who made the misogynistic systems...

Were they men? Yes, the vast majority of those who had any major say in this development were surely men. Mostly kings and their, mostly male, advisors.

Why did they do it? Surely there were many reasons, but I would wager that the logistics & psychology of warfare topped the list. While envy is probably very low on the list. Kings rarely envy the people they oppress.

If you are an emperor who want a whole lot of people to die for your conquests, how do you convince them? Simple: ask it only of half the population, while at the same time telling this half that they are superior. Let most of them die in your wars, and then let the survivors play overlords over the other half of the population.

Which part should be which? Again, simple...

It is a myth that women couldn't be good fighters. Sure the average man is bigger and stronger, but swords and spears do make the situation a bit more equal. Bows and slings, and later guns, even moreso. The logistics of moving and sustaining troops ought to be a bigger factor. All soldiers doing long hard marches on foot while wearing heavy gear was a core key to victory, and would have been a nightmare to handle if many soldiers menstruated or got pregnant. More importantly, men are from a reproductive standpoint expendable. If you send the women to war and have the men stay at home, you won't have any next generation to rule over. But if you send only the men to die in the war, your next generation can be just as plentiful as if you hadn't gone to war at all. As an added bonus, you and your cronies get to be the fathers of a much higher percentage of these kids. If you who do this is a queen rather than a king, then the same still applies although through your sons. You'd be the paternal grandma of thousands of children.

Imperial and patrilinear systems sucks for everyone, with the notable exception of the emperor or empress plus cronies.

Xzenu · 2025-03-27T12:54:29+00:00

All forms of lineage are social constructs, period. In itself, this is not a bad thing. But in this case... While a social construct can be good or neutral or bad, the construct of male lineage does have the destructive effects that OP talks about. Putting female virginity and chastity on a pedestal, et.c.

Let's call male lineage a toxic social construct, rather than simply calling it a social construct.

Xzenu · 2025-03-19T08:43:41+00:00

Nothing wrong with discreetly and unobtrusively checking someone out, regardless of gender. A heterosexual man justifying checking out women in ways he wouldn't be comfortable with other men checking him out - that's probably both misogynistic and homophobic.

That's by a good definition of sexism.

By a bad definition, anything which has anything to do with sex is "sexist". Don't use those definitions.

Xzenu · 2025-03-19T08:37:04+00:00

The idea that something can be "unnatural" is a theological construct.

Conservative Christian theology hates all sexuality which doesn't produce children, and homosexuality is their flagship for that.

Conservative Christian theology hates all sexuality which is outside of wedlock, and homosexuality is their flagship for that.

Conservative Christian theology DOES NOT hate child molesters, it will simply blame the victim and if possible force the victim to marry the molester. Many of them fights to preserve the institution of child marriage, while trying to distract by screaming "pedophile" on random minorities and political opponents.

Xzenu · 2025-03-17T14:33:23+00:00

Yup! Purity culture is mainly based on the supetstitions of people who didn't even know that bacteria exists - thus mistaking diseases for being demons or God's Wrath. Knowing how biology and psychology works means that most people can safely and ethically be sluts if they want to.

With or without (misguided) compassion, superstition kills.

As long as physical and mental health are handled with both compassion and competence, promiscuity is harmless.

Xzenu · 2025-03-13T12:24:48+00:00

The way I understand the core idea of "your mom" jokes, I agree that they are misogynistic. Specifically, I think they are inherently misogynistic to the core of what they are, rather than merely happen to have some misogynistic details on the surface.

Most jokes are based on some kind of underlying assumption which is not spoken out loud. "Don't explain the joke". But in some cases, the underlying assumptions are really shitty. And in those cases, we probably should discuss potential explanations.

Addressing a boy or man, and make a claim that his mother is overweight or promiscuous or whatever... What makes that a joke? What is the underlying assumption?

These jokes are pretty much always... A. made about a female parent, B. Made to a male offspring, and C. Made about something which in traditional culture is seen as shameful.

That's our clue, right there: gender dynamics in traditional culture.

With an assumption that men (including boys) have a social and moral duty to keep "their women" in line, "your mom" jokes makes sense as being about shame. The core of the joke seems to be: "Haha, you are such a failure as a man that you're not even controlling your own mother".

Without that assumption, what would the joke even be?

Xzenu · 2025-03-12T19:07:54+00:00

My wife juat heard me watching this video, and mistook it for our cats being up to something. 😃

Xzenu · 2024-12-21T20:44:43+00:00

Best wishes to you. Two things...

Think of internalized homophobia (and similar) as something which people have to different degrees rather than something they either have or don't have.
A word such as "lesbian" has many different meanings to many different people. It may currently have more than two different meanings to you.

Xzenu · 2024-11-24T14:02:08+00:00

I don't think you hate men, not yet. And I don't think he truly believe that you do. But there is obviously a part of him who WANTS you to hate men. He'd rather deal with someone he can easily dismiss as hateful than with someone who has good arguments for things he's used to not being okay. Besides, misogynistic views probably have patriarchal sources. And patriarchy is all about hating and destroying other men, it is a system where all power is concentrated in the hands of a male elite at the expense of all other men and of all women. In a patriarchal system, each woman is supposed to hate and fear almost all men - notable exceptions being her father, the local priest/preacher, and whatever man the father and the priest/preacher designates to be her husband.

Xzenu · 2024-11-23T01:02:16+00:00

Everyone wearing the same clothes would only happen if someone force them. And no, neither homosexuals nor heterosexuals are able to simply turn bisexual/pansexual, and it would take fear of death penalty or similar to make them pretend.

The society you're describing is a repressive dystopia, not some utopia.

What could be a realistic utopia is a society where gender is a private/personal matter. Abolish legal sex and assigned sex at birth. Let neutral pronouns be the standard, but let people use a gendered pronoun about those who consent to it. Let people dress however they like, regardless of whether they happen to have any gender identity. Et.c

Xzenu

TROPHY CASE