I Was A Baby Feminist
“What are you? Some kind of women's libber?” The venom in his voice was corrosive.
“Oh, no, Nancy. Brian is absolutely right. The girl always takes the boy’s last name.” And then she laughed at me. She laughed at me!
Mrs. Brownstein towered over us as we sat at the little round table on tiny chairs, just inches from the floor. Tiny chairs, because we were tiny, too. Kindergarten tiny.
The word “always” came out of her mouth, long and slow. It was painful to my ears. She was emphatic in her final ruling. There was no appeal to be filed. I felt furious and shamed. I was wrong? How could that be? I didn’t want to give up my name. It was part of me. Why would I want part of me to disappear?
Before Mrs. Brownstein intervened––breaking up our fight before anyone got hurt––my boyfriend Brian and I were engaged in a heated conversation. Yes. Boyfriend. As “boyfriend” as a boy could be when you’re a five-year-old. He gave me mono when he kissed me. I missed almost a month of school. Brian. A freckle-faced redhead with a missing front tooth.
We were arguing about our last names. What happens to our names when we get married? I insisted, completely sure I was right, that when we got married, he would take my last name. That’s the way it always is! Right? Right?
Brian disagreed, and folded his arms at his chest, jutted his chin at me aggressively, and turned a very dark shade of red. He was MAD. He said, NO, that’s not right! The girl ALWAYS takes the boy’s last name.
He had to be wrong. Why would I give up my last name? I liked it. It was mine. It made no sense to me why anyone would want to change their name. I was five, okay?
We bickered back and forth, and all we did was go in circles, incapable of coming to a conclusion that we could agree on. And then, Mrs. Brownstein–– frowsy, screeching, gawky Mrs. Brownstein decided our standoff.
I was crushed to discover that maybe I was wrong? I was so sure of myself. I hated being wrong. I still do. I’m working on my humility. These things take time.
I didn’t know that my mother took my dad’s last name, that all women who got married gave up their last name almost without question. My grandmothers, my aunts. Why would they do that? I didn’t understand that as women our names were our father’s names. That it was a never-ending erasure of women’s identities. But I knew there was something very, very wrong about it. The fact that women still opt for adopting their husband’s last name galls me.
The other thing I knew in that moment, the decision I made on the spot was this: “I will never give up my name. I will NOT disappear.”
On that day, a fiery five-year old feminist was born, and she was never going to have it any other way. She hadn’t given up the idea of getting married to a boy. That decision would come later once she figured a few other things out.
I started life at the beginning of the women’s movement. The hope for equality was in the air though the struggle was fierce and the pushback was ugly. I was 2 years old when Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique in 1963, and the first stirrings of second-wave feminism followed as a result. Many women, it seemed, were getting damned tired of being relegated to second class status. Unpaid servitude as wives and mothers was starting to not sound so appealing.
In 1966, the National Organization of Women, better known as NOW was founded and the movement grew.
I was all in at 7, when I was so bold as to go outside in a bikini bottom in the middle of a hot summer day, looking for a sprinkler to run through, topless and flat-chested, JUST like the boys, because why shouldn’t I??? My chest was the same as theirs. The boys and even some of the girls laughed at me and Keith Schiller thought up a little ditty entitled “Tit Girl” set to the music of the 1960s Batman theme song and they joined their voices and sang at me, mocking my choice of swimwear and my attempt to claim my rights and be myself. Keith thought he was so clever, and I guess he was, in a way. I still haven’t forgotten the lyrics or the music. I retreated to my bedroom, angry and confused, and humiliated once again. Why couldn’t I do what the boys did? It didn’t make sense.
I was all in at 9, when I expressed a desire to play touch football and Tommy Mazzola looked at me, disgust on his face and asked “What are you? Some kind of women’s-libber?” The venom in his voice was corrosive.
I was all in at 13, when Miss Rothenberg, my home ec teacher examined my first sewing project, the perfectly stitched pink gingham-checked blouse with poufy short-sleeves and a peplum, and looked at me, suspicion taking hold of her narrowed eyes and her raised brow. She accused me of cheating. She interrogated me as if I were a criminal, “did your mother help you with this?” I looked at her and said, “No, Miss Rothenberg, my mother didn’t help me with this at all.” Miss Rothenberg asked the wrong question. My father helped me with it. He was a fashion designer who could sew anything. Why should I enlighten her? I JUST WANTED TO TAKE SHOP, DAMMIT.
But they wouldn’t let me because I was girl! I could hurt myself with all the big scary machines. What the fuck?
All of this was happening when the fight for the ERA was gaining steam. It seemed like women were going to win it all and then Phyllis Schlafly made the scene. The devil’s spawn in a dress, an enemy of women masquerading as a self-appointed savior. She threw a spatula into the works and women lost it all. We didn’t get the right to have our own credit cards until passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974. Before the law was enacted a woman needed a male co-signer. Appalling.
The honorific “Ms.” was revived in 1972, with the launch of Gloria Steinem’s magazine of the same name. You could hear the sneer in the voices of men when they were forced to start using it. The New York Times didn’t adopt its use until 1986, fourteen years later, because the publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, viewed it as a passing fad.
And Roe. Roe V. Wade became real in 1973. And these gains, despite the failure of the ERA, indicated that things were changing for the better––more slowly than we hoped for–– but change was happening. Yes, women were paid 59 cents against each dollar earned by men. We didn’t have equal pay…and guess what? We still don’t. White women earn 84%, Black women earn 64% and Hispanic women? A measly 51%. Today. TODAY. The gender pay gap is still very real, and the older a woman gets, the wider the disparity.
Here we are in 2024, and we’ve lost agency over our bodies, again. We’ve never really had agency over our bodies, when you get down to it. If we did, there’d be no rape, no fear of drugged cocktails at a bar, no battered women’s shelters. The power of the #MeToo movement has faded into the background, was that a fad, too? Our memories are short, and women are dying because men want to control our right to reproduce or not.
And I repeat, what the fuck?
I was an outspoken 5-year-old with common sense. I was an angry topless 7-year-old. I was a snarky 13-year-old who was much smarter than my home ec teacher, MISS Rothenberg.
Just as we thought the ERA would pass in the early 1970s, we also thought Hilary would win, and then we thought Kamala would win and well, you know.
Because really, nothing has changed. That we could go backwards in the way that we have in this country, just indicates the level of hatred and fear men feel about women’s power.
They are so afraid of us. You know that’s it.
I’ve witnessed all of this in my lifetime, and frankly, I’m exhausted, I’m fed up, and I have a confession that I’m sad to admit. The question that’s been coming up for me for the last couple of years is this:
Where did my courage go? My conviction? It’s not enough to sit at home feeling angry. It’s not enough.
My courage took a nap, but I’m feeling it awakening. It’s fueled by my outrage, by my disbelief that this country is backsliding to a level of ignorance and denial that I never thought I would see. I became complacent because I thought things were getting better. I see now that I’ve been wrong all along…they’ve never really been better because until women are treated as equals, until the violence, the objectification, and the abuses end it will never be better.
This country just elected a rapist to be president of the United States. He’s a felon who I’m pretty sure has committed more crimes than any of us are aware of. If that’s not proof of where we stand in the eyes of men and far too many brainwashed women, I don’t know what is.
I’m here to tell you that my courage is alive and it’s burning bright.
Because what’s happening today is not okay. None of it.
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I kept my name when I married. Hubby wanted me to take his and got upset when I refused and then I explained why women were given their husbands name, why it was forced on them as their husband’s possession, why it wasn’t a sign of anything other than blatant misogyny, and I walked a couple of miles to give him time to think. And then I asked him how he would feel if expected to give up his name? Excepted, not asked. And he finally seemed to get it. I kept my name, there is no way I wouldn’t have. A lot of his family though still can’t cope with that and 30+ years later we still get addressed as Mr and Mrs B. And always the Mr first. I spent a long time, in the days of snail mail, writing Mrs and Mr deliberately. Small acts, smaller wins.
My experience as a child/teenager was incredibly similar to yours too - forced to do sewing and cookery when I wanted to do woodwork and technical drawing (they gave the space to someone who didn’t want to do it and wouldn’t have excelled like I would have )- I had designs on being an architect and these would have helped greatly, they knew that but refused to let me do it, even after my dad shouted at them, especially after he shouted at them. It’s a constant struggle and we seem to have to keep winning the same ones over and over. 😩
I've a few years on you but a lot of the same experiences. I really appreciate how you integrated the historical backdrop with your personal experiences. I've never understood how anyone would change their name. Never.