Tom Mulcair's Wife Has Decided to Take Her Husband's Surname For Elxn Campaign

i would feel very uncomfortable if i had to wear what she was wearing in that picture.

sherpa-finn wrote:

Unionist was wondering whether men ever take their wife's surname.... well c'mon Babblers, its time for all us pseudo progressives to join the 21st century:

Men taking their wife's name, double-barrelled surnames and even meshed versions are all the rage as traditional marriages go out of fashion

• Increasing number of husbands taking their wives names when they marry
• Often men with 'embarrassing' names don't want to pass it on to children
• 'Meshing' - creating a new surname by combing both names - also popular

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3122546/Men-taking-wife-s-double-barrelled-surnames-MESHED-versions-rage-traditional-marriages-fashion.html#ixzz3glbRvVqO

in 1969, John Winston Lennon became John Ono Lennon.  More recently, there Jack Gillis, who took his then-wife Meg's name when they formed The White Stripes.

its such a hassle to inform the banks and everyone that my  last name is changed to my mother's last name.. i want to do it but it just seems i have to change all my identifciation cards..and its costly

I notice that there's still no link/verification to the claim that Catherine Pinhas has instructed media to use Mulcair's last name during the election (the media has been all over the place on how to refer to her, just do a quick Google and it goes back for years). I also notice that on the NDP website in Mulcair's bio it says this:"Tom has been married to his wife Catherine Pinhas, a public-health psychologist, for 37 years." So I'm going to treat this rumour with a big grain of salt until proven otherwise

If Pinhas were to start using Mulcair's last name I would be very disappointed. Just as I'm disappointed (but not really surprised) that in spite of Trudeau's claims to be an advocate for women's issues, Sophie Grégoire's name has been rebranded.

In case anyone is inclined to dismiss this as a non-issue, let's remember that for centuries the institution of marriage transferred effective ownership of women from their fathers to their husbands, and name changes are a specific and effective way of reinforcing that. There's a reason why feminists have challenged this, with notable success in Quebec. For Trudeau's campaign to negate this success after he got married in that province is very telling.

An excellent article by the editor of Feministing in the Guardian about marriage and name changes:

Quote:

... Your name is your identity. The term for you is what situates you in the world. The cultural assumption that women will change their names upon marriage – the assumption that we'll even think about it, and be in a position where we make a "choice" of whether to keep our names or take our husbands' – cannot be without consequence. Part of how our brains function and make sense of a vast and confusing universe is by naming and categorizing. When women see our names as temporary or not really ours, and when we understand that part of being a woman is subsuming your own identity into our husband's, that impacts our perception of ourselves and our role in the world. It lessens the belief that our existence is valuable unto itself, and that as individuals we are already whole. It disassociates us from ourselves, and feeds into a female understanding of self as relational – we are not simply who we are, we are defined by our role as someone's wife or mother or daughter or sister.

... Of course, there's also power in a name change. Changing your name if, for example, you change your gender presentation makes sense – a new, more authentic name to match the new, more authentic you. But outside of the gender transition context, marriage has long meant a woman giving up her identity, and along with it, her basic rights. Under coverture laws, a woman's legal existence was merged with her husband's: "husband and wife are one," and the one was the husband. Married women had no right to own property or enter into legal contracts. It's only very recently that married women could get their own credit cards. Marital rape remained legal in many states through the 1980s. The idea that a woman retains her own separate identity from her husband, and that a husband doesn't have virtually unlimited power over a woman he marries, is a very new one.

Do I think that women changing their names when they marry is a top-level feminist issue? Probably not. But let's remind ourselves that the expectation that women do so when they marry is a full-on 100% reflection of the patriarchy (and so, no, it's not equivalent if men do it, in effect they're challenging the patriarchy in that case. Few of them do anyway).

And women married to political leaders changing their names during a campaign is a blatant appeal to demeaning, sexist, dinosaur voters.

And maintaining the expectation that a heterosexual male political leader's wife must subsume her identity into his in order to appeal to these voters is indeed harmful to women.

As to the name changes, I take Tahanu's point, it's still a name change of sorts, but they didn't drop their "maiden" names. Assuming it is true that they have added their husband's name as a hyphenation it seems to be for campaign convenience so readers will realize that the reason they are being discussed is because they are the "wife of".  There has been no suggestion that either are considering a legal name change or to start using their husband's name for professional purposes. 

mark_alfred wrote:

Tehanu wrote:

I notice that there's still no link/verification to the claim that Catherine Pinhas has instructed media to use Mulcair's last name during the election (the media has been all over the place on how to refer to her, just do a quick Google and it goes back for years). I also notice that on the NDP website in Mulcair's bio it says this:"Tom has been married to his wife Catherine Pinhas, a public-health psychologist, for 37 years." So I'm going to treat this rumour with a big grain of salt until proven otherwise

The same is true for Sophie Grégoire.  It says, "Married to Sophie Grégoire, they are the proud parents of Xavier, Ella-Grace, and the newest addition to the family, Hadrien."  For Harper's wife Laureen, the statement is:  "Mr. Harper and his wife Laureen have two children, Benjamin and Rachel, and maintain a permanent home in Calgary."

1. Thanks, Tehanu. I had bowed out, being a male, and fighting a lonely battle against the notion that women taking their husbands' name was a matter of "freedom of choice" vs. authoritarian state repression or something.

2. Mark_alfred, perhaps you didn't notice the two occasions above when I linked to the [b]OFFICIAL LIBERAL PARTY WEBSITE[/b] presenting "Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau". As Tehanu says - this is disappointing, but certainly not surprising.

Tehanu, I hope you're right about Catherine Pinhas, and I've been referring to it as a "rumour" from the start of this thread, but I'm afraid that when CBC starts hyphenating her name, it's because they've been asked to do so. And I've gotta say: disappointing, and somewhat surprising. Still hoping terrytowel is mistaken.

WIth the way the CBC acts these days I wouldn't be surprised that since the Liberals asked them to change the way it refers to the leader's spouse in the spirit of balance they went ahead and instigated it for the NDP also.

Interesting. The NDP bio of Mulcair doesn't use this new name for her.  Other than the timing of this the story of how she wants to be referred to is up to her or at least it should be.

It isn't so lonely. I'm certainly annoyed by this resurgence of patriarchal thought.

What the hell is happening to this place? Why do we even have this thread. This place is getting down right nasty, petty, and "gotchaesque". Why are we starting so many stupid and useless threads like this one; these ones especially seem to turn into nasty, no-holds-barred smear fests! Mods, CLOSE THIS THREAD!

terrytowel wrote:

In the States they have the First Lady bake-off contest, sponsored by Family Circle Magazine.

Why doesn't Chatelaine Magazine do the same?

Because they're not hopeless sexist dinosaurs and they realize that this isn't 1920, so they know better than to insult their readers' intelligence.   Do you also want Mme. Pinhas-Mulcair to appear in NDP campaign ads wearing an apron and pearls while spinning down the stairs Donna Reed-style?  Jesus Christ on a cocktail weenie!

alan smithee wrote:

I'm with Ken.

This thread is stupid. I'm surprised that it made out 3 pages.

Nobody gives a fuck except TT.

With all due respect - read Tehanu's comments, alan. I give a fuck, Tehanu gives a fuck. Terrytowel floated a rumour which he has been unable to substantiate. But there is something important to discuss here.

And this thread belongs in the feminism forum.

I do like Tehanu's comments...they've been insightful and very instructional, and put me in mind of these lyrics from a traditional Canadian ballad(sung from the viewpoint of a young woman growing up on a farm in Ontario, IIRC) 

We're slaves to our fathers until we are wives-

then slaves to our husbands the rest of our lives.

 

Still wish terry would explain what his point is here, though.  He seems to think there's some huge meaning in this change in nomenclature(assuming it's even true) but refuses so far to say what that meaning is...preferring instead to take a tone of enigmatic, passive-aggressive insinuation.

That article refers to "his wife Catherine" twice and includes this line: "1976: Married, at age 21, to French-born Catherine Pinhas." (Same name she gets on the NDP's web site.) So I would not take it as evidence of much. Interesting read, though! 

Tehanu, as always, thanks for shining a ray of good sense into a muddy conversation. 

Such ridiculous twaddle.

Had the thread been started by (almost) anyone else there would not have been nearly the hostility, though the dismissiveness would have been there.

And not everything has to be about who will ACTUALLY be swayed to vote for the NDP.  Give me a frigging break.

IF the story is true, it is about trying to position the "Mulcairs" as a more "traditional" and thus "non-threatening" couple.  Meaning a couple where the man's name predominates. No one could be so naive as to deny that.

I'm a woman and I sure as shit care if an aspiring PM's wife suddenly decides to yoke her last name to his.  I care about what that says.

If you honestly don't, then fill your boots.

terrytowel wrote:

Ken Burch wrote:

This is 2015.  The last name used by the wife of a party leader is something virtually nobody in North America cares about anymore,

Except in the USA. A President would never get elected if the spouse did not take the husbands name. There are still pockets of America that is so backwards in terms of equality, they make Stephen Harper look progressive!

Ken Burch wrote:

 Do you also want Mme. Pinhas-Mulcair to appear in NDP campaign ads wearing an apron and pearls while spinning down the stairs Donna Reed-style?  Jesus Christ on a cocktail weenie!

I take it you didn't watch the recent CPAC special where Laureen Harper did just that?

One interesting tidbit. The Audrey McLaughlin and Alexa McDonough both led the federal NDP and kept their married names, despite divorcing their husbands.

Their is no meaning or 'agenda' behind this fact, it is just an FYI.

1)Mulcair's involved in Canadian politics, not U.S. politics.  He doesn't have to carry Arkansas.  And even in the U.S., it's far from clear that any significant number of voters, or at least any who would ever even consider voting for any non-reactionary candidate, would hold the views today that Arkansas voters held on the matter in 1978.

2)Nobody who enjoyed seeing Laureen Harper do a Donna Reed imitation on CPAC would ever vote NDP (or even Liberal).  You're talking about maybe 15% of the voters there.

3)Audrey McLaughlin and Alexa McDonough kept their married last names because those were the names they established their public identities with.  If  they'd gone back to their original names before entering politics, they'd have used those names as party leaders.  The only consideration at all was established name familiarity, not some weird fixation with still looking deferential to the men they'd divorced.

You say you have no agenda here, but it sure as heck sounds like you're making a case that the NDP can only form government if the wives of male NDP candidates take their husbands' last names as a ritual gesture of submission to male authority.  Do you also want gay and lesbian NDP candudates to go back in the closet 'til polling day?  Quebec Dippers to campaign solely in English?  FN/Metis candidates to go back to "the rez"? Asian-Canadian candidates to go back to Mumbai, Karachi, or Beijing?

Sorry, but that doesn't wash.  The NDP has no need of the votes of paranoid patriarchal pigosaurs.  Canada moved past that years ago. Canadian voters don't CARE what candidates' wives call themselves-any more than they care what candidates husbands' call themselves.  It simply doesn't matter.

takeitslowly wrote:

my father abandoned me and i would love to take on my husband's name if i ever get married.

I'm sorry that happened to you and it is a reminder that we don't always know the reasons someone chooses to do something.

page 4? it's 2 pages.

I think it's too bad that some women feel obliged to change their names for social standard.  But, I don't judge women who may do this.  My sister, for instance, goes by her own name rather than her husband's, but at social gatherings sometimes people will refer to her using the husband's surname, and she just chooses to let it go.  Often it's a matter of convenience.  It's like having a very complicated name and shortening it to something that's more accessible to people (like, my name is Sxituefnhyeritscoiut, but just call me Scott --> do I judge Sxituefnhyeritscoiut?  No, I figure opting for convenience sometimes is perfectly understandable.)  The situation my sister occasionally is in in gatherings is a situation that all three of the leaders' wives will be in frequently over the next month.  "Oh, and you're Tom's wife?  Mrs. Mulcair, it's such an honour to meet you!"  For Catherine to correct people that it's actually Ms Pinhas a billion times over would get pretty exhausting after a while, I bet.