My name is Paul James. This is my first post. Read it.
In an equal world gender would not matter-or possibly not even exist. We do not live in an equal world, and we all receive the most fundamental piece of this unequal world right at birth, a name.
Giving newborns gendered names instantly classifies the baby as a male or female. This identity then dictates what the child will play with, what will be his favorite color, what games she will play on the playground.
As the child moves into adulthood, the gender pressure will only increase. She will be given a range of acceptable careers to choose. He will be expected to show some emotions in a specific way and hide others altogether. She will be told that she can be strong, but expected to still display an underlying of weakness. And when this person dies, the tombstone will have the name that started this whole social process engraved on it, etched in stone.
'Men' and 'Women' are just caricatures. In a manner that is nothing short of totalitarian, our over-culture dictates to us how we are to behave and think based upon our gender. All the while, this tyranny of sorts masquerades as 'normal' and 'human nature.' There has rarely been a more insidious form of oppression. This whole process starts with a person's name-the presumed core of their identity.
I wonder how many couples sitting around me at Thanksgiving will be little more than unions of two gender stereotypes instead of sincere unions of two individuals? What will happen to them when their role-playing starts to taste stale?
If a person is truly committed to liberation from the dictatorship of culture, then he or she should not give his or her child a name that symbolically sets all the social expectations in motion. They don't say that one in the parenting books.
Obviously we live in a time when some social gender norms and expectations are less rigid. I acknowledge our advances and the increased right to choose our own paths. However, progress must never be mistaken for resolution. Huge gender norms have yet to be dismantled and the need, no the requirement, to give a baby a name that is either masculine or feminine is one of them. Actually, it is the first big one.
Hmmm, what an interesting post. I agree with a lot of what you say Paul and have in fact thought of some of this myself.
ReplyDeleteHowever, coming from someone who has already named all 5 of her not-yet-existant children, I find that I have a hard time budging on the names I have connected with. And I'll admit that I'm guilty of choosing gender specific names and at times that makes me uneasy, knowing that a certain name will set a potential child of mine on a specific path that they may not feel they have a choice in.
But see that's where I feel the change is needed. I think, rather than compromising on the names we choose so that they are gender neutral instead of gender specific, we should be shattering the stereotypes that are associated with giving a child a specific kind of name. We should be making sure that these children feel that they have a choice regardless! Regardless of what that child is called or what name the child later chooses to refer to him or herself, we should enforce, from a young age, the idea that they are capable of anything and that their name serves as their personal identifier rather than a universal label or classifier.
We should work on breaking the idea that a name is the precursor to all subsequent life choices or opportunities rather than shying away from certain names because of their previous connotations. Didn't Shakespeare even write: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet."
I know, I just quoted Shakespeare (something I didn't even know I was capable of), but I think the phrase holds true. Or perhaps in all of this, I'm just trying to justify my firm decision to name my first daughter Naomi...