"Women Don't Need Names, Do They?"
I started listening to older music in high school, and I couldn't stand to think about all of the women of the dynasty whose true names are unknown, who remain for posterity with only descriptors like "General Michitusna's mother."
What reminds me most of this is the heavily underlined obituaries column of the newspaper I read everyday. Most of the names belong to men, but when you do occasionally find a woman she is almost always referred to as "Mother of Mr. X" or, "Mr. X's Wife." Her real name is practically a shadow. And once you come to this realization, you begin to recognize that even while alive women don't have names.
I was left momentarily speechless when a woman told me, "I'm always called "Little X's mother" or "Mr. X's wife," so it makes me happy to hear my own name when I come to the community center." That was almost twenty years ago, but even today women rarely hear their names. On the contrary, women themselves seem to be forgetting that they have names.
I've heard that at the public library, women signing for their library cards had to be asked, "Isn't this your husband's name?" And that women attending a quilting exhibition tried to give the receptionist their husband's names when asked to identify themselves. Women: although they fill the seats at PTA meetings, the names on the attendance roll are all men's; when they buy something and have it delivered home, the package will naturally be addressed to their husbands (no matter if the package contains women's clothes).
Just what do women gain by throwing away their good name?
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