Newsflash: Changing Your Last Name Might Hurt Your Chances in Getting a Job!

Attention All Girls:
The days of daydreaming in class
and doodling your first name with his last,
could be over!

On April 14th, 2010, The New York Times printed an editorial by Catharine Rampbell titled, "Women, Work and a Name Change" . In this article she delivers the message that, “Women who choose to adopt their husband’s surnames may be penalized in the job market”. Based on a study by a Dutch social psychologist, evidence suggests women who change their name will receive significantly lower salaries and are less likely to be hired at all. In addition, these women are viewed as more girly, thought to be “more caring, dependent, less intelligent, more emotional, less competent, and less ambitious in comparison with a woman who kept her own name”. In short, they are seen as less qualified for a position in the business world. Although the sample size limits the ability to generalize the study, it is intriguing to find out that women and men alike both deem women who take their husbands surname as less fit for the workplace. Judging from this new found evidence, it seems that feminists are making progress in their search for independence across the world, making steps away from the traditional role of women more appealing financially.


Although a certain shift sets apart the third wave from the second wave, the entire feminist movement is united by their goal to create new identities, different than the traditional housewife who lived to serve men. Under the leadership of strong women like Betty Friedan, organizations like NOW (the National Organization for Women) lobbied and found ways to achieve equal access to employment and basic rights. These strides prove to be significant when considering the results they produced, such as co-ed educational institutions, Roe v. Wade, accessibility of the Birth Control Pill to unmarried women, the Equal Pay Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Rights Amendment, and workplace protection. Each of these accomplishments helped throw middle class, white women out of the house and into the workforce, side by side with men.


Although the third wave has not had as many stand out leaders like Betty Friedan, or impressive acts passed by Congress, this most recent wave is still influential. Instead of gathering around one single issue, feminists in this generation are actualizing the rights won for us by their mothers’ hard work, while setting themselves apart from their mothers in respectful ways. Second wave feminists won the right for middle class, white females to be in the work place. Now, the third wave women must find the best ways to occupy these new positions. As women take steps away from the household, feminism is being redefined by daily acts, exemplified by people like Manifesta authors, Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards.


Academia and the working world is often a confusing place for women. For many, it is confusing how to go after success in a feminine way. On one hand, feminists like Ariel Levy believe women must act like men to achieve power. It is important to mimic tactics that have been successful in the past, which have all been used by men. In this way, a huge handful of women choose to go after career ambitions in ways normally seen as masculine. Exhibiting these trait to the men occupying these powerful positions serve as proof that women can also be worthy of climbing the latter. Over time, the more ruthless in the work place, the less womanly someone is seen. Eventually, the more success achieved, the less feminine a woman is. Gaining status in the business world decreases femininity and increases masculinity. Women who gain success in the business world sacrifice traits that preserve and confirm their identity as a feminine woman.



Considering this perspective, it logically makes sense that accepting a husband’s name in place of a woman’s own last name takes away from someone’s potential in the work place. Taking the name of a husband is a very old tradition that is only questioned occasionally today. Some think the trend could symbolize the feeling of men who used to claim they owned their wives, while others believe it represents the extension of one man, or the combination of two people. Either way, taking a man’s surname can be seen as a standard way of submitting to a man’s dominance. Allowing, accepting, or embracing the name change can be linked to the stereotypical image of a housewife that the feminist movement has worked so hard to escape. In turn, knowing a woman has changed her name can similarly evoke the characteristics the research produced; “caring”, “dependent”, “less intelligent”, and “emotional” females, all stereotypical characteristics deemed unfit for a career outside of the home… at least according to the standards that second wave feminists dealt with.



Now that we are in the third wave of feminism, there are a few different issues to deal with. Like mentioned before, feminist leaders such Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards offer a new way to think about women’s issues. According to these authors, it is no longer necessary to sacrifice feminine qualities in order to be successful. Instead, they deem “girly” qualities in themselves powerful. They suggest that a new part of feminism should include finding out who you are as a female, and being proud of it. If you want to embrace certain qualities that are seen as traditionally “girly”, it will not make you any weaker of an individual. Instead of striving to fit in with men seamlessly, and minimizing the differences between men and women, Baumgardner and Richards claim that maximizing the differences between genders is a powerful movement and highly encourage the act. Therefore, it is somewhat unclear whether Baumgardner and Richards would support a woman changing her last name to her new husbands. On one hand, it could be seen as an empowering act, because it shows a female embracing a traditionally “girly” quality. However, although adopting the spouse’s last name has been a female’s responsibility for some time, the act ultimately puts the man’s desires above the woman’s. I believe Baumgardner and Richards would promote keeping a maiden name over adopting a husband’s surname. In fact, judging from their personal choices, I would imagine they would be some people who would employ a woman who kept her maiden name over one who changed her name in marriage. In this way, these two women find their own ways of promoting feminism, by rewarding the ones they support more with financial stability.


Considering these two different viewpoints of minimizing and maximizing the gender differences to gain power, provide an interesting new conflict for feminists to attack. While it may be easy to assume there is nothing we can do to defeat the complicated web of patriarchy and claim that men are actively holding women back, the issues of patriarchy run deeper than that. Johnson and Frye point out that patriarchy is simply a system or set of ideas that we are all programmed to perpetuate. Over the years, men and women have both played a part in allowing male dominance. This even means that women have allowed themselves limited rights in the past. According to this viewpoint, Johnson and Frye may believe that a woman’s choice to change her last name to her husbands is a symbol of allowing herself to be dominated by a man. As a result, this small allowance could also relate to the assumption that she should also serve him in the home, or perhaps she is less deserving of a job in comparison to a woman who shows no signs of giving in to male’s supremacy.


All in all, although the study that the New York Times is limited by its small sample size, analyzing three perspectives in the feminist movement suggest that these findings could easily be replicated in a larger population. Although I doubt any of these scholars would admit this thought process consciously, Levy, Baumgardner, Richards, Johnson and Frye all have their own reasons for viewing a woman’s acceptance of her husband’s surname as a sign of inferiority. Where Levy may believe accepting a part of a man’s identity may help gain power in the workplace, she would definitely hesitate to support the sacrifice of the feminine identity. Likewise, although Baumbgardner and Richards support females feeling empowered by almost any act (as long as they have valid reasons), I believe they would also ultimately choose a female with enough independence to only rely on herself for personal fulfillment. Last, Johnson and Frye would not solely victimize women, instead they would place blame on both genders. Although the reasons behind the decisions are not exactly united, the end decision always comes down to the same conclusion. In the end, even though the third wave of feminism doesn’t have a clear spokes person like Betty Friedan, this trend of valuing an independent woman over a traditional woman shows that the third wave of feminism is still effective.