A Name of One’s Own

I’ve thought long and hard about this, and maybe I should just keep my feelings to myself. But I’ve always prided myself on being honest about who I am. I only have one face, and it’s this one. So I am going to come out. Better late than never.

I am a feminist.

There. I said it. No modifiers. No “but not the hairy kind,” and no “but not the Femi-Nazi kind,” and no “but not a bra burner.” Just plain and simple. This is who I am.

You see, I believe that my role in society is not limited to the biological roles dictated by my physical gender. While I can be a mother, I can also be many other things. My ability to learn, complete tasks, logically solve problems, and be a leader is not any less or greater than a man’s ability to do any of these things. I am not just a woman. I am a person.

This I believe. This is true.

But Ashley, you may be thinking, you’re going to be a teacher, which is a GIRL job. You’re getting married young. You are even changing your last name! You can’t be a feminist. You are lying.

Trust me. It’s been a hard road to reconcile these things with what are my very core beliefs. What will people think? They’ll think that I am just rolling over, giving up my identity. If I one day have a daughter, how will I be able to teach her that she is just as important as a son when I gave up my name, the very core of my identity? What does that say about how I feel about my importance in the family? Even my own name has to go.

And I don’t know the answer to these questions. I’ve read article after article trying to answer these questions. I can cite them here, but you don’t really need me to do that. Just know that knowledge still cannot always guide you to a clear answer.

All I do know is that I am starting a new family, and I want us to share a name. When I teach that hypothetical daughter all the aforementioned things, I want to share a name with her. He won’t take my name (I asked once), and he won’t let us take an arbitrary new name (I asked once). And honestly, I don’t particularly want to do those things either. So what am I left with? I don’t want to hyphenate. You know you felt sorry those poor children in grade school whose names neared 20 syllables. Plus, technically, hyphenating your name is still a form of changing your name.

That leaves me with changing my name all together. And really, when you think about it, the name Woodward does not belong to me. It belongs to all the men in my family. We women have no name. We’re like Holly Golightly’s infamous Cat. We’ve all changed our names over time, losing bits of ourselves here and there. It goes so far back that there is no retrieving a name we can call our own. My identity cannot be summed up into one surname. I’d need a thousand last names to accurately represent all the female identities that made me.

At the end of the day, this is a decision only I can make for myself. What is right for me and what works for me may be different from what is right for you and what works for you. That is okay. That is how people work. That is what makes the world such a big, beautiful place.

It doesn’t matter what people call me. I know who I am.