If you want to watch me squirm, ask me — a vocal feminist — why I changed my name when I got married. I mean, it’s not considered very feminist, is it? Choosing to rid yourself of your identity only to be subsumed into your husband’s.
Lord knows I’ve felt the heat over my decision from friends, acquaintances, and strangers over the years. It doesn’t help that the name I took — Brown — turned me into a cartoon character.
But there is one big reason I decided to change my name, and it had nothing to do with patriarchal conventions of taking my husband’s.