Sociologique

Ariela Haro von Mogel March 13th, 2008

I’m getting married this year, and as such, a bunch of traditional bull plop is being heaped onto my lap like someone’s mangy dog. I know I’m being vitriolic – that’s the fun of being a feminist!

First, it was the White Dress. Yes, the sacrosanct virginal dress. I have never wanted a white wedding dress. It has always seemed boring to me (as a penguinal tux is boring to me also). Since I was an adolescent, my favorite color has been dark turquoise. I absolutely adore this color. So naturally, I want a dark turquoise wedding dress. When my Mom heard about it, she tried to bribe me into getting a white dress with some turquoise on it. She said to me, in a sing-song voice “I’ll pay for it!” To this I responded, “Mom, you are going to pay for my dress anyways!” Then sadly she said, “Oh yes, you have a point.”

One of my aunts proclaimed that I am nuts to want a turquoise wedding dress – that it’s a wedding, not a quinceñera! Yeah, well, times are a changin’. My sister, though, knew I was not going to be perturbed from my vision, and so she gave me ideas to work with the dress. She said white music notes on the bottom of the dress would look really cool. And so there you have it. My wedding dress is going to have white music notes on it. I love it. And I want it designed in such a way that I could wear it again (perhaps at an opera, symphony or a rodeo?) I have never understood the practice of paying really good money for something that you are going to wear only once and then put in a box for years, probably never to be worn again.

Also, I found this really neat website that is all about eccentric/weird/independent brides who want to buck tradition and march to the beat of their own drummer chic. Head over to www.offbeatbride.com if you are so inclined. I’m going to submit some of my wedding pictures to them.

Second, my Mom absolutely flipped when I told her that I do not plan on taking my spouse’s last name, as I would not expect him to take mine. Nor do I plan on taking the title of Mrs. As you can already guess, I do not like the title Miss or Mrs.

I never really thought about it until I met some jerk-o who was standing in front of a Safeway with a clipboard, asking passersby if they wanted to register to vote. At the time, I was not registered to vote in that specific county, and so I agreed to sign up. Since it is a government form, it is optional to fill out such information as what racial category you are a part of. Makes sense, on some level. Then I thought that if I don’t have to put down my race, then I don’t have to state whether I’m married or single. Of course, Miss and Mrs. allows strangers to know whether you, as a woman, are single or married. But the same is not true for men. Based on title, a man can be a bachelor for the rest of his life, and no one will be the wiser.

So I politely questioned this and even made a joke about it, (referencing Lisa Simpson by saying “It’s Ms. Buttersworth) only to get publicly berated and called a “goddamnned feminist.” He argued that feminists always have to point out the most trivial things, while raising his voice quite high at me in public. My question was, if it’s so trivial, then why are you yelling at me? That shut him up.

My mom reacted rather similarly. She got very upset. She even threatened to disown me if I didn’t take my husband’s last name. I told her that if she was going to be that extreme, then I don’t want to inherit her money. I gave her my reasons, and she calmed down. She has even come to (kind of) accept it. My mother is an immigrant from Mexico and from a different generation than me, so I think she took it rather personally that I did not want to follow the patriarchal primrose path. Since my mom has accepted so many things that I consider sexist/racist/whatever, she perhaps takes my rejection of male-dominated modes of expression as rejecting what she stands for and not wanting to be like her. She has told me that no matter what I think, she is going to refer to me as Mrs. Haro von Mogel (the Haro von part is begrudgingly said).

Names are very significant and symbolic. If you ever underestimate how important someone’s name is, read ancient mythologies of many different societies and watch current media. For example, in the anime film, Spirited Away, a character named Haku had his name changed so the powerful matriarch Yubaba could control him. When he finally figured out what his true name was, he was freed from her bondage and returned to being a spirit instead of her human servant.

The same is true of women. Women are expected, upon marriage, to forgo their own identity, their own unique autonomy, and subsume themselves under their husband’s identity. Historically, women have been shadows of men. They have also been expected to self-abnegate for the sake of their children and for other people. Basically, their identity is strained, and the name change to the man’s name just proves it. Whenever I see a Mr. and Mrs. (insert male name here), it just makes me want to puke. I think, damn, does she have a name too?

So yeah, my mom and so many other women take what I say very personally. I am, in short, attacking her core, her very essence as a woman.

If you’re wondering about the “Haro von” part, let me explain. My fiancée and I do not care for the hyphenated names. One always wonders about what the children do or what do two people with hyphenated names do when they get married! Of course, Haro von Mogel is a handful, and if my children want to keep it, change it, add something else to it, then so be it.

I plan on getting a PhD in Music History. The love of my life is classical music. So, it occurred to me one day, “wouldn’t it be awesome if I had a von in my name?!” Hence, the birth of Haro von Mogel. It is also a Danish tradition of linking the maternal with the paternal lineages. But when it comes down to it, I wanted to sound like a member of Bavarian nobility from obscure origins. And I also wanted a crazy name – long live Mr. and Ms. Haro von Mogel and Ludwig van Beethoven!

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• Gender , Personal , Sociology
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