An interesting debate

[girlsteve.livejournal.com]

As you may have noticed, I've always been quite a fan of unisex names, girls names on boys/boys names on girls etc. however, I appreciate that it's not to everyone's taste and that you have to be careful not to lumber a kid with a name that'll cause confusion and teasing their whole life just because of your gender views. 

The reason I bring this up is because a friend and I were having a discussion about names that I thought you guys might have some interesting comments on. 

The thing is, my name choices in this respect are kind of political. for the most part they're not - in lots of cases, I just think that some traditional 'male' names work better on girls and vice versa, so maybe I just have different taste to the world at large. But there is also an element of gender politics, because I've always thought that there isn't a big difference between the sexes and that any child should be free to find their own identity regardless of the sex they were born. I'm one of those people who would be quite comfortable to let their little boys play with barbies or wear dresses IF THATS WHAT THEY CHOSE TO DO. And this is the thing, its the choice issue. I'm not going to put my little boy in a dress to make a statement if he doesn't want to wear it, and giving the stigma that goes with cross dressing he probably wont and that's fine. But he can choose to without judgement from me. However, if i name him Rachael - as much as it's a pretty name, and as much as it has always struck me personally as kind of masculine and as much as I don't think he should be insulted to be called a girl (after all, what's wrong with being a girl?) - he's going to have to live with that whether he likes it or not. I've always been a firm believer that you shouldn't use your kids for your own ends, personal, emotional or political, and in the real world you can't make your kids a crusade.

My friend, who agrees with me on many issues of feminist politics, disagree's with me on this one. She says that if you raise a kid to be strong, secure and not sexist then they wont have a problem with having a name of the other gender and are no more likely to have a problem with it than if you choose some other name they didn't like. As she says, no child gets a choice in their own name. She reckons that if you like a girls name on a boy you should use it, and only when people start doing that are these social ideas going to change. She also points out that I'm a girl named Steve and it never did me any harm - quite the opposite. I love my name and I personally think it's helped me. But I dunno.... She quite likes Racheal for a boy, and part of my wonders if I should feel really guilt for using it as an off-the-top-of-my-head example, just in case her future son resents me for it....

So, long rambly issue. But for the troopers who read it, wdyt?

Comments

[satunian.livejournal.com]

well, the problem with your friend's argument is that you're not the only one raising your kid... everyone he or she meets and every experience plays a part in raising your kid. I was picked on as a child (not for my name, for other reasons, but gender identity and sexuality did play into it). My parents were great parents and raised me fine, but that didn't stop people from picking on me, nor did my parents raising me make me immune to being picked on.

You can raise your son Rachael to be strong, secure and not sexist, but he can still be picked on by people when you're not around and it could cause him a lot of grief. Remember, they're kids, and you can't expect them to reason like adults. Unfortunately you also can't really count on the majority of adults to reason like adults, either, so I mean, if you REALLY want to give a boy a girls' name, go ahead but I'd advise to proceed with extreme caution. I personally still think it's a bad idea, and if you're trying to abolish forced gender identities based on a person's sex, try aiming for a unisex name.

[satunian.livejournal.com]

Also, you're right for not wanting to force your political views on your child. Even if you raise him very openly, he still might be a very masculine type of boy, and might feel uncomfortable with a girls' name, even if you wouldn't. Likewise you could also have a very feminine girl who wouldn't like to be named Michael, or whatever. If I were you, I'd probably find the unisex names I like most, name the kiddies that, and when they're older, if they'd prefer a more masculine.feminine name, we can work on that. No matter what, you don't know what kind of person your kid is going to be.