[Marxism] Cultural note: Argentine women ask, 'What's in a name?'

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Since Wednesday was International Women's Day everywhere, we
saw more coverage of issues related to women in the media.

So on Tuesday I saw an article about a controvery reported
in the Christian Science Monitor about women in Argentina who
take their husband's names. It intrigued me as it gives some
kind of idea of what's important, at least to the author who
wrote for the Monitor. I shared it with an Argentine companero,
Nestor Gorojovsky to get his take on it. He wrote back with his
take, and I had his comments translated because I thought they
would be of general interest about gender relationships today.

And I've added a note about it from a Cuban friend who made a
translation of Gorojovsky's comments for English-speakers.


Walter Lippmann
===============================================================

Dear Walter, I answer in Spanish to make it quicker and better.

As far as I can see, these concerns about family names are not at all
relevant to most Argentinean women. What has in fact been growing
during the last 20 years is (to some extent because of the economic
crisis) the number of men and women who live together without being
legally married. This puts the family name issue last in the list.

I honestly think that the possibility of using "y" instead of "de"
would be a serious step backwards. The "y" is an old Spanish
expression linked to our most reactionary heritage. Thus in the
compound family name Durañona y Vedia (instead of the more modern
"Durañona Vedia" where Durañona is the father's family name and Vedia
the mother's family name - opposite to the order in English and
Portuguese) the particle "y" serves as a marker of aristocratic,
upper class origin. The use of "con" would be more interesting, a
real novelty. But nobody seems to be really interested in this topic.

What really matters is the issue of the offspring's second name. For
a long time now, for estate division purposes, Argentinean law has
given equal rights to the offspring conceived in or out of wedlock.
This was established in 1974, on the initiative of a working-class
Labor Minister, Otero, during Peron´s last administration. Gradually
since then, bearing the mother´s family name hasn't been a problem
for anyone.

However, within a legally constituted marriage it is still the law
for the offspring to take the father's family name.

All my children are Gorojovsky, even though it would have been
simpler for them to have been named Sánchez, as their mother. 
My partner and I don't even wear a wedding ring.

I do not think the subject is very important in Argentina today.

On the other hand, to say that "La Nación" is a "popular" journal is
like saying the Wall Street Journal is the journal of the U.S.
working class.

On the other issues, yes, there is progress. But not that much. So,
although we are not as "machistas" as the article describes us, the
fact is that in Argentina there is still a clear discrimination: if
you are a woman, things are more difficult.
===================================================================

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE:

As you know, in Cuba children take two family names: first the
father's and then the mother's. For legal and official purposes both
have to be used. You cannot register at school or a clinic, or get a
driver's license with only one family name. It is not an optional
matter.

Sometimes, however, in every day life for practical reasons only the
first family name is used (that of the father) to get a booking at
the hairdresser's, for example.

The issue of women taking their husband´s name is a thing of the
past. The "de" was used by those in high social classes or the
aristocracy (or those hoping to be part of them). Then a woman's
married name would be Juana Perez Lopez de Rodriguez.

Today no woman in Cuba would think of using "de". Some would take it
as rennouncing their independence, others would think it is nonsense
and would laugh at whoever considers taking "de" in this society. 
I personally believe the topic has no relevance. It is definitely not
an issue in Cuba.
===================================================================


From: Nestor Gorojovsky [mailto:nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 8:40 AM
To: Walter Lippmann
Subject: Re: Argentine women ask, 'What's in a name?'

Querido Walter, respondo en castellano para hacerlo más rápido y
mejor.

Por lo que puedo apreciar yo, estas preocupaciones sobre apellidos no
atañen ni de lejos a la mayoría de las mujeres argentinas. Por lo
demás, lo que sí va creciendo en los últimos 20 años (en parte por la
crisis económica) es la cantidad de hombres y mujeres que conviven
sin matrimonio legal. Con lo cual el tema de los apellidos pasa a un
último plano.

En realidad, y para ser estrictos, la cuestión de cambiar el "de" por
el "y" sería un retroceso violento. El "y" es una vieja forma
española, vinculada a lo más reaccionario de nuestra herencia. Así,
en el apellido compuesto Durañona y Vedia (en lugar de "Durañona
Vedia", que es la forma moderna, y donde Durañona es apellido del
padre, Vedia de la madre, al revés que en inglés y portugués) la
partícula "y" funciona como marca de clase alta, aristocrática. El
"con" sería más interesante, es una verdadera novedad. Pero no le veo
gran interés a nadie por este asunto.

Lo que realmente interesa a estos fines es la cuestión del apellido
de los hijos. En esto, hace mucho que la ley argentina iguala a hijos
matrimoniales e hijos extramatrimoniales _al momento repartir las
herencias_: desde 1974, bajo el último gobierno de Perón y por
iniciativa de un ministro de origen proletario, el ministro de
Trabajo Otero. En realidad desde entonces, poco a poco, llevar el
apellido de la madre no es problema para nadie.

Sin embargo, en una pareja legalmente constituida todavía es ley que
se lleva el apellido del padre.

Mis hijos son todos Gorojovsky, incluso aunque por comodidad hubiera
sido más fácil que se llamaran Sánchez, como la mamá. Mi mujer y yo
ni siquiera usamos anillo de matrimonio.

Me parece que no es un tema muy importante en la Argentina de hoy.

Por otro lado eso de decir que "La Nación" es un diario "popular"
equivale a decir que el Wall Street Journal es un diario de los
trabajadores nortemericanos.

Sobre el resto de los asuntos, sí, hay avances. Pero no son tan
grandiosos tampoco. En fin: sin ser tan "machistas" como nos dice el
artículo, lo cierto es que en la Argentina sigue habiendo una clara
discriminación. Si sos mujer, las cosas son más difíciles.


http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0307/p07s01-woam.html

from the March 07, 2006 edition -
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0307/p07s01-woam.html

Argentine women ask, 'What's in a name?'
A law may change that requires a married woman to use 'de' - meaning
'of' - before her husband's last name.

By Kelly Hearn

What's in a name? If you're a married woman in Argentina, it's often
a little word called "de," meaning "of," that comes after your maiden
name and before your husband's last name.

But for many Argentine women these days, the possessive ring to that
traditional formulation feels offensive and smacks of a
not-too-distant chauvinist past here when women were put on pedestals
but locked in cages ... figuratively, of course.

In this beauty-conscious country of well-defined gender roles, the
role of women is being slowly but surely reconfigured.

Women here are free not to take their husbands' names. But if they
choose to do so, a national law requires the use of de before the
husband's last name.

The Argentine Congress is currently considering amending that law by
giving women the right to use "y," meaning "and," instead of de, and
even offering the husband the right to take his wife's name.

And in recent months, in the province of Córdoba, a group of women
have asked the government to let them use "con," or "with," to
replace de.

Some women, such as Sol Duran, a 30-year-old communications
professional, say such laws really aren't necessary - that being able
to choose whether to take a man's name or not is enough. Others, 
like Mabel Bianco, president of the Foundation for the Study and
Investigation of Women in Buenos Aires, stress the need to go beyond
law. "Even though these types of projects are growing, it is also
necessary to modify certain cultural rules," she recently told La
Nación, a popular newspaper.

The bills speak to larger struggles here for civil and reproductive
rights, domestic violence laws, electoral and economic
representation, revamped gender roles, and historical judgments
against what many say is a heavily male-dominated past.

Many women say the advances that have been made are most obvious in
the workplace, despite the fact that machismo still talks loudly and
struts proudly.

There have been wins. Victoria Haydee Huck is an example of how a
feminist movement, struggling for decades and flowering with the
return of democracy in the 1980s and economic expansion in the 1990s,
has helped push women further into public life and labor markets. She
just became the highest ranking female police officer in the history
of Buenos Aires, overseeing 14 districts with a million and a half
people and 3,847 underlings, most of them men.

Political representation is changing, too. In Congress, thanks to a
legal requirement, women make up close to 30 percent of Argentina's
congressional members.

Gains have come in the private sector, too.

Carol Mintz, a young co-owner of a consultancy catering to major
companies here, says she sees more and more women on higher corporate
rungs.


Still a long way to go

But there's still plenty of reason to grumble, say many women.

Government studies show the majority of women still fall into
traditional roles such as domestic services, teaching, public
administration, health services, and lower-level jobs in hotels and
small businesses, all while being underrepresented in top echelons of
business. What's more, women are typically paid considerably less
than male counterparts.

Ms. Duran says she once worked as an assistant in a customs company.
"There were four people," she says, her brow furrowed. "Three men and
me, all doing the same job. And guess who earned less?"

Ms. Duran admits there have been advances: "Okay, sí, sí, but
machismo still rules."

And when it reigns at home, it results in something called doble
jornada, or the dual job where many women work full days in the
office, but still come home to all the traditional chores.


The seeds of it all?

Argentine author Marta Zabaleta once told this reporter that the
workplace attitudes, the institutional problems, were planted early
in Argentine history by "otherwise nice and clever men of socialist
principles" who saw women "as fragile workers, assimilated more to
children than to adult workers at work, and therefore in need of
special social protection."

Feminism's battle against machismo is a tough one anywhere in Latin
America. But it's easy to feel in this flirtatious city, with its
booming plastic-surgery industry and high anorexia rates, that
femininity and feminism will have to work especially hard to sort out
their relationship. But despite the prevalence of machismo, this
seems to be happening at a steady clip.



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