Oh, how I love mocking the allegedly "rationalist" site called Intellectual Takeout. During the summer I found an amusingly fallacious article and criticized its irrationality [1], and I found another one [2] that I wanted to dissect online. The writers for Intellectual Takeout routinely distort and attack feminism and gender egalitarianism in various ways, appealing to traditions (there's a whole fallacy called appeal to tradition, you morons), commonly-held stereotypes (appeal to popularity is a fallacy too), and arbitrary, false premises (thus begging the question) in arguing for their conclusions. So I decided to point out errors the site publishes yet again.
The article in question this time pertains to the issue of women choosing to not take their husbands' last names. As might be expected, the author sees this as an assault on a loving tradition and as a possible attack on men--but it does fortunately end by not condemning the keeping of women's maiden names, settling to tell men to appreciate it when they don't. Although the ending could have been far worse, the road to get there touches on a whole host of fallacies and inaccurate beliefs that the author didn't even bother to refute. And now I will begin highlighting the stupidity of various assertions in the article.
"This trend might reflect shifting cultural attitudes towards gender roles and traditions, but it also might have an impact on how men and women understand each other’s roles in a marriage. New research suggests that when a man’s wife doesn’t take his last name, he is perceived as disempowered and less masculine."
Are there any gender roles? Not according to the Bible (which Intellectual Takeout seems to hold as true, being a Christian group), as I've addressed at length on my blog. The Bible does not teach them [3], and no Christian can make a legitimate moral claim apart from the Bible. And logic sure as hell dissolves any argument in favor of gender roles, whether in marriage, in dating, in the workplace, or in general society. So whether or not a society endorses a particular set of gender roles, there are none on the Christian worldview. As for that last part about men being perceived as less "masculine", a person is a man or woman because of his or her genitals and chromosomes, not because of conformance to a social stereotype or because of a mental personality characteristic. Without the existence of these gender-specific personality traits, the entire basis for even arguing for gender roles collapses entirely, with it being impossible to rationally rebuild. For a website claiming to represent logic, Intellectual Takeout, as usual, does a very poor job.
"On the other hand, many women believe strongly in the tradition of taking a man’s name as her own, seeing in it a time-honored gesture of love and respect, a symbolic merging of two people, and a way to signal unity as a family."
Of course, Intellectual Fakeout doesn't immediately clarify that the "merging of two people" could involve them retaining their individuality as autonomous persons or that it could take the form of a man taking his wife's surname. There is no unifying benefit in one gender universally, unilaterally submitting to the other in this way because of tradition. A tradition of that type is sexist. A spouse willingly choosing to adopt the last name of his or her partner is not. But there is nothing loving about sexist traditions, whatever the intentions behind them are.
"Men have valid reasons to feel strongly about the issue, too. And despite this recent study, those reasons extend far beyond simple insecurity in their masculinity."
I find it hilarious how the nonexistent "masculine" personality traits are often associated with strength, yet the men who most loudly proclaim their "masculinity" could very well be extremely insecure and emotionally fragile on the inside. That's the paradox of the Western notion of "masculinity"! Not only is it entirely illogical and wholly unbiblical, it's not even applied in an internally consistent way! If someone really is internally strong, they don't have any need to constantly mention their strength of heart unless they have an insecurity about it or about not being perceived as strong at heart . . . and, ironically, it seems like the only men who are offended by women's desire for social equality are men who are not internally strong and comfortable with themselves. They need external validation that the social construct that they want to participate in is true, and so they act in a way contrary to that construct when it is threatened. It's hilariously irrational all around!
"It’s not outrageous for a man to wonder if a woman’s hesitance to adopt and commit to his name isn’t a sign of a deeper questions about her commitment to the marriage or her willingness to embrace future changes. Perhaps he wonders if she isn’t subconsciously signaling that her identity and ambitions should take priority over his . . . or over theirs as a family."
Well this is amusing coming from a site that frequently criticizes feminism and teaches sexist ideas about what it means to be a man or woman. So men should be worried that their wives not taking their last names means they might want superiority in a relationship, but women shouldn't be concerned that this sexist tradition might signal that the identity and ambitions of husbands should take priority over their own? This is the illogicality of all sexist traditions, whether they elevate either men or women--they are purely arbitrary. One could use the same arguments appealed to in their favor to argue for sexism of the inverse kind as well. These claims are utterly powerless; they have no logicality to appeal to.
What the hell is up with Intellectual Fakeout's legion of fallacies? Men can change their last names to match those of their wives, and women can do the same for their husbands. Why doesn't Intellectual Takeout not just openly say that no gender is obligated to change its names for the sake of the other gender? Because that would be rational, and being rational would require abandoning many of the tradition-based and fallacy-based beliefs that the site promotes.
[1]. http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/should-women-take-their-husbands-last-name
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/generalizations-about-men-and-women.html
[3]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-ephesians-5-does-not-teach-rigid.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/complementarianism-is-inherently-sexist.html
C. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-error-of-complementarian-arguments.html
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