Or you could go here.

That museum notwithstanding, of course, aren’t there themed art exhibits all the time? The NC Museum of Art has an entire gallery dedicated to Jewish art. I’m sure there are exhibits/museums dedicated to black artists. Would there really be a backlash to such an exhibition? I don’t know if I’d even find it remarkable if the National Gallery put up a women-only exhibit.

Good for all museums that rotate their collections, I say.  You’d be amazed at just how much art sits in museum backrooms, unseen for decades or centuries, and lies forgotten.

Jeff, it’s not just the exhibit.  The permanent collection has been reshuffled to that it’s all female artists.  If the quote didn’t make that clear, the link should.

Amanda - then how does that make this museum different from the NMWA, at least temporarily? I guess I still don’t understand why there would be a backlash.

I want to attend this.  I want—just once—to walk around a museum and not feel like an afterthought, or “an exception to the rule.”  Even if it’s only for 365 days out of a lifetime (or, depending on how you look at it, many lifetimes).

Hope you’re right, Jeff.  Unfortunately, you’re applying logic and rigor to the situation, and the backlashers aren’t capable of understanding that.  If there’s not a backlash, it’s only because anti-feminists don’t find out about it, I’m sure.

I think that they’re going to have to deal with a lot of people who don’t understand that this display decision is also art in and of itself.  This isn’t moving Category A7 or whatever into Room 3C or whatever; those decisions are routine, adminstrative and yet remain artistic.  In this case the act isn’t about art it is art.

Along those same lines, Martin Earl at the Poetry Foundation’s blog wrote a piece last week which argues that, on the whole, women are making better bloggers, poets and critics than men right now.

The comments, by the way, are generally a more erudite version of the kinds you tend to see on feminist blogs along the “what about the menz?” lines.

How many museums have entire exhibits with no woman artists?

The only way this is an injustice is if you buy that women, by default, are inferior artists and that the only way for this to work is to hide far superior works (by men) to fill up your quota of women. Which is why the anti-feminists will have a field day decrying this ‘injustice’.

At first, I thought the story was that only women were allowed to attend the museum.  That seemed uncool to me.  I don’t see anything objectionable about only displaying female artists.  Except that if they have an unusually huge collection of modern and contemporary European art, it would be nice if they’d lend some of it out rather than storing it.

Basically what BlackBloc said. It’s easy for everyone to believe that a museum filled with works by men contains only the best works on Earth. A few people might notice that something’s missing, but they just can’t put their finger on it, and they don’t feel like they’re missing out on anything. But when men artists are excluded from a museum, the thing people think is missing is the best art in the world, and they feel like they’re being robbed of their right to enjoy beautiful art.

And to any background singers/tambourine players out there, I greatly value your contributions to the world of music.

I wonder what kind of backlash there would be, if without fanfare, a museum just put out a ratio of art from women to men that is how is usually is from men to women. Like if museums are on average filled with 90% works from men, if their was a museum that just put out 90% works of women and didn’t say a thing about it. Or hell, 50/50 even.

The problem with this is that (to the critics, not me)  it feels like a stunt, and an exclusionary one at that, and so it is like just handing it over to the “what about the menz” folks to be criticized.

On the other hand, like Amanda’s example of the mixed discs, it might really wake some people up to the incredible works out there by women. You are probably never going to convince the MRA types, but perhaps there are many who just never thought about it before and this might make them think.

How many museums have entire exhibits with no woman artists?

Like, most of them?
At least one cursory glance at the Madrid’s Prado and Barcelona’s MNAC’s collections didn’t show up any female artist. Mind you, the Prado is the biggest painting gallery in Europe, so it’s not like they’re lacking of art pieces.

But when men artists are excluded from a museum, the thing people think is missing is the best art in the world, and they feel like they’re being robbed of their right to enjoy beautiful art.

And there I thought this was the whole point of all this. You’re not going to convince those who think womens’ work is inferior, but you can get the rest to think exactly WHY those men’s works, that are shown in most of the galleries in the world, couldn’t be replaced by equally good female artists.

Some critics go as far as to argue that many of Sofonisba Anguissola’s masterpieces weren’t her own. Because they can’t fathom the genius in a woman, much less accept that she can be on par with the best of her male colleagues. Challenging these ideas is, I think, the real intent of the Centre Pompidou’s exhibit.

While I’ve seen all-women’s exhibitions before (notably Impressionists), clearing out the whole museum would really turn expectations on their head. I wish now they didn’t say the artists were all female—just let people discover it for themselves.

The Centre-Pompidou often puts its masterpieces on tour, so those who expected to see a particular (male) artwork there this summer should have made sure it would be on display.

What is kind of sad about such an exhibit is that I would bet that many if not most works were made possible by said artiste being of independent means to begin with. 

Then again, when has the world of fine art not been dominated by by wealthy people?  I used to be amused by people who were “born at the wrong time” and who would have been this artist or that scientist ... when we all know damn well that they would have worked in a mill or on a farm.

Yea, and the museum is probably the least interesting part of Beaubourg, though it fits well in the context of the whole thing. People come for the arts, but stay for the freak show.

This is huge!

And I just got back…damn. All the more reason to start saving for next year’s trip.

Pompidou is my favorite Paris museum and while I usually avoid the touristy places I do try to have at least one overpriced cafe in sight of the building.
The architecture is just too cool. http://www.centrepompidou.fr/informations/pratique/architecture/archi02.html

From the looks of the website it will be the entire building: the two temporary exhibition halls (currently showing Kandinsky and Calder) and the two full floors of the Musée National d’Art Moderne. For those of you unfamiliar with the Pompidou this is no small hole in the wall. The building itself (not all galleries) is certainly bigger than MoMA and I think the gallery space is too.
Here are some quicktime virtual tours. http://www.centrepompidou.fr/Pompidou/Communication.nsf/0/D8A04006C256531CC1256DE5005A5324?OpenDocument&sessionM=3.4.2&L=2

Here is the full Press Release in English:
http://www.centrepompidou.fr/Pompidou/Manifs.nsf/AllExpositions/D6A4B0D21DE9B83EC12575B60032CA4A?OpenDocument&sessionM=2.2.2&L=2

In my experience, Jeff, when a feminist (me, in this case) tries to walk the walk and tries to make change to the sexist status quo by, for instance, trying to only patronize female dentists (which I do) or movies that feature women in roles like those that go to men (meaning that I do not see many commercial movies), she is told that she is sexist.  I have been told by ostensibly liberal men that my opinion that babies should sometimes (not always, mind you) get the original surname of their mothers is a sexist opinion. Conservatives will treat any feminism with distain by default, “liberal” sexists are ok with talk, but show their colors when you try to do anything to fix the problems.

I think this kind of thing, at least over a limited term, is marvelous in exposing the public to talented artists who are likely generally underrated owing to a lack of exposure.  Not sure that it is necessarily a good plan to keep it going long term, but nobody seems to have any problems with ongoing exhibitions which feature only men.

Oh my god!  This is horrible, where will we be able to see art by men now?!?!

I have been told by ostensibly liberal men that my opinion that babies should sometimes (not always, mind you) get the original surname of their mothers is a sexist opinion.

That’s some real bullshit there. The idea that it could possibly be sexist to say that *sometimes* babies should get their mothers’ names is by definition not sexist.

My opinion, on the other hand, *could* be defined as sexist—I think babies should get their mothers’ names by default, and if men want to share their babies’ names they should change their names to match the babies’ (and therefore the mothers), because the natural mammalian unit of family is mother and child. I welcome the human male ability to actually care for children, unlike 90% of mammalian males, but they gotta get over the belief that the something extra they can provide is the whole enchilada.

The exception would be when the mother wishes, for whatever reason, to give her kids their father’s name, but that should be the mother’s call, and the father can have something to say about it when he pushes a baby’s head the size of a melon out of his nether parts. (Or, if the child is adopted, it can be a mutual decision… but the default should be that the person who was pregnant decides.) I chose to let my kids have their father’s last name because it’s near the top of the alphabet and objectively cooler than Rogers, and because I didn’t want to make their older siblings, who are biologically my stepkids, feel separated from the younger two. But if I’d been a man and my husband had been a woman, no one would have thought twice about making the older kids adopt my name… and there’s no fucking reason for it. Men are extraneous to the process of birthing and raising children. I mean, it’s great when they’re involved, don’t get me wrong, but biologically they are a nice-to-have, not a necessity except for about five minutes at the very start of the process.

Ursula, where do you even find female dentists? I patronize only female medical professionals when I have any choice, so my ob/gyn, my primary care doctor, and every therapist I’ve had the power to choose are all female, but I’ve never found a female dentist (or urologist, sadly.)

The thing I’m going to find hilarious is that those who would backlash this, claim it’s sexist and “not allowing the work of the best artists, the most beauty, only based on gender” or anything to that effect are, I guarantee, incapable of explaining what would make work X superior to work Y, and incapable of gendering the art without being informed unless you referred them to a work of an obvious painter.

And I would love nothing more than to hear one prattle on about “intensity of passion, showing powerful emotion, that could only be made by a man” when looking at what is “obviously” a Van Gogh, but was actually a pastiche of Van Gogh by a woman.

I hadn’t heard of Sofonisba Anguissola before, but it gives me a chance to hop on my favorite hobbyhorse:  I’m always happy to hear stories of artists who had long happy lives instead of short, depressing ones.  I think one of our most harmful cultural myths is that you can’t be a “real” artist unless you’re mentally ill/addicted to drugs/a wife-beating asshole.  Of course, that myth is usually based on the artist personifying the most harmful excesses of macho behavior so the standard ensures that no woman could possibly be a “real” artist.  It’s part of what made David Foster Wallace decide to give up antidepressants entirely, and doing that helped kill him.

Wow: a da Silva!  It’s rare to see her work online or anywhere. (although this has as much to do with her being a part of postwar European painting group that includes painters like WOLS and De Stael who aren’t as recognized in the US as it has to do with her gender)
There have been important Feminist shows recently like “Whack art and the feminist revolution”.
At this point I think many of the worlds most important living painters are women: Amy Sillman, Susan Rothenberg, Dana Shutz, Tomma Abts, Mary Heilman… Not to mention outstanding female artists working in other media, from Rebecca Horn to Cindy Sherman. Museums have been a little slow at reflecting this…

Alara, I hold the exact same belief. When talking with a group of co-workers at lunch, (there were two women, three men), the subject of surnames came up and whether or not the two women would take their husbands last name. One woman said of course she would, and I said no, I would not. This seemed to rile up of of my more “traditional” co-workers, we’ll call him Tate, who then brought up the subject of kids, as if this would trump everything, as in, “you wouldn’t have the same last name as your children”.

Well, one, I don’t want kids, however, I told him that if by some stroke of fate I changed my mind and decided to go through with a pregnancy the kids would most definitely be getting MY name. Why? Because I put in the fucking work, that’s why, and if my husband or partner or whatever ended up splitting up the chances were good that I was going to get majority custody, so yeah. Not to mention breast feeding, taking off maternity leave, etc. So, yeah, the kid’s getting my name. Tate was deeply offended at the suggestion that kids deserve their mother’s last name over the father’s. I pointed out to him that the only reason kids and women take men’s last names is because they used to be considered property and that tradition has stuck, but when you really think it out, the kids should get the mothers last name for all of the work, nurturing and raising that women do.

A second male co-worker tried to jump in to defend Tate, by saying, “Okay, but, how would women have even gotten pregnant if it weren’t for the guy? You wouldn’t have anything without us.”

At this my cheeks started heating up but I kept calm and asked him directly, “Do you honestly believe that ejaculation is equal to carrying a pregnancy to term, breast feeding, taking off weeks maybe even years to raise the child and being the parent who is mostly in charge of the child’s emotional and physical well being?”

The guy kinda laughed it off but I pressed him and Tate was still adamant that because without semen there wouldn’t *be” a baby and that “without our dough you wouldn’t have any cookies to bake” (yes, he used a variation on the bun in the over metaphor). Getting kinda pissy I replied with, “You do realize that a woman can reach into the oven and take out your cookies and throw them in the trash, right?”

Then Tate came back with, “But your last name isn’t yours. It’s your fathers? So why don’t you have your mother’s last name, neener neener neener.”  I told him that I LIKE my last name and want to keep it and if I have kids I’d like to pass on my name. I couldn’t help what name my parents gave me but I can sure as hell help what name my husband tries to (thanks for that comeback Amanda!).  I told him that he’s speaking from a place of privilege and he’s assuming because I’m a woman my last name isn’t *really* mine, it’s just a place holder until I lands me a man. I bid him welcome to the 21st Century where my name is just as much mine as his is.

Well, to cut this short, Tate said he wouldn’t ever marry a woman who wouldn’t take his last name. I told him that was incredibly childish but good luck with that.

Doesn’t Iceland have a matrilinear naming tradition?

“But your last name isn’t yours. It’s your fathers? So why don’t you have your mother’s last name, neener neener neener.”

And I suppose Tate got his last name by taking Peyote, going on a spirit quest, and speaking to his animal totem to learn his True Name, the source of all magic that describes him not just his shell or self opinion, but the nature of his soul.

Or, you know, he has his father’s name too, “not his own name.” Giving you just as affirmative a bond to your name as he has to his.

god, how fucking myopic can a person be?

“you wouldn’t have the same last name as your children”.

First of all, so what? In a lot of cultures, women stick with the name they were given at birth. Second, even in America, the number of blended families means that many women do not have the same last name as their children.

Now, as to kids’ surnames, I’m going to get all patriarchal and evo-psychy and say it’s important to give children their father’s surnames, as part of triggering natural reasons for dad to stick around to help raise the kids.  The father has much less invested than the mother, so like an upside-down home buyer feels he can walk away from his investment (one sperm) at any time. Pride of ownership, the sense that “That’s my kid,” tends to keep him around.

Everybody knows whose uterus the kid came from, but who the father is, is mysterious. The name symbolizes the father’s staking his claim, even if mom was pollinated by a passing stranger. With paternity settled, the father can grunt and go play catch with his kid.

I took the husband’s name when we got married.  I don’t really know why I did it, except that I was 21 at the time and that’s just what you did.  Now I kind of wish I had kept my own, but we’ve been together 11 years now and if I changed it back now he’d take it as a rejection of him.  If I’d just kept it at the beginning, I don’t think there would have even been an argument, but that ship has sailed, I supposed.

The kids also have his name, but that I don’t mind at all.  I gave them their first and middle names (by decree—I flat out said that since I made the kids I got to name them), which are totally American and are family names for me.  But their dad is Tamil, so their last name is the only Tamil part of their name.

Hector…oh man. You are suggesting that a man who might not otherwise help rear his own children will do so if they have his name? A guy that fickle can hit the road, as far as I’m concerned, I shouldn’t have to dance like a monkey to make him stay. And if he’s worried that it’s not his, again: HUGE relationship problem there better dealt with via counseling than by name-taking.

Raising kids is not about property ownership, but about…raising kids. Because you love them and they’re your responsibility.  And again if you’re worried about whose sperm was used…you need to see a counselor with your partner. Because you have trust issues up the ying-yang, or, if you’re right, she has issues. Either way.

Conversely, when I took my husband’s name, it was not a particularly meaningful act to me, (he was indifferent on the issue) though I have been through enough feminist discussions since to understand why it can seem problematic. That was 11 years ago, and I had not really thought of my feminism as anything but related to my pay or my legal standing; I was kind of intrigued by the idea of changing my name, and thought his was prettier, and that’s about as much thought as I put into it. I probably wouldn’t do it now, even though I still think hyphenations are ugly and still think his name is prettier, mostly because I know more people who would see it as a political statement I don’t wish to make.

A guy that fickle can hit the road, as far as I’m concerned,

Of course.

But if even though your mate isn’t highly evolved, you’d still like to keep him around, making basic emotional responses work to do so makes sense to me. Remember, your relationship was bulit on mutual lust. With the spotlight trained on it, “We each thought the other’s ass looked cute,” seems fairly flimsy.

Because you love them and they’re your responsibility.

If you think “ownership” is irrelevant, do you love other people’s kids as much as your own?

if you’re worried about whose sperm was used…

The point is that giving the child his surname shows he’s not worried about whose sperm was used, he’s accepted responsibility for the child.

I’m sure that Amanda knows but for the rest- The Guerilla Girls have been pointing out just this disparity in art/museums, etc. for a long time now.

I don’t say babies should be named after the mothers exactly.  I just say babies should be named after the person whose body had to open up painfully to bring them into the world, to reflect that sacrifice.

I just say babies should be named after the person whose body had to open up painfully to bring them into the world

Sure, that’s why my real name is Helen.

I told him that if by some stroke of fate I changed my mind and decided to go through with a pregnancy the kids would most definitely be getting MY name. Why? Because I put in the fucking work, that’s why, and if my husband or partner or whatever ended up splitting up the chances were good that I was going to get majority custody, so yeah. Not to mention breast feeding, taking off maternity leave, etc.

The counter argument to this is that the children are going to be with the mother, identify with the mother, and inherit the mother’s value system because of all of this. As a consequence, the children having the father’s name is barely the most minor of concessions to the father’s sense of involvement and indentification with the children. So if you have all of that stuff, what’s the big deal with the name?

I just say babies should be named after the person whose body had to open up painfully to bring them into the world, to reflect that sacrifice.

So you’re opposed to adopted children taking the name of their adoptive parents? or surrogate’s names being attached to children they carried?

Really, the main problem here (and indeed the problem Hector’s evo psychy nonsense) is that this whole conversation is based on English Language naming conventions, which are, like all naming conventions, idiosyncratic.

We could just as easily have Icelandic naming conventions, which are Matronymic by default. Or Spanish, which includes both. Or Muppets, where the sons are named for the father and the daughters for the mother.

But if even though your mate isn’t highly evolved, you’d still like to keep him around, making basic emotional responses work to do so makes sense to me. Remember, your relationship was bulit on mutual lust. With the spotlight trained on it, “We each thought the other’s ass looked cute,” seems fairly flimsy.

Where the hell do you get “your relationship was built on mutual lust” from anything Ultramagnus, emjaybee - or indeed, anyone - said?

If you think “ownership” is irrelevant, do you love other people’s kids as much as your own?

If they were my wife/girlfriend’s kids?  Yes. 

The point is that giving the child his surname shows he’s not worried about whose sperm was used, he’s accepted responsibility for the child.

So he has to claim ownership (thus erasing all the work the woman put into creation of the child) before he’ll take responsibility?

Your hypothetical man is an utter asshole, you know that?

Sure, that’s why my real name is Helen.

Is there some particular reason you’re being an ass about this?

“Doesn’t Iceland have a matrilinear naming tradition? “

No.  Men and women both take their father’s given name as part of their surname along with either “-son” or “-daughter.”  My sons would have Dicksson as a surname and my daughters would have Dicksdaughter.

I feel guilty about hijacking this art thread, so I’m going to bail after this one last comment:

So he has to claim ownership (thus erasing all the work the woman put into creation of the child) before he’ll take responsibility?

Huh? A man saying “This is my daughter” is 100% compatible with a woman’s saying “This is my daughter.”

being an ass?

I try to find common ground in any discussion. If our patronymic system shortchanges the mother’s contribution, can we change it to credit the mother without throwing out the entire system? Think win-win; think both-and, not either-or.

dicksdaughter

actually it does make allowances for the alternative

I haven’t been to the Pompidou since the summer of 2006, but I just got back from a week-long NYC art trip, and I was touring the MoMA when it started to sink in just how male-centric the place was. The only female artist there I can recall off the top of my head was Georgia O’Keefe.

But there were female nudes. Lots and lots of nudes.

If you feel like visiting NY galleries, the Brooklyn Museum is much less white dude oriented. It’s even got a wing dedicated to feminist art.

A second male co-worker tried to jump in to defend Tate, by saying, “Okay, but, how would women have even gotten pregnant if it weren’t for the guy? You wouldn’t have anything without us.”

That attitude—-that 30 seconds of a man’s time is worth more than years of a woman’s—-is exactly what I hope moves like the one this museum is making can combat.

The counter argument to this is that the children are going to be with the mother, identify with the mother, and inherit the mother’s value system because of all of this. As a consequence, the children having the father’s name is barely the most minor of concessions to the father’s sense of involvement and indentification with the children. So if you have all of that stuff, what’s the big deal with the name?

Hmm.  As counter arguments go, it’s not a very strong one.  If the children are going to be with the mother, that once again means that she’s going to be stuck with the primary responsibility and expense for them, and identifying with her and inheriting her value system as a result is hardly guaranteed.  How many people on this very site came from conservative backgrounds? 

And a name is not a minor thing.  To name something is to define it.  Naming is the privilege of ownership - if a man names a child, that child is “his”, regardless of all the work the woman put into it.  If a woman should choose to allow a man to name the child she put so much work into, or to share that task because he’s her partner and companion, that should be recognized as a gift rather than taken for granted as his right.

you wouldn’t have the same last name as your children

I hate this one, too, because men who say this would absolutely shit a brick if a woman remarried and kept her ex-husband’s name so that she matched the children.  But like you said, the neat solution to the problem is naming children after the mother.

But if even though your mate isn’t highly evolved, you’d still like to keep him around,

I don’t see why.  It’s hard enough to have a baby without having a child-man to take care of.  Men like that become problems more often than not—-jealous, petty, demanding of time that already exhausted mothers don’t have while not doing enough to help out.

So you’re opposed to adopted children taking the name of their adoptive parents? or surrogate’s names being attached to children they carried?

That really strikes me as a minor concern when you’re talking about the major issues surrounding adoption and surrogacy.  But if a woman is actually that generous as to give up a baby sans coercion—-a rare thing indeed, as the supply of healthy infants shows—-then obviously the name is minor.  But fathers aren’t adopting children and all the responsibility of them.  By biology they do less work, and usually by choice.

If a woman should choose to allow a man to name the child she put so much work into, or to share that task because he’s her partner and companion, that should be recognized as a gift rather than taken for granted as his right.

I suppose it’s a matter of whether the woman wants the man around or not. If she doesn’t, then I don’t see why anyone would bother with the argument over what last name the children have.

If she does, then the fact is that the children are connected to their mother in so many different and tangible ways, that creating that connection with the father by giving them his last name seems minor in comparison. The name is important, but it’s less important than all of those other things, so it seems like the sort of thing that a family unit of a mother and father would make a concession on.

It seems to me that it’s more important for a man to make a good faith show of respect for the fact that the mother did all the work than to pander to the assumption that men have weak egos that need constant boosting.  Better than paying a woman off with a push present, I’d say.  It would be awesome if just once a man was like, “You know, after you bled all over the place and shit yourself to bring this baby into the world, I’m not going to swoop in and claim credit because I can ejaculate.”  Wouldn’t that be nice?  And fair?

The irony is that I’d trust a man who gave up the baby naming thing without a fight to be the kind of guy who takes parenting responsibilities seriously, instead of seeing his role as a helper who pitches in when his wife is about to collapse and/or the game’s not on.

Wow, Tyro.  Your hypothetical man needs right of ownership or he’ll leave?

Is he the same asshole as Hector’s?

Because remember, right of naming = right of ownership.

Amanda, I think part of it matters whether the mother considers the father of the child a member of the family or not and whether the marriage (if any) and having of children constitutes the creation of an independent family unit. On the one hand, the children are more likely to inherit the mother’s value system and religion/religious outlook (the matrilineal nature of Judaism only formalizes into law what already happens), so part of what’s going on is a trading of different tokens of family-establishment, from the names on up.

One could do the same thing with a purely matrilineal naming convention, of course, but that doesn’t seem like what UltraMagnus’s hypothetical scenario or even Seraph is getting at, which seems more about the specific act of giving the child a specific name.

On topic, this sounds like a fascinating art exhibit which I would want to see if I happened to be in Paris any time within the next 12 months.

I think that a father who wants to demonstrate his belief that his children are his might, as an act of love and confidence, change his name to match his childrens’, which would be the name of the mother of the children as well. It would be a loving statement that there is a family now, and he belongs to it and will pull his weight in it and participate in it as the father of these children.

If the children have to carry *his* name in order to convince them that they’re his? I don’t agree that the fact that the woman does all the work and therefore gets most of the input into the children is a good argument why she should concede and give the kids his *name*—your name is what family you belong to, and in nature, matrilinearity is the most common practice of mammals. In humans, matrilinearity has better results for the health and safety of children and mothers than patrilinearity (most particularly when combined with matrilocality, where families go to live where the mother came from, not where the father came from.) You belong to your mother’s family much more than to your father’s, if you’re an average human with an average mother and father.

Are there exceptions? Of course. If Bessie Lipshitz marries Aaron Schumaker, I can totally see why she would prefer her children, and maybe herself, to be Schumaker and not Lipshitz. If a woman takes off on her kids when they’re 2 and 3 and leaves their father to raise them, it would make sense for them to have his name. If the mother hates her family and doesn’t want to carry their name, everyone can have the guy’s name. It shouldn’t be rigid. But the *default*, in the absence of good reasons to do it a different way, should be that they get the mother’s name, and the connection with the father is up to the father to create. If he wants to feel like part of the family, how about he changes his name? Or, he could try being an active and loving parent to the kids, and they’ll bond with him, and he with them, regardless of the name.

Naming children after their fathers in order to bribe the fathers into acting like fathers seems counterproductive to me, as if fathers are so damn valuable that mothers should efface the *vast* contribution they make just to hopefully get a man to pretend he gives a damn about his kids. A man who would not care about his kids because he does not share their name is a man that children are better off without having as a father. But then, I’m also in favor of a lot more matrilocal sharing of child care responsibilities amongst related women as a substitute for male involvement; if society actually facilitiated women sharing households and child care responsibilities to the extent that it facilitates male total strangers taking ownership of children they didn’t even father just by marrying their mothers, women might not feel so compelled to find a man, any man, to act like a father to the kids.

The human male is capable of fully behaving as a committed parent to the same degree as the mother, for similar reasons to those for adoptive parents being capable of being caring, committed parents to children who aren’t genetically related to them. But this is an unusual feature of humanity and seems kind of grafted on, the same as our ability to adopt—it’s not actually a fundamental underpinning of human relations. So rather than assuming that children need a father and we need to bribe men into acting like fathers, I’d rather assume that children need loving, committed adults to act in a parental role and back each other up, and if fathers *want* to be one of those parents, let them prove it. Human fatherhood is unnatural—the way that eating with utensils is unnatural or dressing in clothes is unnatural, I’m not saying this to denigrate fatherhood. Quite the contrary, I think that good fathers are impressive precisely because they’re so damn rare in the animal kingdom. But we should not assume that every man who donates sperm to a child is a good father—I think individual men should demonstrate *their* commitment to their children to demonstrate their fitness as fathers, that it shouldn’t be on women and children to try to persuade men to be fathers.

ANd since this was a derailment, obtopic: I agree with another poster that this would have made an even stronger statement if they hadn’t waved it like a flag, “Lookee lookee, we’re having a museum of just women artists!” Because no one trumpets their all-male art collections. This is a fantastic idea, but it would be stronger if it just stood on its own… don’t deny that all the artists are women, but don’t send out press releases touting the fact, either.

Really, the main problem here (and indeed the problem Hector’s evo psychy nonsense) is that this whole conversation is based on English Language naming conventions, which are, like all naming conventions, idiosyncratic.

We could just as easily have Icelandic naming conventions, which are Matronymic by default. Or Spanish, which includes both. Or Muppets, where the sons are named for the father and the daughters for the mother.

Icelandic names are usually patronymic, but a number are matronymic, and some people have both (the common example is a mayor of Reykjavik named Dagur Bergþóruson Eggertsson).

That aside, as you said it’s very ethnocentric to make some broad statement on who a child should be named after when there are different conventions, not to mention individual choices,  on that topic all over the world.

Or Muppets, where the sons are named for the father and the daughters for the mother.
karpad on 05/25 at 04:52 PM

Oh , good, I always wondered what naming convention the spouse and I are.  We’re muppets!!!  Though in practice, since only sons were born, it worked out unequally.

On the museum note, there a rather pompous and dated Germaine Greer book The Obstacle Course about women artists through history and why they got ignored.  Yes, Sophonisba is there, along with A> Gentileschi (sp?) and one of my faves, Vigee Le Broun.

Jeez, the kerfuffle people are getting over names is downright ridiculous.  And for the record, I find that’s just as true for the people claiming the kids should be named after the mother as for the ones claiming they should be named after the father.

The world is becoming a multicultural place where Jane Smith is living beside Narantuyaa (who comes from Mongolia) and works with Yuri Smirnov (who lives with his wife, Katya Smirnova) and Yuri Suzuki (who decided to use her name in the western style as opposed to her parents, Suzuki Hiro and Nemoto Rio), while Jane’s step-sister is Karen Smith-Abernathy, and her step-brother is Mike Abernathy-Smith.

Getting up in arms about naming is just silly.

On the naming thing I always wonder, at what point does it stop? The name should default to the mother to my mind,  the mother went through all the work of producing the baby so she has the right to name it. Does that same reason give her the default right to decide any and everything after the child is born? To get immunizations or not? Baptized or not if religious? When to start school? What school to go to? I’m trying to imagine with my wife and I or for other mutually supportive het couples. We don’t have kids but if we do one day, and we continue our partnership as we always have, she gets to make the call on everything because she put the work into producing the baby? Just not following how far this should go to make things as fair as possible.

Babies need adults to raise them, once the baby is on this earth, does it really matter a whit who those adults are? Female or male or transgender? Putting in the work should result in a lot of rights and a lot of things need to change from where we now have them but I just dont get it down the line.

Re: the museum touting the collection on display as being all female artists:

Would any of us here have heard about it, if they hadn’t? If they had just quietly switched in the women’s collection, and waited for people to notice?

I congratulate them for pissing off sexists in order to make feminists around the globe aware of this chance to see a special art museum.

The name is important, but it’s less important than all of those other things, so it seems like the sort of thing that a family unit of a mother and father would make a concession on.

So passing on one’s surname is just a silly little perk, not worth fretting over, which is why women shouldn’t complain that men have that special privilege—until a woman wants to do it, at which point it becomes a ritual of enormous significance and our entire social structure will collapse if we alter the current system.  And the special privilege women get in return, for which we should be grateful, is that we get to do the real work, uncredited.  Got it.  It’s like all male privileges, then.

Anyway.  Museums!

My husband is the curator of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, and giving fair representation to women is an ongoing issue, especially since the American comics industry has been heavily male-dominated for much of its history and still has a pretty strong boys’-club aroma.  But it’s not difficult to find great work by women (and minority) artists, and if you exclude these artists you wind up with a very bland, limited concept of the artistic landscape.

I’m constantly amazed by how many great women artists get overlooked by history.  Usually it has less to do with the quality of the art than with the way art history is written; women are often outside or on the fringes of art movements, making them hard to categorize.  When the Cartoon Art Museum runs shows of artists like Disney concept artist Mary Blair or 1920s/1930s glamor-girl cartoonist Nell Brinkley, visitors comment that they can’t believe they’ve never heard of these women before.  I’ve gotten the same responses when I’ve shown work by cartoonists like Marty Links and Anne Cleveland in my online column.  They’re really good.

Right now my husband’s putting together a show of webcartoonists, and it looks like the lineup is going to comprise four men and six or seven women.  It wasn’t planned that way; it’s just how things shook out when he looked for the most interesting artists in the field.  If a curator tells you he can’t find enough great women artists to fill a gallery’s walls, that curator is just plain lazy.

Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, and giving fair representation to women is an ongoing issue

The Cartoon Art Museum had an exhibition on the work of M. K. Brown, the time I was there, and I even got to talk to her. Although at first I misremembered and confused her with with Shary Flenniken, because they both had strips in the back of National Lampoon.

I agree with Tyro.
I’m not sure whether I’m glad this was announced or not though. It’d be cool if they just did it without fanfare, like when the work of male artists dominate museums all the time, but then obviously we wouldn’t even know about it.

Would any of us here have heard about it, if they hadn’t? If they had just quietly switched in the women’s collection, and waited for people to notice?

It would have taken a while longer, but there would still have been a shitstorm. And I rather like the idea of what would have happened if they’d done it without notice and even acted all innocent when complaints came in. “You noticed what? And you think this is a problem why? Certainly we understand your position. We’ll convene a committee to discuss it and not let you know when the public meetings are. We’ll make a commitment that over the coming at least 10% of our gallery space will be devoted to men….”

My children have my last name, which is different than their father’s last name. I have a whole career with this last name. And why would I change it? Also, it is more convenient for me to have my children share my last name than their father’s. I am the one who is on the doctor’s reports, the school records, etc. It makes it easier for everyone to know that my kids match me, the person who is with them and deals with them the majority of the time.

I also named them my last name because my mother would have liked it, it being hers as well. Even though she took my father’s last name, it was the name she used professionally and was known as. She came from an abusive home and for her, it was more a name of who she was when she gained independence and made a career for herself.

Would any of us here have heard about it, if they hadn’t? If they had just quietly switched in the women’s collection, and waited for people to notice?

People would have been surprised and hopefully delighted. It would have created a buzz. Critics both professional and amateur would have soon noticed it, and written about it.  Think of it as viral art marketing, instead of a move telegraphed long in advance.

Criticism of this art exhibit is rather like the people who scream that women’s colleges are sexist, demeaning, and should be banned because “we’re past all that” and women shouldn’t be “afraid of competing against men.”  Of course 90% of these critics are men who seem incapable of accepting a mere 60 women’s colleges among 3,000 in the country.  I wonder what they’re so afraid of?

Names:

Artemisia Gentileschi.

Lavinia Fontana

Sophonisba Anguissola. 

Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun.

Berthe Morisot.

And speaking of Morisot - there are two paintings up at the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute that perfectly show the difference between male and female artists.  Both show women tying up their hair after a bath, but that’s about it. 

The Renoir shows a half-nude woman.  Her back is turned to the viewer.  Her flesh is almost pearly, her breast high and firm, the nipple barely evident.  The painter seems more interested in her as a painting exercise than a human being, as she is designed to be seen, not see back.

The Morisot is sketchy and seems to have been painted very quickly.  The woman wears a corset cover and a petticoat.  She is facing the viewer, eyes wide and wary and slightly defiant.  The painter seems more interested in her face than anything else, as this is the only place in the painting with much color, especially her eyes.

There you have it, right there.  Renoir:  woman as painting exercise and object of the male gaze.  Morisot:  woman as human being who gazes right back.

LOL @ paul

But fathers aren’t adopting children and all the responsibility of them.  By biology they do less work, and usually by choice.

I didn’t say “adopted children should take the father’s name.” I’m a fan of hypenations, alphabetical order, any frame of reference for decided the name of what constitutes the family name for the couple, or as assigned to children.

But neither parent did ANY biological work for an adopted child. Which parent does more work, or split evenly, is irrelevant to the naming. You said rather flatly children should bare the name of whomever did the biological work. If you mean “just sort of in general they should bear the mother’s name, but really, children should be named based on whatever criteria the name-givers think is reasonable” that’s fine, but that isn’t what you said.

weirdly, I know a lesbian couple getting married, one already has a hyphenated last name (so scratch an addition) and the other is named Grubb. Tough call.

no idea what they’d go for ( they both find the idea of kids abhorrent), except making their kid’s last name “It” would be a possibility, knowing them.

As far as the modern art museum idea: for some reason, Rachel Whitehead gets on my nerves. Probably because years of working on interiors make me notice irrelevant architectural details when I’d get more out of just thinking “mmm…in bizzaro world, my apartment is really a big block of negative space….durrrrr…..

that being said, for all the (negligible amount) I know about modern art, she’s way ahead of them other flakes.

Can someone tell me why a kid has to have *either* name of her parents?  Why can’t you just identify a first/middle/last name that sound nice together?

Can someone tell me why a kid has to have *either* name of her parents?  Why can’t you just identify a first/middle/last name that sound nice together?

you can. legally, anyway. generally a connected name is chosen because it will make a whole lot of paperwork a whole lot less confusing.

Also, I personally would be concerned about parents naming their kids creepy things that would ultimately be embarrassing, but the parents, who lack perspective, think would sound nice and be cool. Unless you want to be the girl who goes through school as Hermione Bella Zor-L.  I only have this concern because I once held a newspaper job where one of my duties was writing copy for wedding and birth announcements, and saw a child named Cain Xavier. If you can come up with a non-X-men explanation of that name, I’d like to hear it.

The Cartoon Art Museum had an exhibition on the work of M. K. Brown, the time I was there, and I even got to talk to her. Although at first I misremembered and confused her with with Shary Flenniken, because they both had strips in the back of National Lampoon.

Argh… Shary Flenniken is one of my favorites.  I’d love for the museum to do a show with her.

Ghettoized.

Is it possible that the obstacle to be overcome by female artists is similar to that ascribed to Black artists by Shelby Steele in a New Republic essay titled Malcolm Little?  To paraphrase Steele, “Gender orthodoxy is a problem for many women artists working today, since its goal is to make the individual artist responsible for the collective political vision.”