Somebody else's uncles.

The Guardian is debating whether it makes sense for a woman to take her husband's name when she marries. The article concludes that 'There lies the justification for the practice: all other things being equal, and the alternative considered, masculists want this more than feminists don't.'
I certainly didn't want to take my husband's name when we married. And he wasn't all that keen on making me take it either.

Most people understood that. When we got married in NYC, we filled in form asking us what names we wanted to take. It was fine to take any name, and I briefly considered suggesting we call ourselves Mr and Mrs Smith. People also understand, mostly, that we've chosen to give my last name to our son. What many people don't understand is that we've given our daughter her father's name. They should have the same name, they say. People will think they're not brother and sister, they say. They will have problems at school. Well not so far. People know they're brother and sister because they look alike, they're together a lot, they look out for each other. Maybe some people who don't know us think we're a reconstituted family, but frankly, who cares? This day and age, I should have thought that would help children fit in, not the reverse!

I've often wondered why I was so insistent in keeping my own name and passing it on. After all, that name doesn't really belong to me, and passing it on is hardly a feminist statement: it's been handed down from father to son for generations. Some great great uncle or distant cousin somewhere sometime had it. My mother doesn't.

One reason we have for hanging on to names generation after generation is that it helps us trace our ancestry, puts us neatly on the lower branches of the family tree. I know very little about the history of my last name. I'm not sure if it's Basque or from the Landes, or just Spanish. A few people from South America have been in touch with me to try and find out something about the origins of their names, thinking maybe we were related. I wasn't that interested. There are very few members of that family alive now, and none have ever spoken about ancestry.

In fact the only member of my family who's ever shown an interest in family history is my mother. She is the oldest daughter of an oldest daughter (bar an illegitimate sibling) and a few years ago she got hold of some papers belonging to her great-grand-mother. Our ancestor, a Josephine Schmitt was paralysed in childhood and recovered in her twenties. As she hadn't been to school she was put out to service in her sister's house. My mother traced her journey from Luxembourg to the East of France and eventually Paris. Then she turned to Josephine's daughter's adventures in the First World War: a lost fiance, and illegitimate child, a job as a washerwoman in Paris, and having to look after a mother who was again paralysed. My mother's grandmother had four daughters, all of whom were young parisian women during the second world war. This is fascinating family history, but not the kind you can do with names.

As an older daughter myself, I get much more a a sense of my history and identity from looking back at the female side of the family. So I don't think I need a name to help me feel part of history. This doesn't mean I don't want to keep my own name: I can't think of any good reason why I should take up a new one. And I can think of plenty of excellent reasons for a woman not to take her husband's name: historically speaking, it stinks of subjection. What I am saying is that caring about one's ancestry is not really a good reason for being desperate to pass on one's name, and I'm sure most men can see that.

That said, I can also understand why some women choose to change their names – it certainly isn't the case that most do just because their husbands want them to, i.e. not a case of feminism caring less than masculism, just a case for personal choice. There could be so many reasons for changing one's name that it's hardly worth trying to find a theory for it.

So given my views on genealogy, why did I insist my son take my name? Just that I didn't want to be the only member of our family to have a different name. As it is, it's fifty-fifty. I can see this wouldn't work so well with an odd number of children, but I don't feel we have to be consistent here, just as I don't think every married woman should retain her own name. Maybe what we should have done is take up the Manhattan Municipal Hall and called ourselves Smith!

The shame! (of being a French philosopher)

I had a nightmare a few nights ago. I was sitting in an old gym room, crossed legged on a rubber mat. 'Please introduce yourself to the group'. - 'My name is Sandrine' - 'Yes?' - 'I'm a philosopher.' - '?' - 'and I'm French'. - 'Please, relax. We're all friends here'. Then I look around and see everyone around me is wearing a white designer shirt, with the two top buttons undone, they're all Bernard Henry Levy! I break into a sweat as I notice I too am wearing a white shirt. I raise my hand to my head to feel for the trademark hair and as I begin to scream I wake up.


So when did 'French philosopher' become a dirty word? Was it just BHL with his cheap designer look? Or Derrida with the improbably titled books (Nietzsche's Spurs??? Postcards???). Or does it go back even further to when Hobbes and Descartes were bickering about rotten apples?

Back when I was teaching a course on the Rationalist, my head of department got my husband, a Brit, to teach the Empiricists. Now the rationalists weren't all French, by any means. Descartes and Malebranche maybe (hardly anyone teaches Malebranche though) – but Leibniz and Spinoza??? On the other hand, all the empiricists were Brits – English (Hobbes, Locke), Scottish (Hume), Irish (Berkeley). So that gives the snotty islanders a very good reason to pretend that the rationalists were French and to take the hundred years war up the ivory tower.

Then there's the whole analytic continental debate. Analytic philosophers are Brits, and Americans. They're sensible, wear cords, tweed, or jeans. They read serious philosophy of the kind that makes sense and that scientists supposedly wouldn't turn their noses up if they were to read any of it. (right). Continental philosophers are French, Italian, or anyone whose English is accented. They read Kant and Heiddeger, maybe Sartre, mix metaphysics and politics, and don't like being understood, especially by scientists (which of course, gives scientists the perfect reason to love them!) Now the funny thing is, that both kinds of philosophy are really German. And except in their most extreme, ridiculous form, they are perfectly compatible with each other. So it looks like the distinction is just one more way for the English and the French to fart at each other across the channel.

But maybe there is yet a distinct species of the French Philosopher. The French philosopher is always male. He wears designer shirts, he smokes. He fancies himself a bit of a journalist and a babe-magnet. His books are best-sellers. He doesn't even need to be French, but can be, say, Romanian. Also, he doesn't read philosophy, and is easily confused by the distinction between real and fictional writers.

Thankfully, as a woman, I can't be a French Philosopher. Saved by sexism.

On not driving

If you can't drive, you're an idiot. If you made the decision not to drive, then you're a double idiot, or you're afraid people will call you an idiot because you failed. Now that I'm a real grown-up with husband and children and cat and goldfish and snails, I can finally say it outloud : I'll be an idiot, then. I am so over people asking me, with wide open eyes as if I'd just said how aliens have just come down to earth « I don't drive ». Then comes the usual « Oh, why's that ? ». Now, the answer I give depends on quite a lot of things, such as do I like this person or not. If not, then I'll just answer « because I'm an idiot » and go talk to someone else. I might add here that I'm a – fake but really well done, thank you hairdresser, Jennifer Anistonly – blonde, with big breasts. So it usually never shocks people to hear I'm an idiot. If I do like the person, then I'll answer the truth « I failed the written test ». Now, here comes the part when parisiens, parisiennes and all French readers will laugh out loud, because, really, only pure idiots fail. However, I like to think of myself as smart. Not kick-arse smart, but smart enough not to fail a written test. Here are a few facts about that test : it's stupid. I hate doing stupid things. You have to punch a whole in a piece of paper when you see the right answer. It's always between a « yes » or a « no », there's never any way you can explain, or, for that matter, think. I have great difficulties not to think. My main objective as a parent is to teach my children to think for themselves. If I manage to do this, then I'll feel I did my job. You're allowed five mistakes, not one more, I made six. I paused during the test, looked at all the 18 year-olds punching and punching, and asked myself why I was doing this. When I was 18, all I wanted was to get out of the suburbs to become a real parisienne. In Paris, you don't need to drive, there's the métro, the bus, and you walk. Cars are everywhere, they're noisy, they smell and they're ugly, except for the pink ones and the cabs. If I drove, I would never get lost in tiny streets, I'd never stop randomly at some café to draw something that caught my eye, I wouldn't be smiled at, I wouldn't have bought those amazing shoes in that marvellous shop today. So, really, I'd rather stay an idiot.

On Driving

I don't drive. Nor does my husband. Nor do, as it happens, a lot of our friends. When our daughter was younger, she asked why we couldn't get a fancy car, like her friends's parents at school. We explained that cars were very bad for the environment, that it was more responsible to take public transport, and healthier to walk. She kind of bought it. It was all lies.
Well not really – cars are bad for the environment, and it is healthier to walk. But that's not the reason we don't drive. When I turned eighteen my father sent me money for driving lessons. I took them, took a test, failed. That happens. So I tried again, taking more lessons in the meantime. And I did not give up until I'd failed three times! In fact, I would have probably tried again had it not been for something my instructor said. By then, as you can imagine, he knew me pretty well. We'd been to each other's house for dinner, met each other's partners, had long talks about many things. So when he asked me if I was on drugs, it was a shock. Afterwards I took stock and asked myself some probing questions: I am able to cycle on a street without causing some kind of accident? Can I walk the length of a pavement without bumping into a tree or a moving person? Do I just close my eyes and run when I have to cross the road? Have I got any sense of direction whatsoever? Do I even know my left from my right? Once I'd answered all these questions, I decided that maybe, I should just stop trying. Maybe the world would be a safer place if I didn't drive.
I don't really know why my husband doesn't drive. But given he's a philosopher like me, it's probably best he doesnt.
Our daughter is a full blown, militant environmentalist now. So some good's come out of it.