Sunday Snippets: VOTE

GET THEE TO THE NEAREST POLLING PLACE AND VOTE YOUR FACE OFF.

Located in an isolated and economically languishing area of North Dakota, Spirit Lake is a Sioux Indian reservation home to some 6,200 inhabitants.

Obstetric Violence

My heart just broke reading these stories. Yes, a healthy baby is a great outcome, but what about the mental and physical needs of the person giving birth?

Expensive as fuck to be poor

FEELS Puppies are the best.

Why I'm Returning to My Maiden Name

Women's own identities were disappearing. In fact, the concept of removing a maiden name from your public identity is so engrained in our culture, it's the top contender for a secure password reminder at banks and in online forms. When I came to better understand our own history, as recently as the 1970's, state laws in the U.S. still mandated that a married woman needed to use her husband's name to vote, open a bank account, or get a passport.

'[It] is the equivalent of a bomb going off outside Debenhams on the Drapery in Northampton, or on New street in Birmingham, or Piccadilly Circus in London'

Ellen Page looks like she could set that man on fire with her eyes

And there it is

To the Strangers in Whole Foods Who Surrounded Me After News of My Father’s Suicide This is beautiful.

Sent Home From Middle School After Reporting A Rape (TW)

Navajo Water Supply is More Horrific than Flint, But No One Cares Because they’re Native American

Exactly!

Sunday Snippets: Work Break

Starting 12/18 at noonish, I have a work break until the Monday after Christmas. I am so blessed to work for the amazing company that I do. Especially with the new perks they mentioned this month!

(image credit: http://jessehimself.tumblr.com/post/134737720943)

Warms even the Grinchiest of hearts

Wow, yup, so oppresive

Welcoming refugees in Canada

And fuck you too

Ugh, fucking people

Examples of micro-aggressions: racism edition

Thank god someone's saying it If Trump wins, I'm moving to Sweden. Husband has some distant relatives there and they have banging family leave policies.

Baby and cat; some of my favorite things

Exactly, Bernie

holy shit

10 Things You're Saying When You Ignore Someone's Gender Pronouns

Japanese Women Demand Right to Keep Their Surnames After Marriage

Rock on, little man! Had that been my little girl, that kid would have been hog tied to a Santa pole.

Origins of #TeamSchwopkins

Given my penchant for talking...ranting about the last name debate, I would have thought everyone from here to Pluto would know how Schwopkins came to be.

I was coming home from a wonderfully pleasant bachelorette party (and no I wasn't even drunk!) and the topics of names came up. When I gave the tl:dr version of Schwopkins, one of my friends looked surprised and said "Oh, that's where it came from. I didn't know."

So in non-tl:dr format, the origin story.

I actually, once up a time, toyed with the idea of changing my name upon saying I do. My father isn't in my life and hasn't been for a long time. The Schweitzer side of the family was not all that kind to me and my brothers after my parents split up. Etc, etc.

But then I kept trying to say Jillian Hopkins without choking. I didn't know who that person was. I have been published under Schweitzer. My three names flow together very well. There is also the fact that frequently women are told, "Well, it's just trading one man's name for another." I've never heard a man being told, "Well, your surname really isn't yours, it's just your father's." I've accepted that we have a patrilineal naming system but I've made my name my own and to be told I needed to pick one man's name or another makes my damn teeth itch.

Ahem.

Once I graduated, I had decided that I was keeping my name. All things were hunky dory until our first Christmas. Cards were rolling in to the new Mr. & Mrs. Hopkins. I may have growled repeatedly at the mailbox.

And then a dear friend sent a card.

She came up with Schwopkins all on her own.

I texted her my undying love and we started jokingly using Schwopkins whilst in our social circles. And it has since stuck. We use it for our holiday cards and I've been tempted to use it for our future kids, too.

I really really love the idea of a team name. I get the excitement many women have when they get to declare themselves TeamNewLastName. I'm glad I get to have that team feeling, but with a name that is literally both of ours.

Like our marriage, it's a team effort.

"wifey"

This shirt is complicated. My husband and I call each other hubby and wifey and it doesn't bother me. But wearing a shirt that states the same thing does. Why?

I first saw it mentioned on A Cup of Jo, as a sweatshirt. I thought it was definitely cute. I think the Mrs. necklace from Kate Spade is cute, as are new family names signs...eg. the Smith family, est. 2014. They are trinkets, announcing a new identity. One could argue that a-you don't need anything beyond a wedding band or b-you don't absolutely need to announce a change to the world. But I wanted the cute stuff, the kitchsy Pinterest identity come to life. Humans want to fit in and I'm no different. Maybe I wanted a tangible way to show, aww, cute, we're a new team.

Maybe I liked the shirt because my husband and I each kept our names (I use the phrase specifically because the onus is almost always on the woman). I don't use Mrs. either.

I'll say it outright, it's hard being one of two women in a group of married couples who kept her birth (maiden name, can you please die a slow death?) name. I've been told I'm not really a real wife because I kept my name, a fact my father-in-law loves to ignore come Christmas card season. When I asked him why he refused to use my name, I was told my real title was Mrs. Husband's Last Name. You can imagine why I'm not close with this man.

I also haven't fully accepted the "wife" part of my identity. Four and a half years in, you would think otherwise, but I'm a stubborn one. I worry about being seen as only a wife-nothing else. But is it bad to be seen as a wife? I'm not ashamed or regret being married and I realize it doesn't cancel out the rest of me. But since there is such a focus on women's relationships as being the sum total of their being, being married kinda takes precedence over my other identities: college graduate, photographer, etc.

I'm not sure if I'll ever feel completely comfortable with the wife title. I've seen marriages go horribly wrong but I've also seen beautiful love stories. Only time will tell. But in the meantime, I think it will be an ongoing process and confronting, in a good way, what marriage is and what I can make it, which will include how I label myself.

Sunday Snippets: Mid Year?

I'm trying to shake off a summer slump; vacation, too much Netflix, etc. I have a lot more I want to get done before the end of year!

Being a photographer = pretty much this

Beautiful I love open road shots.

A lovely sentiment

hahahahaha True statement right there.

Me = watching most modern films

Not surprised, but still disgusted

I mean, who wouldn't want a three foot cat?

Aww, happy owls!

TW-Some of these reactions make me wanna barf

Several weeks ago, 28-year-old Minneapolis resident Lindsey was standing on an escalator when a stranger began touching her hair and calling her “blondie.” When she told the man he “could just say ‘hi’ next time,” she said, he began screaming at her and calling her ugly. The situation reminded Lindsey — a longtime confronter of catcallers, most notably in last year’s Craigslist ad gone viral — that while she could control her reaction to street harassers, she couldn’t always anticipate their reaction to being confronted.

It was then she had the idea for Cards Against Street Harassment: pocket-size cards women could download, print, and hand out to their catcallers, explaining why the attention was unwanted without even speaking.

Completely awful

The whole tragedy is so devastating and to think of how many brilliant things could have come from those researchers....it breaks my heart.

A bit of good news

Shanesha Taylor, a mother living in Scottsdale, Arizona, was arrested in March after leaving her children, ages six months and two years old, in the car while she went to a job interview. But on Friday, Maricopa County announced a plea agreement that would drop the charges against her if she completes classes and establishes trusts for her children.

SO MUCH TRUTH

Ruh-roh, women might give their kids their last name?

But within a married couple wherein the woman keeps her name, embracing all these potential snares and giving a child the woman's surname can be an intentional way of shaking up convention. That is the case for Molly Caro May, who, in an essay at The Hairpin, muses on what happened when she and her husband, Chris, went for it simply because they wanted to. And given that their friends and families had always been open-minded, she writes, they were not prepared for the shockwave.

What kind of evil prank?

 This little house looks adorable

Ahh, so cute!

Sunday Snippets: Happy National Women's Day (the day after) Edition

And a beautiful one at that. I threw open all the windows in the house and I could almost smell spring.

Ugh. Double ugh. Of course she wrote a book.

It's sad that I'm not even surprised anymore. What the fuck? I feel like I should have that on a bumper sticker at this point.

Gah, love this tiny house!

Another fantastic discussion over at A Practical Wedding on my favorite subject I love reading stories about surnames.

LOL x 1000000 I may have to use these for our vow renewal.

Beautiful flowers

This is fantastic news

On Tuesday the Maryland Senate voted 32-15 to pass the long overdue Fairness For All Marylanders Act, which would expand Maryland's anti-discrimination laws to protect transgender people in employment, housing, access to credit and public accommodations.

Interesting spring cleaning idea (excusing the fact that I'm not Catholic aside) She includes a list of non-stuff to purge too.

A forty day period in the spring (coinciding with the 40 days of Lent) where you focus on cleaning one area per day. In this one area you challenge yourself to declutter, simplify, decrapify, and get rid of things you don’t need. The goal is one bag a day but you can have more or less.

More about purging/clothing issues & This guys owns 15 items. As in total.

According to the Six Items Challenge, the average American purchases nearly 70 pieces of new clothing per year. “This equates to 20 billion new garments bought in the USA alone, many of these are contributed to clothing that costs about as much as a newspaper or cup of coffee at Starbucks.

This poor beautiful ship On one hand, I love seeing abandoned places, but I see how beauty has rotted away and it's heartbreaking.

These are some crazy photos & These make me crap my pants

Special Edition Snippets: What the hell day is it?

My day job follows federal holidays so I was off Monday. And then holy snow, Batman on Tuesday. (We got around 5 inches...that I was determined to measure in my pj pants last night.) And now working from home because the roads are still a mess.

A bright spot from Virginia

And as McAuliffe promised during his campaign, one of his first acts as the 72nd governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia was signing an executive order banning discrimination against state employees based on sexual orientation and for the first time ever, gender identity.

I need this to be a thing. Hell, I'll sit and eat whatever the hell I want anywhere.

Take all of my money Can we make this with kitties, hamsters, etc as well?

Yay CeCe! & CeCe McDonald on Melissa Harris-Perry

Argh, yes! This drives me batty.

Holy shit, this move is incredible.

Surya Bonaly was openly contemptuous of the figure skating judges, because they were a bunch of openly racist white men who always screwed her over by giving her lower scores than she deserved. That one-blade backflip was her ultimate FUCK YOU! to the Olympics judges, because she took an “illegal” backflip and made it legal by landing it on one blade. Pretty much DARING them to mark her down for being epic awesome and pulling a move that their precious coddled white girls didn’t have the guts to even think about.

More about tiny house/apt living from A Cup of Jo. And you can read more about Erin Boyle and her family's tiny living adventures here.

(image credit: http://themidnightblues.tumblr.com/post/74042659676/wellibelongtoyou-fact)

Name Game

I've written about the name changing choice before, but it's back in the news again, with Beyonce announcing her next tour.

The Mrs. Carter Show.

For the record, I love that they each took one another's names. *raises glass* To each their own.

But as an aside, I find this extremely frustrating.

"When the respondents were asked why they felt women should change their name after the wedding, Hamilton says, “They told us that women should lose their own identity when they marry and become a part of the man and his family. This was a reason given by many.”

I'd love to see more men change their names. Or even be asked. My husband was never asked if he would keep his "maiden" (which, could we please come up with a better term?) name. He would have to go through sky high hoops to change his name because it's not expected and there is no easy set up like there is for women who want to change their name.

Or this.

"Today, she is indeed Mrs. Hislastname. But she didn't want to be, and her decision was not anything like a free choice--no, there wasn't any law dictating that she had to change her name, but pretty much everyone she loved except me was putting pressure on her to do so, to the point where she felt she literally had no other option. That doesn't happen to men. And that bothers me."

"When it becomes perfectly normal for couples to consider taking either name, or keeping their own, orblending, or both hyphenating, or both taking a brand new name--when the question actually expands beyond, "Should she take his name or not, and if she doesn't, how will he feel?"--then I'll believe that women truly have a free choice when it comes to marital naming decisions."

YES.

The beautiful thing about feminism and the push for equal rights is that you have a choice. If you want to take your partner's name, you can. If you want to hyphenate, you can. If you want to keep your own name, you can. Etc. While choices aren't made in a vacuum,  I'll be damned if I try to infringe upon each person's agency to do what they wish with their own life.