by No Single Name

Created on: April 20, 2009   Last Updated: April 22, 2009

If she marries, my stepsister wants to keep her maiden name.

"Why?" I asked her upon learning this. "Doesn't that seem a bit...I don't know. Cold?"

"I don't think so," she said adamantly, fire in her voice as she turned the corner in our dark rural town. "I mean, why should I have to change my name? Why can't the man change his?"

This is a school of thought that has been spreading for some time now: female individuality, a need to be separated, distinguished from one's husband. It is not so much that feminism is outdated; it has simply been taken too far. Though a good thing in that it shows women their value as human beings, it has had painful repercussions. A new preoccupation with political correctness, and the shunning of those who refuse to adhere to it, plagues society. Political stances determine titles: Miss, Mrs., Ms. More than once have I had the displeasure of being called an "authoress." More than once have I seen zealous feminists use that rape of the English language, "womon" or "womyn" or however it is chosen to be spelt.

I am many things. I am Miss Magdalene Sullivan. I am Magda Ess. I am a woman, I am a virgin, I am a writer, I am a human, I am a feministthough the last is not in the conventional sense of the term. I am a feminist in that I campaign for femininity, for the celebration of it, the return of it. As a woman, I am nurturing: I am gentle and soft. I am proud of being different from men, of playing the flowing and sensual shadow of his coarse and hard frame.

Although men and women are fundamentally different creatures, they should not be separated in that which is the base of culture: language. There is a biological contract between men and women, one akin to that of government and people. Women, emotional, nurturing, gentle, have historically given themselves and their rights to menlogical, possessive, powerfulin exchange for protections. We love, we support, we carry and raise children in exchange for the watchful and affectionate eye of our counterparts. We are called by the titles of our guardians, be they professional or social. When we are children, our protector is our father; an adult, society; married, our husband; widowed, our sons.

This does not mean we are denied respect as people. Our roles, our compliments are appreciated: Many argue that women have no recognition save for their sexuality and fertility, but those who do fail to recognize what a great power both are. Daphne, Aphrodite, Athena, Elizabeth, Catherine, Cleopatra:

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