On the subject of matrimonial name-changes, Josiah Neufeld has a piece in the Globe and Mail about his own decision to change his name to that of his wife. There's all the usual angst that comes with a semantic switch of identity, plus some gender-based scorn from the relatives (they think he's joined a "matrilineal cult"), plus a kind of lexical void: What does a man who assumes a new name call the one he leaves behind? As Nuefield puts it, "I need a good title for my maiden name: 'former name' is boring; 'ex-name' sounds like a cast-off lover; 'birth name' implies I was adopted; 'unmarried name' evokes a monastic twin who hasn't called since moving to Tibet." What say you, commenters?

Tags: family, identity, josiah neufeld, marriage, matrilineal, names, partnerships, semantics

In our "Your Comeback" blog today, Emma Gilbey Keller writes about Allison Yarrow's decision to change her name when she got married—something Keller never thought she'd do. She's looking for more submissions from women whose relationships have inspired life changes: Did you convert as part of a commitment? Did you move across the country or to another continent? Emma wants to hear from you at emma@thecomebackbook.com.

Personally, my only strong feelings about my maiden name are that it should not be hyphenated. I would never force my future offspring to have Grose tacked in front of my future husband's name. That's just cruel.

Photograph of a "Just Married" sign by Getty Images.

Tags: Emma Gilbey Keller, marriage, submissions, your comeback

Horrible coda to our conversation about texting while driving: this story about a trucker who was texting on one cell phone while talking on another, hit a car, and drove into a swimming pool. OK, so Ann and Emily are right as always, and the whole thing is totally inexusable, and yet people keep doing it, and as I confessed the other day, parents are probably doing it when their children aren't there to catch them. Which makes me think that texting while driving is the new smoking—a dangerous habit that goes underground but doesn't go away. And that leaves in its wake images of catastrophe.

Tags: smoking, texting while driving

Is Kate Middleton Britain’s Henry Louis Gates? That is to say: Is she a public figure whose personal upheaval has lately sparked a national conversation over deeply ingrained prejudices? That’s the theory bubbling beneath this Washington Post piece parsing the recent uproar over Middleton’s uncle, Gary Goldsmith, who was caught on tape prepping cocaine for consumption at the Ibizan villa he’s dubbed La Maison de Bang-Bang. Media coverage has focused on Goldsmith’s “two divorces, familiarity with prostitutes, and the hard-core porn he is said to enjoy on his 52-inch TV.” (Not that the British press is given to tabloidization or anything.)

For non-Royal Watchers, the 27-year-old Middleton has been snogging Prince William under the watchful lenses of the paparazzi since 2001, when the pair met as students at St. Andrew’s. And though her family made boatloads of money and she’s made boatloads of best-dressed lists, both her wealth and refinement are too arriviste for some. Middleton herself has largely escaped personal opprobrium, but can’t quite leave behind the origins spelled out in her Dickensian name: Her ex-flight attendant mother has become the target for aristocratic scorn, writes WaPo’s Mary Jordan:

The queen and Prince Charles have greeted Kate warmly, though in a much passed-along tale, Carole Middleton was talking to some royals and violated a taboo by using the word "toilet" instead of "lavatory." It was a gaffe heard around the kingdom, despite the fact that spokesmen for the royal family have denied any such exchange.

In perhaps the snidest remark, William's aristocratic friends reportedly would say "Doors to manual" when Kate arrived, a sneering reference to an instruction her mother may have heard from pilots in her former profession.

Jordan quotes a source who draws a comparison between America’s preoccupation with Gates’ media firestorm and Britain’s with Middleton’s, and writes that “Class in Britain is roughly equivalent to race in America—despite enormous strides toward equality, social standing simmers never far below the surface.”

Maybe. We don’t have the whole formal peerage thing here, nor, of course, do we dislike bootstrappers—or ever use the word lavatory. But wasn’t social standing as well as race simmering just below the surface in l’affair Gates? And our fascination with class certainly boils over, all by itself, every time we turn on reality television, in a way that I’d argue race never quite does in pop culture. But I suppose the recent Obama-Palin presidential contest (sorry, McCain) remains the most instructive snapshot of current race/class prejudices in America. And while good old gender certainly rounded out the trinity during that election (as it does with Middleton, of course, and anyone else accused of angling to marry up), concern over class trumped concern over race when it came to picking who would wear our crown.

Photograph of Kate Middleton by Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images.

Tags: britain, class, gender, henry louis gates jr., Kate Middleton, prejudice, Prince William, Race, Royals, United States

Behold, Marc Jacobs' latest foray into T-shirt activism. As reported in New York magazine, Jacobs has two new politically themed tees for sale, both bearing the statement: "I pay my taxes. I want my RIGHTS!" That's all that appears on one shirt, that and a dinky little American flag. The other shirt is where he's really going for provocateur status, featuring a drawing of what we are supposed to assume is a lesbian couple with a toddler we are supposed to assume is theirs. Jacobs' gay moms are clearly over the butch/femme dichotomy—the woman with the uber-short haircut and shoulder tattoo is wearing a dress and showing cleavage. Her partner wears a strapless dress and a ponytail. Their pose is relaxed—one has her arm around the other, who keeps a protective hand on the toddler. It's the iconography of the holy family, and the American nuclear family, just without the XY phenotype.

Since its priced at $24, pretty cheap for Jacobs, this shirt might well fly off the shelves and extend to everyone who sees it the message that gay families deserve equal treatment under the law. "Give the attractive, not-too-butch, affectionate-but-not-rubbing-it-in-your-face, tax-paying mommy lesbians their RIGHTS!" And that wouldn't be a bad thing.

What bothers me is that it's the latest example of retailers using activism as a marketing ploy, sending the message that buying is an acceptable substitute for doing. Wearing a T-shirt with a political message is a pretty passive form of activism, and what action it involves has to do with consumption, what the wearer gets out of it—a new T-shirt, a piece of the Jacobs brand, and a basically unearned sense of political engagement. I wonder how many people who bought Jacobs' 2008 Hillary and Obama T-shirts didn't actually vote in the election.

What do other Double Xers think?

Tags: lesbian moms, Marc Jacobs

Last night I caught up on Drop Dead Diva, Lifetime’s new comedy about an aspiring Price Is Right model, Deb, who dies and returns to Earth in the body of an accomplished, but fat, trial lawyer, Jane. I agree, June, that credit for the show’s greatness goes wholly to Brooke Elliott, who plays Jane. Her walk alone is enough to bring me back for Episode 4. It’s also fun to watch the cameos unfold. You can just picture Rosie O’Donnell getting the script and calling her agent right then to say “A show starring a fat woman that’s not making fun of her? I’m in.” I wonder if a legal battle with Camryn Manheim is in Jane’s future.

Still, for all its fat acceptance, including a rather out-of-place courtroom sermon on the use of the word “fat”—an adjective that Kate Harding and members of the fat-o-sphere advocate reclaiming—Drop Dead Diva does have one irksome piece of character development: Jane’s weakness for donuts.

Admittedly, the whole soul vs. brain vs. body concept in the show is a little confusing: Jane has the voice, walk, and memories of her former bimbo self, but the appearance, life, and accumulated knowledge (without memory of gaining it) of Jane. We’re led to believe that Jane’s weight is in part a reflection of her lifestyle; even with the soul of a former workout queen, she just doesn’t have the energy to go for a run after a day at the office—much to the disappointment of her roommate, who seems intent on restoring her to Deb’s pre-body-swap weight.

But what about the donuts? What accounts for Jane’s longing stares at an out-of-reach plate of pastries, her need to indulge in morning sweets? The implication, I fear, is that her new, bigger body comes with a smaller dose of willpower—a disappointing step toward the stereotype that fat people are that way because they’re lazy or lack self control. (Just search for “lazy” in about any unmoderated comments section in an article on obesity and you’ll see this sentiment in its ugly glory.)

Perhaps I’m not giving the show’s writers enough credit: Maybe this is a deliberate statement that food cravings come from your brain (or, Jane’s brain), rather than your experiences or your soul (in this case, both Deb’s)—there are, in fact, studies to back that up. And that certainly was the message of my childhood favorite, The Man With Two Brains, in which Steve Martin falls in love with a disembodied brain, finds a sexy woman’s body to put it in (after killing her, of course), only to have the brain, which it turns out came from a fat woman, drive this new body to fatness. It’s OK—he loves her anyway!

Or maybe it’s not Jane’s brain responsible for the donut binges; maybe it’s Deb’s soul. Does this new body, and the revised expectations from the outside world it brings, finally allow Deb to eat the donuts she always wanted, but never allowed herself? Maybe, but that can't be all there is to it, since the pilot offers a few shots of Jane devouring donuts before the body swap.

The whole thing is tough for me to make sense of though, for the simple fact that I hate donuts. I just can’t see them as a worthy indulgence, no matter your weight. Hot fudge brownie sundaes though—that I get.

Photograph of a donut by Getty Images.

Tags: drop dead diva, fat acceptance, fat-o-sphere, food

A newly published paper in the journal Media, War, and Conflict dissects “the art of shoe-throwing” in light of George Bush’s December near-encounter with the liberated footwear of an Iraqi journalist. Though the political significance of shoes predates the incident—statues of Saddam were so pelted back in 2003—the University of Brighton’s Yasmin Ibrahim argues that Bush helped set off a wave of loafer-related uprisings:

Since the shoe-throwing incident, the shoe has become a symbol of resistance amongst the Iraqi people. Reportedly, protesters were chanting ‘Bush, Bush, listen well: two shoes on your head,' whilst in Najaf some protesters reportedly threw their shoes at an American patrol as it passed by. ... In recent protests against Israel’s military offensive against Gaza, protestors threw more than 1,000 pairs of shoes at the entrance to Downing Street. Organizers of the protest had initially wanted to leave the shoes at the gates of Downing Street as a Muslim symbol of disgust at the attacks but when they were prevented from doing so, protestors began throwing their footwear, mimicking the shoe-throwing incident in Iraq. Similarly, Cypriots have protested against Israel by throwing various objects including shoes near the Israeli embassy in Nicosia.

Ibrahim reports that the manufacturers of the shoe thrown at Bush subsequently renamed the model the “Bush shoe” and “dramatically” increased sales with the rebranding.

Photograph of shoes by Ciana Griffin/Getty Images.

Tags: george Bush, Iraq, shoes

I am too embarrassed by Emily's trumpets-blaring charge against texting while driving to admit to doing it. But if I did, my sin would of course be committed in the service of the holy grail of multi-tasking. The research the NYT cites, however, has reminded me that when the risk entailed by squeezing two tasks into the same minutes is death, it is utterly and obviously a risk not to take.

Ann, you're right to chide us for talking on the phone while driving, too, even it's not quite as crazy dangerous, because of the message it sends to kids. The upright answer is to quit doing this cold turkey, too. But if we're honest, how many of us will in reality fudge, by abstaining when the kids are in the car (I'd rather talk to them, anyway), and yakking, and even typing, when they're not? I'd like to say I am above such inconsistency. But then I'd be claiming high ground I'm not really standing on. Is anyone in the same uneasy spot?

Photograph of mom and kids driving by Ryan McVay/Getty Images.

Tags: texting while driving

Adam Reilly of the Boston Phoenix makes an interesting connection between ESPN’s prompt response to the creepy nude tape of sportscaster Erin Andrews and its extended silence on the rape allegations against Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. If ESPN truly understood from the Andrews case the abusive relationship between women and the world of pro sports, Reilly argues, it should have known the importance of covering the rape charges. He writes:

The diminishment of women is part of pro sports' DNA. Think of the NFL's cheerleaders and the NBA's "dancers," for example, or Playboy's "Sexiest Sportscaster" contest, or the prolific promiscuity of pro athletes as a group. (As Kevin Elster of the New York Mets once told Sports Illustrated: "You can get sex every night. On the road. At home. It doesn't matter.")

That doesn’t mean Roethlisberger is guilty of rape, he goes on. It just means ESPN has a responsibility to report on the news that he’s been accused of it.

There was a lot of talk following the Erin Andrews incident of how hard it is to be a woman sportscaster, to function and gain respect in a world that so degrades women. These same issues come up for women covering hip-hop, another world frequently accused of “hating women.” In a roundtable discussion years ago about hip-hop journalism, Dream Hampton, who co-wrote Jay-Z’s autobiography, The Black Book, told an upsetting tale of the sort of threats she encountered covering the genre. While she was working on a profile of Dr. Dre, Hampton learned of accusations that he had hit another female reporter. Soon after, the owner of Dr. Dre’s record label told Hampton during an interview that “she shouldn’t say anything stupid in print that might cause her to ‘get her face all fucked up.’”

What is it going to take for sports and hip-hop to be safe beats for women? Will these problems dissipate as more women reporters flood the scene, or does there need to be some more profound shift at the core of these often misogynistic institutions?

Photograph of Erin Andrews by Kevork Djansezian and photograph of Ben Roethlisberger by Kevin Winter/Getty Images.

Tags: ben roethlisberger, dr. dre, erin andrews, espn, hip hop, journalism, sports

Rock dreams really do come true. Green Day played a show at Madison Square Garden on Monday. Lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong went looking for an audience member to join the band on guitar—and settled on a girl named Stephanie. Who shredded it.

The New York Times' Arts Beat blog reports:

After rejecting a few wannabes he stopped and asked a girl in the mosh pit if she knew how to play, then looked unconvinced when she said she did. “What key is it in?” he asked. Seemingly satisfied with her answer (it’s somewhat complicated, but for the sake of brevity, let’s say the correct response is C sharp major) he pulled her up onto the stage. The girl—her name later was revealed to be Stephanie—was wearing jeans shorts, a torn Misfits t-shirt, and a head scarf over her pigtails. Mr. Armstrong handed her the guitar, conferred with her briefly, then let her sit on an amp to get started. And then she ... ripped! A few bars in she was wandering the stage like a pro and when Mr. Armstrong introduced her at the end, the crowd was shouting “Ste-pha-nie! Ste-pha-nie!” in appreciation.

Sorry, Courtney Cox-in-"Dancing in the Dark"—as concert fantasies go, this one is way better. Arts Beat has some video clips, and they're awesome. (See clip below for a taste.) Stephanie's like a rock-'n-roll Susan Boyle—a normal, unassuming woman who blasts through her humble-seeming exterior to reveal unexpected musical superpowers. She's an inspiration. Here's hoping we see more of her—she writes in the Arts Beat comment thread (in response to another commenter's question):

At the moment, I’m not in a band but I am looking to start one up sometime in the near future. One that will definitely have some punk roots :)

Photograph of Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images.

Tags: green day, guitar, stephanie