It’s Suri Holmes, people!

Last I checked, Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise are not married. That makes Suri a Holmes, not a Cruise. It drives me crazy that the media have slavishly, knee-jerkily kowtowed to this, dare I say, patriarchal construct – the one that some prominent postmodern theorist (Lacan? Limbaugh?) dubs the “Name of the Father” – which implies that women and children are, after all the pretty bouquets have been tossed, mere chattel. Y’know, property. Oh god, I hear you thinking, I thought this post was about adorable, reclusive little Baby Suri or maybe Pontifica's celebrity obsession, but it's turning into some crazy rant about the patriarchy. Yes, people, I’m ranting about the patriarchy! Booya!

(She is pretty cute, huh? Just look at that hair.)

Father = pater = patriarchy = male dominance in surnames. I’ll grant that when and if TomKat actually ties the (oh-so-bearded) knot, Katie – I’m sorry, Kate – will take her hubby’s last name, and because a woman giving her child her own last name is so not done in Hollywood, much less anywhere else in this post-feminist landscape, Suri will officially, legally become a Cruise.

Why does this happen, you ask, this wholesale feminine shedding of names? Partly because, historically, it’s been important for a man to establish that he, and not some cryogenically preserved Scientology founder, is the real father of his hired consort’s – I mean ladyfriend’s – child. Friend Lacan would add that it’s because the woman lacks a phallus – not a real phallus, you understand, but a symbolic one. Oh jeez, there’s a reason I dropped out of grad school.

My friend Emily, that dazzling iconoclast, defiantly gave her son her own last name even though she was married – and even though her daughter carries her father’s last name. But won’t it be confusing once they’re in school? asked well-meaning passers-by. Who the hell cares? was her tart reply. Love her.

Anyway. It’s all part and parcel of this return to traditionalism (some might call it a backlash) that has young women taking their husbands’ names. I always gently ask my soon-to-be-married straight friends why she won’t be keeping her own name – or why he won’t be taking hers – or why they won’t (both) be hyphenating. You know exactly the kind of blank stare I get. Then the women get sheepish or defensive, as if they secretly know what I’m talking about, but they’re just not willing to blaze that particular trail. It’s romantic to take his name, they protest. Somehow it’s not so romantic for him to take hers, unless they’re wacky outsider hippie artists. It creates a family unit – it’s easier on the children – blah blah blah. Let’s just admit it – feminism is still stigmatized and misunderstood. Anyone bold or foolish enough to claim the feminist mantle is still a man-hater, a lesbian, a bra-burner (though it’s been well-established, gentle reader, that no bras actually ever got burned).

Aw hell, what’s so bad about it, after all? Women aren’t really second-class citizens anymore, right? Don’t you fret, adorable little Suri of the suspiciously Thetan-looking eyes. It’s just tradition.