Changing Names and Gendering Identity - Social Organisation in Contemporary Britain

List of contents

Preface
Author’s Declaration
1: Introduction: The Importance of Names to Gendered Social Organisation
2: Research Design and Methodology
3: Names and Tradition
4: Names, ‘Choice’, and Gender
5: Power, Politics, and Naming
6: Maintaining the Status Quo? Love, Heterosexuality, and Emotion Work
7: ‘Displaying’ and ‘Doing’ Family: Genetics, Social Connection, and Respectability
8: Names, (Gendered) Self, and Society
9: Accounting for Transgression
10: Conclusion
Index

About the author

Rachel Thwaites is a Lecturer in Sociology at Canterbury Christ Church University.

Summary

This book investigates contemporary naming practices on marriage in Britain, drawing on survey data and detailed interview material in which women offer their own accounts of the reasons for which they have changed or retained their names. Exploring the ways in which names are used to create and understand family, to cement commitments and make it clear to the self and to others that subject is in ’true love’, Changing Names and Gendering Identity considers the manner in which names are used to make sense of the self and narrate life changes and choices in a coherent fashion. A critique of the gender-blindness of sociological theories of individualisation, this volume offers evidence of the continued importance of traditions and the past to the functioning of contemporary society. In dissecting the everyday, taken-for-granted ritual of name changing for women on marriage, it sheds light on the nature of an enduring set of unequal gender relations which are used to organise society, behaviour and interpersonal relations. Engaging with questions of power, heteronormativity, and gender relations, this analysis of a significant ritual of contemporary heterosexual marriage will interest sociologists and scholars of gender studies with interests in the family, identity and gender relations.

Product details

• Authors: Rachel Thwaites, Rachel (Canterbury Christ Church Univers Thwaites, Rachel (Canterbury Christ Church University) Thwaites, Thwaites Rachel
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 08.11.2016
• EAN: 9781472477705
• ISBN: 978-1-4724-7770-5
• No. of pages: 164
• Series: Routledge Research in Gender and Society; Routledge Research in Gender and Society
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Social structure research; Ethnic Studies, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Marriage & Family, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Gender Studies, Sociology: family & relationships, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Gender studies, gender groups, Sociology: family and relationships, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Cultural & Ethnic Studies / General, Ethnic studies / Ethnicity