Femininity at its most brutally conventional is a perpetual disappearing act, an erasure and a silencing to make more room for men, one in which your existence is considered an aggression and your nonexistence a form of gracious compliance. It’s built into the culture in so many ways. Your mother’s maiden name is often requested as the answer to a security question by banks and credit card companies, because it’s assumed her original name is secret, erased, lost as she took on the name of a husband. It’s no longer universal for women to give up their names but still rare to pass them on if
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