Small Strokes Big Oaks

When I get started on the name change thing, I really cannot be stopped.

There was an article on Jezebel a few weeks ago titled “Keeping Your Name? Midwesterners are Judging You.” Here, take a peek:

LiveScience reports that researchers noticed a lot of previous work on name-changing attitudes focused on East-Coasters — like, say, people whose marriages were announced in the New York Times. To see what other folks thought, they looked at surveys of about 250 students from a small Midwestern university, taken in 1990 and again in 2006. The 1990 students were pretty forgiving of crazy bluestockings who wanted to keep their own names: just 2.7% of them thought it meant the ladies were less committed to their marriages. But among students surveyed in 2006, that number jumped to 10.1%. The study authors noted that theirs was not a nationally representative sample, but it does show students at one particular college becoming more conservative over time: “This might just be reflecting this increased polarization we’re seeing in American society, and it’s coming across in terms of family and gender values.”

That’s right. According to a study that focused solely on students from a small, Midwestern university, all Midwesterners are judgy and conservative. Anyone else see anything wrong with that generalization?

I complain about people judging me for not changing my name.  A lot. I also happen to live in the Midwest. But let’s be realistic. The people judging me aren’t only from the Midwest. They’re from all over. I know this might sound like a totally radical notion, but conservative people live everywhere, not just in the Midwest. I also have another interesting perspective to bring to this study. I actually went to a small, private, Midwestern university, and, aside from my little pocket of liberal, English majors, the campus was overwhelmingly conservative. In fact, I frequented larger, state schools where my friends attended to experience the liberal hotbed of college campus life.

Studying attitudes of college students at a small, Midwestern university does not represent the entirety of the Midwest any more than studying the attitudes of young, urban professionals in Chicago would. And, frankly, I’m getting a little sick of the tired, old trope that the Midwest hosts all sorts of conservative people. That there couldn’t possibly be a feminist movement in the farmlands. That anyone who is anyone lives in the city, and if you don’t, you’re not a true activist.

It’s these dangerous attitudes that keep liberals out of the Midwest. (It’s also these dangerous attitudes that make me stay awake at night trying to decide if a house in the suburbs is right for me.) And it also gives us Midwesterners a bad name. So let’s get it straight, Jezebel. Midwesterners aren’t judging women who keep their names, students at a small, Midwestern college are.