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Want to be exploited, harassed and poor? Take your new husband’s last name!
I tried to convince my headstrong niece otherwise but she persisted. She didn’t think keeping her last name mattered. As a member of the generation that pioneered the acceptability for women to keep their own last name after marriage, I was sure it did. Now I know I was right. And now she will know that “sometimes it’s hard to be a woman”.
Those of you who are familiar with our blog entries in this category may want to get a nice strong drink. Just keep it away from your keyboard.
Take his last name and lose $500K in income
I bet that got your attention! Published in 2010, European researchers found women who took their partner’s name or even a hyphenated name (!) were judged as “more caring, more dependent, less intelligent, more emotional, less competent, and less ambitious than a woman who kept her own name”.
And how were the woman who kept their own names judged? They were described as “less caring, more independent, more ambitious, more intelligent and more competent”.
And here’s where it gets even worse: a woman who took her partner’s name “was less likely to be hired for a job and her monthly salary was estimated lower” (over the equivalent of $500K in a work life).
So when you are warm but incompetent what happens to you?
Okay, so we hear from the European research that if you take your new spouse’s last name, you are seen as warmer but less competent than those women who keep their own birth surname. How about some American research—say, from Harvard?
Amy Cuddy is a social psychologist and business professor at Harvard. [Her online biography does not indicate whether she is married or if she took her spouse’s last name.] Her research in this area (published in Harvard Magazine) focuses on how we judge and treat others according to some basic parameters: warm vs. cold and competent vs. incompetent.
It’s sort of scary stuff and well worth a read. Hint: if you are cold and competent, you are more likely to be targeted for genocide and/or resented (as in, not liked—which is a startlingly mild justification for genocide).
In short, what her research says is that when we see someone cold but competent (as in the woman who keeps her own surname) we feel envy.
We judge someone who appears warm but incompetent (the woman who changes her surname) as pitiful.
Cuddy says we value competence over warmth and would rather have people respect us than like us. Plus, we tend to see warmth and competence as not compatible. You can be one or the other, but not both.
“The more competent you are, the less nice you must be. And vice versa: Someone who comes across as really nice must not be too smart.” This pattern is the opposite of the halo effect: a plus on one dimension demands a minus on the other. The unconscious logic might be: If she were really competent, she wouldn’t need to be so nice; and conversely, the highly competent person doesn’t have to be nice—and may even have reached the top by stepping on others.
I don’t like that conclusion. It makes me want to study the research and pick holes in the hypothesis. And I’ve seen evidence over and over that jurors favor experts who are obviously knowledgeable but who are also warm and engaging. For example, they are shocked that a great doctor can still have a good bedside manner. Overall, there is an assumption that people who are outstanding in their field have lousy social skills, and only care about themselves and their own views. There is a big world out there for people who can be smart and nice at the same time.
The long and short of all this negativity is simple: we base our judgments on stereotypes, not on fact-based perceptions of the individual we observe. We know jurors often judge women lawyers harshly. We know that sometimes women are viewed as attempting to use sexuality to their advantage. And that women in non-traditional careers can be seen as competent as long as they are absolutely perfect in every way!
These are all decisions and judgments based on stereotypes. The point is that, although they are often inaccurate, they are very, very real. [Stereotypes are not about fairness or accuracy.] And as a woman—litigator or otherwise—you do well to be cognizant of the very real impact these random biases will have.
If you read us and find us useful, helpful, entertaining, or in any way enlightening–please consider nominating us for this year’s Blawg 100 listings. You brought us into the Blawg 100 for 2010–how about helping in 2011? Nominate us for the ABA Blawg 100 here.
Noordewier, M., Horen, F., Ruys, K., & Stapel, D. (2010). What’s in a Name? 361.708 Euros: The Effects of Marital Name Change. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 32 (1), 17-25 DOI: 10.1080/01973530903539812
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[...] discusses a study that finds that women who take their husband’s last name are judged more harshly, and may make less money over their [...]
In Spain the wife keeps her name, so I don’t expect such an effect will be visible. Did the original study that situation?