I am not my husband's property

I got married recently, and it was awesome. We had our version of a fairytale wedding, and I moved into a nice little place with my husband and it was all love and sprinkles.

Then one day, out of the blue, this old school mate sends me a Facebook message, where she went on a tirade about how improper and disrespectful it is that I haven’t changed my surname.

She ranted about how I should change my Facebook privacy so as to protect my family’s integrity, and I shouldn’t be posing for photos with other guys.

Hell, she even told me to get a proper job, because photographing rock stars is inappropriate for a married woman.

To top it all off, the message was a group message among all my now married school ‘friends’ who agreed with her, that I was rather letting the side down.

I didn’t respond.

A few weeks later, I posted a note about how I didn’t want children, and there she was again, attacking me for being an embarrassment to womankind.

The other day I wrote a note about how I feel about the Israel-Palestine conflict, and another person from that very same group asked me whether my political views align with my husband’s.

My husband and I jokingly call these women ‘The Bigot Brigade’, and I keep them as Facebook friends for the sheer enjoyment of their ire at my lifestyle.

But humour aside, there is a real problem with the woman who have become her husbands’ property and expect every other woman to do so too.

I just can’t figure out what it is about these specific women who feel that they do not have an identity outside their marriage and publically disgrace women who are not like them.

I am all for women doing what they want with their lives. It doesn’t make you backward if you want to be a housewife or a stay-home mother. What is backward is when you expect everyone else to do so.

Feminism isn’t about being better than men, or trying to be men. It’s about having the freedom to choose what you want to do with your life without fear, without backlash from society and without expectation thrust upon you.

I have four more degrees than my husband, each of which bears my surname. Not my maiden name. MY surname.

I have accomplished great things with my own identity. Not my husband’s.

I lived a good 22 years before meeting him, and I will survive even if he leaves me today. Because I am my own person.

You hear about gender-based harassment, sexism in the workplace, sex crimes against women and societal gender ‘roles’, and some might call self-imposed domestication a bad thing.

I don’t belittle those women for choosing a domestic life. You are free to decide your life. But don’t impose your ideals on me.

I am not changing my surname. I am not going to align my political views with my husband’s. I will continue to be a music journalist – because that’s who I am.

Don’t tell me that I’m letting the side down because of some misplaced sense of duty.

My family’s integrity does not lie in Facebook privacy settings. It lies in what we are, and what I am is my own person.

I am not my husband’s property, and I never will be. As long as I have the freedom to choose, I choose freedom.