Margot Robbie changing her name to her husband’s hurts my beautiful lesbian brain. Here’s why | Rebecca Shaw

Being a lesbian in a heretofore heteronormative society means having to go along with lots of things that don’t make sense to your beautiful lesbian brain. One such thing for me is the ongoing expectation that women who marry men should change their surname to their husband’s.

Last week my tolerance was tested again when it was revealed that after a decade of marriage, Margot Robbie has changed her surname to that of her husband, Tom Ackerley.

Margot Ackerley – it simply rolls off the tongue. She will remain Margot Robbie in her public life, and we don’t know why she has done this, but it has nonetheless caused a stir. We got the usual discourse of blah blah tradition, blah blah patriarchy, blah blah women’s individual choice and so on.

We all know how it goes and Margot is not alone in doing this, of course. The statistics are hard to pin down (bearing in mind I dropped out of psychology at uni because of the statistics part) but I think it’s safe to say that in the overwhelming majority of straight marriages, the woman changes her name to the man’s. I see this in every part of my social life, from friends back home who married directly out of high school to my cabal of highly educated urban feminist friends. I play my part by putting all my married male friends in my phone under their wives’ surnames.

Of course I have no personal sense of the societal pressure and systems that inform such decisions, which is why I don’t flip a table every time it happens – but I actually do mind when it’s the default decision with no discussion.

There are plenty of reasons a woman might want to change her name. She might hate her dad. She might feel no attachment to her name. Her husband might have a meaningful attachment to his and so she might just think it’s a nice thing to do.

I’m not an unreasonable lesbian. My issue isn’t with women taking their man’s surname, the problem comes when there is no choosing. When it’s a foregone conclusion, when it hasn’t been actively decided. That’s your name!

If there is discussion, if there is equal respect for both people, if someone has a reason, then that’s fine with me. I once had a colleague whose future husband told her it was a dealbreaker if she didn’t take his name. That’s not a reason. That should have been the dealbreaker itself.

I don’t really care about the reasoning, I just care that there is a reason. That said, when it comes to which surname a baby gets, that’s when I really get irritated. If we really have stopped considering a man’s wife and children his property, why on earth is giving them his name still the default? Women carry and birth the babies. Women are still far more likely to do the lion’s share of childcare. Hello?? The lesbian mind boggles.

But never fear, because I have a solution. And you may be surprised that it doesn’t involve any gender politics whatsoever! My solution is that we throw tradition out the window and that if a couple wants to share a name, we make the decision based on … which surname is cooler. Which surname sounds better, which surname will offer more success – that’s the one you should both use.

In an ideal world, this would be done in a courtroom setting, where each couple comes in and sees me sitting high above them like Judge Judy, ready to bang my gavel. Congratulations, Mr Brown, you are now Mr Beaumont. Sorry, Mrs Jones, you’re now Mrs Wilder. Mr Cheeseman, I release you from your prison.

No longer would awesome surnames be swallowed by the crap oesophagus of patriarchy. No longer would it be considered weak or weird for a man to take his wife’s last name – instead it would be cool and wise. Even though my loyalty always lies with women, I am willing to maintain neutrality in the courtroom.

And sorry, Mr Ackerley, which sounds a bit like a cat throwing up – you’re now Mr Robbie.