Wisdom! Thine name is AskMen.com!

Hello there! This is Charlie. The Nut has graciously allowed me to post this here, since my old blog has been collecting dust for the past few months.

My sister passed along this advice column from AskMen.com. If you follow that link -- and how could you possibly resist? -- please pay special attention to the third and final reader's comments, and AskMen.com's response.

A reader writes:

Furthermore, if the children do not take the mother's name, then a woman's family name ends with them anyway, thus refuting the idea that women should keep their names to honor their family. Therefore, why would women keep their name except as a means of emasculation and a continuation of this unending hypocrisy, in which there is no compromise...?

To really get the full effect of this reader's sound prose and uncompromising logic, you simply must read it in its entirety. With such thought provoking content, it is hard to single out just one thing, but I will choose to focus on one sentence that can be found near the end of AskMen.com's reply. I think you'll agree that it is a diamond in the rough:

But as usual, it's men who will have to effect social change, because women have a vested interest in keeping things the way they are.

Yes! Since time immortal, women have had a vested interest in keeping things the way they are. It's always been men fighting for social change, like the right to vote and serve in the military. Who could ever forget the time in our not so distant past when men were considered their woman's property? For decades men have grown up in a society that attaches gender to respected professions, like "businesswoman," "firewoman," "policewoman," and "actress". Men are still underrepresented in the upper echelons of the corporate world, and numerous studies have shown that women command a higher salary than men performing the same job. Those who have bothered to study the etymology of the word "man" know that is simply a modified form of the word "woman."

Yes, indeed, with such a vested interest in the status quo, it naturally falls to us men to fight for social change. I applaud the editorial staff of AskMen.com for their tireless advocacy of oppressed men everywhere. Women have been keeping their last name for years, and frankly, it is an outrage. How much longer can we men endure such a callous slap in the face? It is time to rise up and stand with AskMen.com as one voice against our female oppressors, and demand change! I, being the radical that I am, will not rest until every woman in America is taking her husband's last name in marriage.