Our northern neighbors are known as a fairly easygoing lot. But right on the heels of the Olympics, a tempest kicked up in Canada over a proposal to changing language in the national anthem, “O Canada,” to be gender-neutral.  Chastened by an uproar from Newfoundland to British Columbia, they recently dropped the idea.

One comment I read from an offended Canadian has had me seething for a week. About the idea of gender-neutral lyrics, she said

this: “It’s like women who refuse to change their names,” says one 30-something Canadian woman. “It’s so second-wave.”

Presumably, she’s part of the third wave or post-feminist wave, who think the gender equity achievements of the second wave in the

Rise up, sisters (and brothers).

’60s and ’70s - notably in the workplace and in social attitudes - resulted in rigid, one-size-fits-all definitions of what and who qualifies as feminist.

Third-wavers reject these definitions and stereotypes - one of which is that to be a feminist, a woman must keep her birth name. And it’s their privilege to hold that opinion.

I can say that, because, like the offended Canadian quoted above, I’m a woman living in one of the most literate, wealthy, peaceful and healthy nations on the planet. A nation where people women can state their beliefs, even controversial ones, without fear of censure or repercussions, whether they be political, physical, sexual or emotional.

Here’s the thing, though: Not everyone does. Billions of women alone live in the bottom half of the countries that scored the lowest on the UN’s Global Gender Gap index. which measures women’s parity - or lack thereof - with men in terms of economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment and health and survival. That health and survival are even part of the scale should give feminists from developed nations pause.

When there’s places in our world where pregnancy and childbirth are a major health risk, where patrilineal inheritance laws make widows into indentured servants, where girls as young as 10 can be married, we need waves - more and more and more of them, rippling from privileged Western nations to the shores of sub-Saharan Africa and the Persian Gulf and Middle Eastern countries where women’s lives face the most dire prospects.

It’s a little early for baseball season, and I know Canada’s only got one team now. But I think it’s still time to stand up and make a wave.

Google alerts turned up this article written by one Mary, another Aussie commenting on the Catherine Deveny column I posted about last time. In it, Mary tells us she just had a baby boy - to whom she and her husband gave her last name, instead of his.

Then on my own side porch I just picked up the latest issue of the Grand Traverse Insider, a freebie good-news-only paper that usually goes straight to the recycling. But I happened to open it up to find a story on a local woman’s goodwill work in Haiti. She, too, is matrilineally named.

So counting these two, plus my own daughter, I know now four people who’ve taken the matrilineal path. Hurrah! The ranks are growing.

On the downside, the bill making its way through Japan’s political process that would allow dual surnames has a lead lining. According to this editorial in the Asahi Shimbun, it would also require couples to choose which name their children will have in advance. All children would need to have the same surname, making my family’s decision illegal in Japan. The editorial says: “To avoid any confusion, the proposed bill requires couples to decide in advance on their children’s surname and to ensure that all siblings have the same family name.”

My responses:

1) What confusion? Why is it anyone’s but the family’s business whose name is chosen, or if there’s more than one? Why is it the family’s burden to insure others aren’t confused?

2) Decide in advance - It’s almost impossible to decide anything to do with children in advance. At my childbirth classes, the final exercise was designed to teach us how to cope when circumstances shot the plan to pieces. In retrospect, it was the most valuable lesson of the bunch for what it taught about children in general.

3) Ensure than all siblings have the same family name: This bill’s purpose  is - admirably - to modernize the requirement that spouses have the same name. Why revert to the old standard for the kids?