George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin got married in late September, and everyone gushed. Amal Alamuddin changed her last name to Clooney on the website for her law firm Monday, and the town that is the Internet lit torches and tried to chase Mrs. Clooney through the streets, claiming she was “giving up a fundamental human right” and renouncing “her feminist credentials.”
One site called it silly, and said the human rights lawyer “is doing the world a disservice by demonstrating that even very powerful and successful women are still less important than the men they marry.”
Another chided the newlywed, saying she has reduced her status from person to “actor’s wife,” and even went so far as to say “you have lost your marbles.”
“You see, words matter: your name is your identity.”
It was signed “a concerned feminist.”
Ruby Hamad from “Daily Life” claims she is just plain disappointed in her, casually comparing the trivial name change to human slavery.
“There is no doubt that the tradition is a relic from a more patriarchal time. A simpler era when, upon marriage women were literally transferred into the possession of their new owner, who also went by the title of ‘husband.'”
And even Twitter showed its outrage.
Yuck RT @VanityFair: Amal Alamuddin is now officially Amal Clooney http://t.co/lO9lq1dlQv
— Brooke Siegel (@brookejena) October 14, 2014
First misstep by the lovely Amal. RT"@VanityFair: Amal Alamuddin is now officially Amal Clooney http://t.co/5ZadOdK6Ov”
— Kati Mohammad-Zadeh (@katimz) October 14, 2014
Their argument of blind arrogance is that the act of changing her last name is “anti-feminist,” but look closely and it’s those crying the loudest who are reducing Amal Clooney to her name, and not her achievements.