The Doc is In!

Hello. My name is Dr. Garcia. How are you all doing today? Fine? That's good (although it doesn't seem like your wife agrees...) Now, let me see here... Ah, Petruchio and Katherine.

I'd like to start off with some goals for Petruchio. Throughout our session, I have seen you mistreat your wife in a number of ways that do not seem at all appropriate and healthy in a relationship. While I understand that you feel your preferences matter as much as Katherine's, it seems a bit extreme to deny reality as the rest of us see it altogether. Katherine tells me of a time when you told her that the moon was bright when it was in fact mid-afternoon. In the future, I would implore you to let Katherine discover the world as she sees it rather than telling her the difference between right and wrong and expecting her to obey.

Furthermore, your denial of food and sleep for Katherine is simply not how you treat a lady. A healthy relationship is built on the health, emotional and physical, of both partners individually, and you absolutely cannot have a successful marriage until you begin to value Katherine more than you value the relationship.

Lastly, I would advise you to be honest with Katherine. Somehow (it is beyond me), she has grown to love you, in such a way that any problems you may have with your financial standing and class will not affect how she feels about you. Rather than trying to distract her from your problems in various barbaric ways, try telling her what your situation is, and see how she feels about it.

Katherine, it's time for you. I recognize that you've felt unloved for quite some time. I think that this marriage has the potential to be very successful, but, as I said before, it cannot reach that potential until both you and Petruchio are comfortable with the aspects of yourself that you may not like. For him, it is his class. For you, it is how much you are affected emotionally by the title of 'shrew.' It's okay to feel, Katherine. And it is okay to have your own opinions and be at all times yourself. You and Petruchio must work together to bring out the best in each other. With this in mind, I know the two of you can succeed as a couple and show you father and the rest of your community how much potential you have both within the relationship, and outside of it.

It's All in the Choice

For me, I don't really care, as long as the woman gets a choice. I think the idea of ownership that we see play out in Taming of the Shrew and in real life comes from women not having a choice, of being forced to submit to a man. If the question were whether or not a woman should be forced to take her husband's last name, I would say "of course not!" But in the past few decades especially, a lot of American women (including my mother) have chosen not to take their husband's names. In the last few decades, a lot of women have chosen to take their husband's last name. A lot of husbands have chosen to take their wife's last name. There's hyphenation. It's all good, in my opinion, as long as everybody gets a choice and is happy with what they've chosen.

However, all that said, it's important to recognize that the practice of a woman taking on her husband's last name came from a culture of ownership and lack of choice. We have the privilege now of consideration. It does make one think about the oppression that women went through and continue to go through. Even something as simple as a name has oodles of controversy surrounding it. The common assumption is that in heterosexual couples, the woman takes on the husband's last name. Even still, we are controlled by the history behind this issue.

So while I don't think that it's healthy to say that a woman has to do one or the other, I also don't think, like with anything, it's healthy to assume. Some women want to change their names. Some women don't. Some women like hyphenation. So instead of saying "Oh, hello, Mrs.__________", perhaps, next time, you ask what she would prefer to be called. Give her the choice.

The Reality of Patriarchy

When people don't know what a word means, usually, they look it up in a trusted dictionary such as Merriam-Webster or Oxford. Even Dictionary.com, if they're feeling desperate. Except, of course, with feminism. Then, people feel free to define feminism as all sorts of crazy things. As the belief that society should be matriarchal instead of patriarchal. As an avenue for "ugly" women to complain about men. As witchcraft, husband-killing, and infanticide.

If feminism is a dirty word, you have every right to call me unclean. I believe in the basic definition that Webster, Oxford, and Dictionary.com all seem to agree on: "The belief that women should be equal to men." It's extremely simple.

And yet, it isn't. Patriarchy has been so deeply rooted in society for so long that we can't even recognize inequality until it's staring us in the face. It's my mother, telling me that I can't go to college until I learn basic martial arts. It's the guys at the next lunch table over, saying that a friend's bisexual identity isn't real, that she'll realize she's actually straight in a matter of time. It's the people at the debate tournament not noticing what I say, but what I wear. It's my science experiment, where the guys at my table didn't listen to me even though I was quoting our teacher.

People who say that patriarchy doesn't exist need only look to a list of American presidents. In 2016, two hundred and forty years after "liberty and justice for ALL", we haven't had a female president. We've walked on the moon, explored 97% of the oceans, created this awesome thing called the Internet that spits out answers to any question we'd like, and yet, we haven't had a female president. Our country, for these two hundred and forty years, has been led primarily by white men.

There is a problem here. And it's certainly not a problem that can be fixed with baseless stereotypes and pure ignorance.