Google+, a new social networking site that’s in theory still in beta, is having a serious issues amongst its users.

You see, Google+ wants to insist that people use their legal names on their social networking site. If you’re using a name that appears “fake” by various criteria, you stand to have the account axed.

Okay, does this affect me? Personally, not so much. I use my “real” name online and have for creeping up on two decades.

Oh, wait… No, I didn’t for a long time. For the first decade and a bit, I used my maiden name – not my legal name. When I got married, I actually took my husband’s last name. I used it to apply for jobs and sign checks. Socially? I tended to introduce myself with my maiden name. When I went online, I used my NoelFigart as my handle, typically. It wasn’t particularly a conscious decision. It’s my name. It’s unique, and I like my name a lot, so hey…

Notice how I phrased that “it’s my name”. It most certainly was not my legal name. It was the name I most identified with. It was my mental default that I used. I had to think about it a little when I was signing checks or in formal situations where I was addressed as Mrs. <HusbandName>. Oh sure like many a traditionally-reared girl who is engaged, I did practice the “Married name signature” and played with it. I’m just saying that in my case, it didn’t stick much.

I changed it back to my maiden name about six years ago. There were a lot of driving reasons, but the most serious one for me was that my son, if asked what his mother’s name was, would say Noël Figart. The last time I heard him do it when before I changed my name back to my maiden name, this scene from the Bring on the Night movie floated through my mind:

Reporter: Well, Gordon…

Sting: My children call me Sting, my mother calls me Sting. Who is this Gordon¹ character?

I figured that when even my son used Figart instead of my married name, it was time to embrace it and have my legal name be the name I actually use.

If I had not changed my name, would Google+ have decided to kick me out if they’d discovered I wasn’t using my legal name? Or is a maiden name “legitimate” because there’s social precedent for a woman using her maiden name either professionally or socially.

However, what about pen names? I have one. One of my blogs is written under a sobriquet. I would (and do) answer to it as readily as Noël. I consider it one of my names. When we’re talking marketing and brand, it’s most certainly identified with me, even if many people who know it know my “real” name as well. In my case, it’s no big secret. It’s also a name that is so obviously “fake” that it would get me kicked off Google+ pretty quickly – never mind that it’s a legitimate identity that I am really, no kidding, known by. And in fact, my Google+ circles are more likely to contain people who know me in that context than as Noël.

I consider myself probably one of the simpler examples of the fluidity of name. So, I think that Google needs to think more carefully about the whole legal, Western-based “Firstname” “Lastname” requirement for its social circles. I get that it is trying to create a culture of transparency in the hopes that it will promote a friendlier environment and better behavior amongst its denizen.

I just think that they’re using a ball-peen hammer for a situation that might call for a scapel. Just sayin’.

_________________________

¹ Sting was born Gordon Matthew Sumner.

I’ve had it with “Mom” being used as a prefix or descriptive for something backward, unattractive, technophobic or unfashionable. I wanna know since when was being a mother something shameful and backward?

The roots of this, I think are even worse than it looks on the surface. Mom, in general, also means “older woman”. And we all know older women are valueless, right? Women are worthwhile and tolerable when you wanna bang ‘em, but otherwise? Feh! Don’t clutter up the landscape!

While I’m enough of a child of my generation that I don’t think being a mother is the be-all and end-all of female accomplishment, it is a part of what I do and how I spend my days. All the moms reading this know it’s a tough job, and frankly, I’d like a little credit and respect for it. We may not be spending our lives trying to be all hot and hip, but part of that is because we’re trying against almost impossible societal odds to bring up the next generation of decent human beings. Sorry if that’s not cool enough for you, but I assure you that you would not want to live in a world where the difficult job of mother isn’t taken seriously by at least some of us.

Do I do other things? Yep. In fact everything I do requires me to learn and study new things on a very regular basis. So you can drop dead with that backward crap.

As far as being technologically hip? That’s my job, thanks, so that whole backward thing when it comes to being a mom doesn’t wash at my business. In fact, a good 80% of my students are middle-aged women (moms) and this cultural view of older women being technophobic –that it’s expected for them to be so, isn’t something I let ‘em get away with. You know what? After a few weeks with me, most of them walk away just as eager to learn and discover on their own as any hip twenty-something.

So, as far as being a “Mom”? Fine, try and brush me aside as middle-aged and not worth too much.

Just don’t get in my goddamned way, because I have shit to do and I will run you over in the process.