What's In a Name?

Helena Goodwyn interrogates the near universal practice of giving children their father’s - not their mother’s - surname. She and her husband plan to buck the trend in a stand against structural inequality when their first baby is born. "We have the feminist movement to thank for many of the changes that have led us to our present moment, where broadly speaking, British society no longer stigmatises people based on whether they were conceived in or outside of marriage but in the case of cohabiting heterosexual couples the giving of the father's surname remains the norm."
Dr Helena Goodwyn is Vice-Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow in English Literature at Northumbria University.
Presenter: Olly Mann
Producer: Sheila Cook