This piece reflects on the unexpected habit the author developed during an artist residency. While intending to write in the evenings, she found herself drawn to communal binge-watching of the Netflix show 'Love Is Blind'. The author explores how even within a heteronormative context, the show surprisingly revealed limited female consideration of changing their last names upon marriage.
In March, I took part in an artist residency at Vermont Studio Center. The residency is in a small town nestled in the Green Mountains, and it’s designed to give artists time to focus on their work with minimal outside distractions.
Obviously, this tradition isn’t new to me. I grew up in the 1980s in a conservative, religious household with rigid views on gender, sexuality and women’s roles. In this environment, a woman was meant to be subservient to her husband, and part of that meant taking her husband’s last name to demonstrate that she no longer belonged to her father, but to another man.
But my father was angry often, and my mother struggled with her mental health. Somewhere along the way, I opted to stop making waves and became silent and cooperative. It felt as if I had two selves: my true self, which I hid, and the outer self, which was a version of what others expected me to be. Growing up, in my home and religion, conformity was achieved by controlling who could speak and limiting critical thinking through punishment. For the first time, at college, I was in an environment where I was encouraged to ask questions and expected to express myself out loud.
Eventually, I decided to use a pen name and settled on the last name “Holliday.” I considered using my birth name, but there was a lot of trauma in my past. I thought that a fresh start better represented where I was in my life.
Artist Residency Love Is Blind Binge-Watching Marriage Gender Roles
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