Last week I was at a client and experienced one of those “bite my tongue” moments.

As the wrap-up meeting ended, a late-fifties-aged woman waited for most of the others to drift out, then said to me, “I take it ‘Johnson’ is your husband’s name? I would think a woman of your generation and career-mindedness could at least hyphenate her own name rather than completely bow to the patriarchy…”

Well, that’s not exactly what she said, but it’s what my brain heard.

When I get comments like that - a couple of times a year - I really have to resist the urge to speak my mind. I’m a professional and I can’t afford to insult my clients, even the most avidly racist and sexist among them.

“Racist?” you say. Well, with my Hispanic/Italian complexion, facial features and hair, the assumption is that I couldn’t possibly have a WASPy name like “Johnson” unless I married into it. Never mind the fact that it’s true, it’s still racist to assume that a woman who looks like me must have married into a “normal” name.

But setting aside the ethnic offensiveness of her comment… My core irritation was really with my own knee-jerk reactions to sexist comments from second-wave feminists.

First, I feel a pit-of-the-stomach guilt that I’ve somehow betrayed the sisterhood - and especially the previous generation - by not standing up for all women everywhere.

But a few nanoseconds later, I have the more intense bitter feeling that comes from my resentment of feminist arrogance. How dare they presume that I owe them something for being where I am.

To explain all of this, let’s review the things I wanted to say, but didn’t:

1. “Are you assuming that I’m a Spanish whore or an Italian whore? Because I’m also a quarter French if that helps.

   You know, my wet-back grandfather might have changed his name to ‘Johnson’ after he finished swimming the Atlantic on his trip from Madrid to Ellis Island.

   But then again, why would my parents name me, ‘Angela’ if they were trying to pass as ‘white’. Well, maybe it’s because I’m too dark to pass and they figured they could give an homage to my mother’s side of the family.”

2. “You’re right. Instead of bowing to my patriarchal husband, I should bow to my patriarchal father and my patriarchal husband… or would you prefer that I bow only to my patriarchal father.”
3. “Well, it may interest you to know that my maiden name was hyphenated, so I had already given twenty years of subservience to both my patriarchal father and my patriarchal maternal grandfather. I figure my patriarchal husband ought to get equal time. I’ll hyphenate when I turn forty.”
4. “Yeah, well where were the feminists when my pseudo-feminist mother was robbing me of my sexuality by beating me for masturbating.”
5. “Um, the women in my childhood would have had me in in a more ‘appropriate’ career such as nursing.

   It was my father who pushed me into being a leader. Rear-Admiral Mendez had his feelings hurt pretty badly when I not only didn’t keep his name, but didn’t let him walk me down the aisle.

   Yeah, I should have given credit where credit was due, by dropping my mother’s name and keeping my father’s name. It would have been an appropriate homage to him for raising me as the eldest son he never had.”

6. “No, actually I like laying back and spreading my legs for my husband - who, by the way, is even more dominant than I am. You should try it some time. Maybe you wouldn’t be such a prune-faced old bitch.”
7. “Sorry, but I wasn’t going to give my abusive parents one more second of ownership of me than I absolutely had to.”
8. “My mother would have disowned me if I had kept my maiden name like one of those ‘uppity feminist women’ who don’t know their proper place.”

Most of those responses would have had the benefit of truth. (Number 8 and part of number 5 aren’t fair to my parents. Mom kept her maiden name for twelve years - and both of them apologized to me at one time or another for my ridiculous last name. My younger siblings are all unhyphenated).

Instead, I did what I usually do: I took out two of my business cards, laid them on the table, end to end and said, “It’s really difficult to get business cards printed this size.”

My feminist client looked at me with a puzzled expression.

I traced my finger from left to right across both cards as I said, “Angela Marie Theresa D’Antonio-Mendez-Johnson”.

The look of horror on her face was priceless.

Anticipating her next question, I said, “Marie is my Godmother’s name. Leaving ‘Theresa’ out of it would have been OK, since it’s just my confirmation name, but I didn’t have the heart to ignore my favorite Aunt.”

She sighed. “Even ‘Angela D’Antonio-Mendez-Johnson’ would be tough to fit on one card.”

I nodded, sympathetically and said “Yeah, and ‘Angela Mendez-Johnson’ would leave my mother’s name out of it - which kind of defeats the purpose.”

My true feelings snuck out just a little bit when I closed with, “Yup, us brown-skin types have a lot of baggage to carry.” I even let her off the hook by saying, “I know. You didn’t mean it that way.”

Professionalism sucks sometimes.

BTW: “Angela Marie Theresa D’Antonio-Mendez-Johnson” is a nom de plume. My real unabbreviated name has five more syllables than that - one in each name except Theresa.

I suppose I could have chosen “Angelica Maria Theresa DiAntonio-Menendez-Johanson” but there is a limit to the amount of real-life ridiculousness that I am willing to incorporate into my online writing just to enhance the verisimilitude.