MAGAs Are Punishing Women For Taking Their Husband's Names

Here's how my wife Ayesha responded when I asked if she would change her last name to Rashid

My wife Ayesha grew up in Pakistan and did her Masters in the United Kingdom. When we got married now nearly 18 years ago, I asked if she would take on my last name?

She paused, looked at me, and said, “Why would I give up my father’s name?? Wait do women in America seriously change their entire identity when they get married? What happens if they get divorced? What about passports and ID cards? Social security cards? Tax documents? What about Driver’s Lic—“

“Ok, Ok I get the point!” I finally responded. “Sheesh. A simple no would’ve sufficed!”

Anyway, like with most everything—she was right—likely more than even she realized at that time. And unless we act quickly to stop the SAVE Act, tens of millions of women in America will suffer a historic level of voter suppression. Let’s Address This.

A protestor holds up a sign that says “Voter Suppression” crossed out.

The MAGA SAVE Act is punishing women who dropped their maiden names and took their husband’s names after marriage. As The Brennan Center for Justice stated after the House passed the SAVE Act last week:

The House has just passed one of the worst pieces of voting legislation in American history. The Senate must stop it. The SAVE Act would put voting out of reach for millions of American citizens. It should not become law. More than 21 million American citizens don’t have the documents required by the SAVE Act readily available. The bill would effectively eliminate forms of voter registration that millions of voters rely on: registering by mail, online, and through voter registration drives would no longer be possible. The SAVE Act would also create chaos for election administration by imposing significant burdens on election officials and disrupting the systems that keep our elections running smoothly.

The SAVE Act Punishes Women In Particular

While the SAVE Act punishes a wide array of otherwise eligible voting US Citizens, it harms women in particular because of the western practice of women taking on their husband’s names after marriage. As NPR reports:

Among the most notable changes outlined in the bill is the requirement to prove U.S. citizenship before registering to vote. Acceptable documents will include a birth certificate, U.S. passport, naturalization paperwork and certain versions of the Real ID that indicate citizenship. But for as many as 69 million American women who have taken on their spouse's name, their birth certificates no longer match the names they use today, according to an analysis by the progressive Center for American Progress. Meanwhile, more than half of all Americans do not have a passport, according to a 2023 YouGov survey. [emphasis added]

It’s remarkable how MAGAs claim to support “traditional marriage” and are now happily punishing women who took the “traditional act” of changing their names. But the MAGA malice doesn’t stop here. After all, won’t suppressing women from voting also suppress Republican women from voting? Well, herein lies the rub. The answer is both yes, it will hurt Republican voting women, but more importantly, it will hurt Democratic voting women more.

MAGAs Are Banning Women From Voting Because Women Vote Blue

If you study gender based voter data over the last nine Presidential elections up through the 2024 Presidential election, you find a clear trend. Men generally vote red by about 10 points, and women are the opposite. Here is the data on how men vote:

Men consistently vote Republican over Democrat by about 10 points

Likewise, women generally vote blue by about 10 points. Here is the data on how women vote:

Women consistently vote Democrat over Republican by about 10 points

Therefore, if you are the MAGA party in power and want to ensure you maintain control—then you do so by suppressing the vote. And you suppress the vote in such a way that even if you disenfranchise millions of your own voter base, that’s okay, as long as you disenfranchise millions more of the opposing side’s voter base.

And that’s exactly what the SAVE Act does.

Even though Trump disbanded two of his own so-called “election fraud commissions” because they were unable to find any actual fraud, MAGAs are pushing the voter suppression SAVE Act under the claim that it is necessary to combat voter fraud.

Let’s be clear—if your path towards ‘winning’ an election is through voter suppression, then it isn’t democracy you support, it’s dictatorship. This is what MAGA politicians (and the four House Democrats who voted for the SAVE Act) are telling us they support. We should believe them. And we should take action by raising our voices.

Here are two quick ways you can take action. Contact your Senator either by email or by phone and let them know that they must vote NO on the SAVE Act.

Conclusion

My wife Ayesha still has her maiden name, and won’t be changing it any time soon. And she’s still right to not ever change it. It is an outrage that those women who changed their names upon marriage now have to pay hundreds of dollars to get new documents to exercise their basic right to vote. This is a poll tax by any other name.

The fact is, voting is a constitutionally protected right, and every citizen should have that right guaranteed without suppression. But because MAGAs know that if only women voted in the Presidential election, Kamala Harris would have won by a landslide. Therefore, MAGAs are working overtime to enact voter suppression of women before the next election. This is not a surprise. This was what Project 2025 forewarned. And this is what the “Again” in MAGA has always meant, i.e. a return to the time when only wealthy white land owning men had power.

That’s what these fascists are trying to revive again today. And this is why we must stand united to stop them.