It’s presumptuous of me to begin by quibbling with Shakespeare, but he’s dead and I’m feeling a bit kicky this morning. “What’s in a name?” his Juliet asks, “A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” To this I say, “Juliet. Woman to woman, don’t kid yourself, a Rose by any other name is not a Rose at all.”
Names matter. They really do.
It’s far easier to erase people if you erase their names, and it’s far easier to identify something if you can name it.
In one familiar Grimm’s fairytale we learn of a young woman who has been served up to please men with the promise that she can manipulate nature to bring about great material riches. This enlightenment spell which requires that she sacrifice herself, a woman, and her purpose, being a mother, can only be broken by naming the creature “Rumpelstiltskin”.
