Entertainment
Cerys Matthews calls out ‘everyday sexism’ as Wikipedia page ‘erases’ last name to reflect husband’s
Cerys Matthews has called out Wikipedia for seemingly allowing edits to her surname, citing ‘everyday sexism’ as her name was ‘erased’ to instead reflect her husband’s.
The Welsh star, who is married to Steve Abbott, was left wanting answers after attempting to edit her personal details on her profile but still seeing her legal name as incorrect.
Yesterday she tagged the site in a tweet, suggesting they ‘drag their arses’ into the 21st century after she discovered Alexa, which scrapes sources including Wikipedia, was referring to her as Cerys Elizabeth Abbott.
She wrote: ‘OY @Wikipedia MY NAME IS Cerys Matthews NEVER ANYTHING ELSE, MARRIED OR NOT.
‘PLEASE DRAG YOUR A.I ARSES IN TO THE 21C . I DO NOT CHANGE MY NAME FOR ANY MAN NOR MACHINE. #everdaysexism.’
Sharing a message to Twitter on Friday, the Catatonia singer added that she still couldn’t see any change to her page: ‘My name has been erased in favour of someone I happen to have married who is male.
‘Its still there on your site. #everydaysexism (sic)’
Demanding an explanation as to why her name had been edited, despite not changing it after marriage, she added: ‘Please can someone at @Wikipedia explain why my name, which I’ve never changed since birth, has been changed on your site.’
Cerys had earlier tweeted: ‘Apparently ‘Alexa’ has changed my name from Cerys Matthews to Cerys Elizabeth Abbott. Am spitting hairs here. where does Alexa hang out-I’m ‘gonna ‘av a word.
‘But seriously .. what A.I / algorithms are changing my legal name ? ( to my husband’s) what century are we in?’
Punters had chimed in underneath her comments, replying that her name seemed to have been corrected recently after a contributor edited it.
Others had suggested she try to edit the page herself, which Cerys confirmed she had done while adding a caveat: ‘Not the intro /thumbprint bit that remains incorrect. ive tried of course.’
Another insisted all seemed fine on their end, while many other fans of the singer backed her message, with one chiming in: ‘The fight for Our Identity as Women never ends !’
And one insisted it shouldn’t be Cerys’s job to check her name isn’t being edited, saying many of the commenters had ‘missed the point’ of the star’s note.
They wrote: ‘For those of you saying Cerys can edit it herself, you’re missing the point. Many women are continually having to tell data holders that their last name/title is not defined by their relationship to a male partner. They shouldn’t have to continually do this.’
When another wrote: ‘I use my maiden name at work and it’s always being prefixed with Mrs. Such a pain in the backside – I really don’t understand why we don’t use Ms as standard,’ Cerys replied: ‘Same. cynic voice says: its too logical and commonsensical for this world. We’ll have to wait another 250 years alas.’
The Wikipedia edit history of Cerys’s page shows on March 15 her name was shown as Cerys Elizabeth Abbott, before it was edited by a contributor back to her actual name on March 17.
At time of writing her name had been changed back to Cerys Matthews on Wikipedia and the Google Chrome thumbnail, however on Bing’s search engine thumbnail for Wikipedia it still appeared as Cerys Elizabeth Abbott.
Metro.co.uk contacted reps of Cerys and Wikipedia for comment.
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