Being called Mrs *-*

@ZebraDanios "Mrs Xs are proud unquestioning adopters of the tradition and which ones are well aware of all the problems with it but have ultimately decided it’s still the right choice for them."

I am happier with the unquestioning adopters. They can learn and change and grow. The women who understand the issues but still sign up for the patriarchy are the problem. And before anyone says it-no I don't think that a choice is automatically a feminist choice because a woman makes it!

The thing is, though, without talking to them about it, you can’t possibly know which women who call themselves Mrs have done so “without questioning it” and which have done it after endless deliberation.

My Dad gave me away at my wedding. I knew it was a tradition that was steeped in patriarchy and connotations of ownership and all the rest, but it meant a lot to him and that meant a lot to me. But without me saying so, you’d never know that I’d thought about that tradition - only that I’d adopted it.

The same goes with Mrs. I have trouble understanding the mindset of anyone who “can’t wait to become Mrs X” or is “proud to be Mrs X” - but I have no way of knowing which Mrs Xs are proud unquestioning adopters of the tradition and which ones are well aware of all the problems with it but have ultimately decided it’s still the right choice for them.

I’m 43 and never married.

Why do some organisations think it’s ok to call me Mrs? Good job my mum isn’t about when this happens

The difficulty . I work with older generation and like teachers we refer Mr , Mrs ,Ms .

Lots of older people are offended by been called by first and surname .

I wish people could stop been offended .

if you tell me you are Ms I will respect that .

However . I would say as a teacher your kids probably are saying it wrong at home .

i can tell from my own experience . I ended up at a party -Ta was co incidentally there . So called him Mr …. Turns out every time I had spoken to him over the term I had got the surname wrong but he did acknowledge my Ds seems to have adopted the incorrect surname too . We had a drink and joke about it .

Also a secretary .. Mrs Garnett .. my Ds insisted her surname was garlic no matter how many times I corrected him 😳.

That may be (if by condone you mean ‘overlook’ rather than ‘accept’) but it’s entirely understandable behaviour.

Women are not obliged to use their every action to ‘smash the patriarchy’, it’s ok for them to just live their lives to their own liking sometimes.

I don’t tend to tell other women what they ‘should’ do, especially when they are trying to avoid negative repercussions for themselves.

Women are socialised to care what others think of them, it’s not surprising that some behave in ways that help them fit in with the majority.

No one is saying you aren’t.

The point was that a large proportion of the population consider unmarried women as lesser in terms of success (hasn’t caught a man), and respectability (is probably after my husband/sleeps around etc etc).

Just think of the posts on here saying ‘my single friend has asked my DH to fix her tap/for a lift’ and the flood of responses about ‘over stepping’ and how she is clearly trying to shag him, she is no friend of yours etc etc.

Its clearly bollocks, but nevertheless they are the judgements a lot of people make, which contributes to the choice of some women to go by ‘mrs’.

I’m not sure it’s an idea so much as a fact.

Not that it should confer any status, but nevertheless it does- many many people still equate it with ‘success’ and ’respectability’.

*gay marriage? What an odd typo! Just "marriage"

@LorlieS "The title "Mrs" to all intents and purposes you are a married woman, no? It reveals your marital status. Not for me, thanks"

Me neither. And I hate the idea gay marriage somehow confers status on a woman.

@DeadbeatYoda you're the third person (possibly fourth) to explain this. I genuinely thought it was to do with possessive pronouns and linked to when wives were husbands property.

@LorlieS not every situation is a personal attack. It's a simple misunderstanding. Militance has its very important place in feminism but it's just not always the best way to get our point across. Campaigning to power is a better use of energy than battering anyone that makes a simple mistake with your chosen title, surely?

Mind you- I have it on good authority that it used to be standard practice for HCPs to refer to babies as "he" if they didn't know because people would be offended if a boy was mistaken for a girl but not the other way round. Good that's not a "thing" any more, eh?

@CurlewKate my thoughts too. People just make stuff up on here, I swear.

@Justkeepingplatesspinning where did you get the Mr's thing from? It's demonstrably nonsense. Mrs is the abbreviation on Missus, which refers to a married woman.

@Concannon88 "Because it used to be highly offensive to call someone Ms or miss when they were a Mrs"

When?

Managed to get half way through this thread before I'd had enough. Seriously? That's your big problem in life? You have gone against the grain ( good for you) and now you are whining that, for the rest of the world, you are not the centre of their attention. So what if someone gets your title wrong? I get called Miss all the time by pupils, I've been married for twenty years. Who cares? As a teacher, pertains you could be more tuned in to what the students / parents are trying to tell you rather than whether they have noticed your stance on titles.

I think referring to people with titles such as Mr and Mrs and Ms should be stopped in general. But I honestly can't get too worked up about titles but if it annoys you then you're not being unreasonable to feel annoyed. Feelings are valid 🤷🏼‍♀️