‘Sir’ and ‘Miss’ in schools is everyday sexism

Again, too many names to remember in a large secondary including all the non-teaching staff.

"Miss" for female teachers stemmed from a time when only unmarried women were allowed to be teachers. The "marriage bar" meant that employers would not hire married women to teach, and when a teacher married, she had to resign.

So the use is deeply sexist in its origin.

Doesn’t this stem from a time when people used to call their bosses Mr/Mrs/Miss? Which doesn’t happen any more so we may as well just scrap it and use first names

Totally agree.

Ma’am was the standard in my last school. Everywhere else has been Miss. Could not care less, frankly. We had a very similar conversation this week and we all, bar one, said we were happy with Miss. One divorced teacher says she insists on Ms, one insists on the full appellation of Mrs……. Ime, it’s pretty normal for students to use Miss. I think yabu.

The idea of a particular way of addressing teachers being a “sign of respect” is nonsense. I teach, and believe me students respect for you, or lack of it, has nothing to do with whether or not you’re called miss or sir.

Maybe it’s been in use long enough that most teachers now don’t care. My late DM was very firm on the point and insisted on being addressed as Mrs Dragon (unfortunately not her real name) but then she was from a generation in which the inequalities between women teachers and male schoolmasters were all too real. The marriage bar wasn’t lifted until 1944, equal pay not until 1961 I think - and the it seems somewhat more in theory than practice, trying to find the date was quite hard among many indications that there’s still a very significant pay gap.

Maybe you don’t think history matters, but I’m not so sure.

It might not be disrespectful, but it is unequal and therefore sexist.

I'm a female teacher - it honestly doesn't bother me at all. I literally never give it a thought!

I'll take Miss over 'Bruh' which is how Year 4 boys seem to address everyone now regardless of age or gender.

I was about to say this, there’s a lot more staff than teachers! I am the first aid lady so not necessarily someone a pupil sees every day (well, some pupils maybe !) so they won’t necessarily know my name. I’ve worked it schools for 20 years, I don’t think pupils really think about it, we’ve been sir or miss for years . Doesn’t bother me. Actually if someone called me ma’am it would sound very odd! At one school where I was better known I was called Mrs G as in my surname. I quite liked that .

@Ddakji oh give over. I teach critical thinking. I teach kids to focus their energy on actual arguments and analysing points made. The 80s was a long time ago and modes of address have lost a lot of the traditional import they once had. Language changes. I doubt many Gen Z and Gen Alpha would remotely see this as an issue and that means it stops becoming one over time. I don't deny sexism exists, I see it everywhere, both overtly and implied, but I don't agree that this is an instance of it.

Schools are the only place where they are considered equal. When we learned letter writing at school in the 80s we didn’t learn to write “Dear Sir or Miss”, but “Dear Sir or Madam”. You know full well that the equivalent male title to Miss is Mister. But somewhere along the line schools decided that it wasn’t right to refer to male teachers as Mister but fine to call female teachers Miss. Maybe ask your class to dig further into why that might have been. Or don’t, if you want them to agree with you.

It’s very easy to groom children into thinking stuff “isn’t that deep”. A few years in the adult world and the girls will certainly have learned the hard way how insidious everyday sexism is. It’s a shame you don’t seem to value critical thinking, but that does seem symptomatic of education these days.

But a bare "Miss" is fine in the context of a busy classroom. I always insist on "yes Miss" not just "yes" for the register every lesson. To me, that is a title (I am actually Miss but still did when I was Mrs) and is respectful. I simply do not see it as lesser than Sir and neither do the kids I teach.

Shes ’Miss Xxxx’, not a bare ‘Miss’ though.

No, because I don't agree that they are not equal. I asked them how they perceived the titles and if they convey less respect. You keep saying that they are not of equal status as though it's a fact and I don't agree that it is. Within a school context they are simply the gendered titles of address. After they had answered I explained why I was asking and that illicited the "it's not that deep" response.

Did you clearly explain to them that the two titles are not equal, though? That the equivalent of Miss is Mister? Do ask them and then see what they think, that women have a title in school that is not the equivalent to the male title.

@Ddakji I asked a few kids at school today about this debate. Their exact replies to "do you think Miss is less respectful or lower status than Sir" was "what? No"; "depends on the teacher how much we respect them;" and "it's not that deep".

So your example is completely not comparable to men being Sir and women being Miss in schools, is it?

Mr

And are their male equivalents all “Sir”?

But my oncology gynaecologist is " Miss"

And that's a very respected job. In fact I think most female hospital consultants are referred to as Miss

Id certainly hope not. Being called Miss xxxx would be fine.
The comparison should be versus a teacher just being called ‘Mister’ or ‘Missis’ with no name. That sounds downright rude!

Does anyone still think that Miss is a lesser status than Mrs anyway?

There are way more than a dozen teachers at my Grandon's secondary plus TAs, MDS, office staff, invigilators, grounds staff and so on.