Institutional Sexism : The Honours list

chunky as we have discussed, they are not all the same, so some choices would have had to be made.

The honours list would be the perfect place to reform the use of titles.

Stop using them altogether and just put any appropriate letters after the name - like Americans do with Jane Smith, PhD or MD more often than Dr Jane Smith when written. It's already what happens with OBE etc. Ditch the meaningless M... thing entirely.

I'd been puzzled by the weird Jane, Mrs Smith thing in that list - never occurred to me that would be the 'correct' way to avoid the dreadful Mrs John Smith - it's the 21st century FFS. They should just stop that, surely that would be uncontroversial?

Lass - I agree - either all should have titles, or none should have the default ones (Mr and Ms) in my opinion.

I'm not sure that the Mrs title-holders really chose to be presented that way - at least not with an informed decision, or surely at least one or two would have suggested that they could be the same as the men? Or one or two of the Ms women? The fact that they are all the same suggests that a blanket rule was applied which is contrary to Debretts which says on lists of Directors or Patrons - which is the closest to what this is - that the lady should choose. Perhaps another injustice to the poor blokes, as Debretts says that when writing to an untitled man (amusingly right at the bottom of the list with the untitled women, as those without titles clearly don't matter as much ) the writer gets to choose the method of address (Mr, no Mr, or Esquire).

Unlike you I think not using ",Mr" for those who men have no other title is odd.

Ms , Miss, Mrs, Dr , Prof , Sir, Lady , are all fine in my book. So as far as I'm concerned the question is why should certain men not get any title when all women and some men do.

And you have misunderstood what the point and usage of "Ms " is.

Oh and I'm 56 and "Ms" never meant the person was divorced.

That was never the point of it nor how it was used. So if you are going to bang on about using or not using titles it might help if you actually knew what they meant.

Whilst I hate "Mrs" many women like it. It's very high handed of you to dismiss what clearly was their choice.

Well, since it's all social convention it should be changed. Ridiculous that women have the choice of having their name mucked about with, or losing it entirely just because they are calling themselves Mrs.

You're right though, it would be easier to just have no title at all, or all be Ms.

I did just pop over to Debretts to look at it, and I suppose it depends on the context, but it suggests for lists of Directors/Patrons (which to me feels closer to what this is than an invitation) you should ask the lady herself.. I wonder if they did, or if it was presented in a fait accompli style list of options?

Step forward someone who's been honoured - surely we must have someone, somewhere who knows!

Oh for goodness sake clearly some married women must have made a conscious decision they wanted their married name used. What a fuss about nothing.

I actually think in such a formal situation as this the oddity, to the point of not being polite, is that certain males get no courtesy title at all.

They are not pointing out the marital status of all the women, only those who are called Mrs. I would imagine that something like Ms Jane Jones, Mrs Smith has been used when the woman has kept her own name professionally but changed it socially.

Mr is not used for men who have no other title because Mr is the only option so it doesn't need pointing out. Women are called Mrs/Ms/Miss because there is more than one option.

It's even weirder - why do they torture the names of the married women - so it's first name, second name, Mrs Surname

Because, to be completely correct, you can't be Mrs Karen Smith, it's Mrs John Smith so to use a woman's first name, it would have to be Karen, Mrs Smith.

Obviously, it would be much simpler to just write a woman's whole name & leave out Mrs/Ms/Miss because they are not titles which have been earned like Dr or Professor. Perhaps they're worried about offending women who like Mrs. I think it just illustrates how much easier and more sensible it would be if women just all used Ms. No need to point out any title then.

I wondered that as wellchunky about married women's names.

It's even weirder - why do they torture the names of the married women - so it's first name, second name, Mrs Surname

When for the men it's just firstname secondname surname and for Ms it's Ms firstname secondname surname.

That is one strange convention that really looks odd as you read down the list.

I'm struggling to see what point you are trying to make.

Clearly every person who fell into one or more (or even all) of these categories (a) female (b) in academe (c) medically qualified or (d) already enobled had the choice of a courtesy title. By the example of Laura Bates clearly no one was forced to disclose her marital status.

If anything it's not very bright, male , commoners who should be complaining.

The inconsistency does look odd.

The fact that slightly over half of the honours were awarded to women but only 7 dames : 33 Knights shows how far we've got to go.

Ha hah it might be a bit gift horsish in the mouth for Laura Bates or Caroline Criado-Perez to raise this issue...

Women's titles don't always tell you if they are married.

I was unmarried and my name was Miss Almond Cakes.

Then I got married and I was still Miss Almond Cakes.

Well that was my point. The default for men is Mr. I'm more puzzled why it is omitted whilst everyone else gets one.

To me it just seems polite to give a courtesy title.

Where men have a professional name they are shown under their "proper" name then it is acknowledged that they are also known as their stage name - same for women who have a married name and a professional name, it's just there are more of them than the Elton john / reg Dwight examples

The use of all titles other than (the default) Mr is annoying though

They're not showing the marital status of the married women, just those who have changed their name. So if you look at Laura Bates, for example, who is married but didn't change her name, there is no indication of that.

I'm not defending it, by the way, just saying that where women are going by two different names (usually their professional name which is their given name, and their married name) they are showing both, with titles.