to not want a 'title'

[GirlWithTheMouseyHair]

I'm married but hate it on forms or anything really (especially professionally) where I have to state a title. I don't like the way I'm judged and perceived when I say Mrs (misogynistic industry and I'm quite young) but I'm not a Miss and again feel judged and decide upon when I put Ms.

Does anyone else get like this? Why can't the title field be optional?

Sorry this isn't a more interesting thread than the title suggests - I ought to be contemplating a damehood really!

People used to judge but I really don't think that they do now.

Every female teacher at my dds school has different title (Ms, Miss, Mrs) and - other than the fact that no-one can remember who uses which - I don't think anyone thinks anything of it.

Also, nowdays, very few people use titles in work. Only teachers really....

I'm a Ms but don't feel old enough to be addressed as Ms x. This has only happened twice and it felt odd - Christian names only, usually.

YANBU -- titles are redundant in 90% of situations.

Ms should work as a neutral equivalent to Ms, but it is well documented on MN that it provokes all kinds of weird reactions that are not associated with Mr.

My MIL does judge, she told me. That was a nice moment.
(I don't care though.)

yup....as I said, just musing really. Also, you can only speak from experience of being judged so great if you've not been because of what title you choose to use, in which case in YOUR life IABU

it's only a bloody thread!

and goes to show people's opinions differ, mardybra I'm not bothered about being called a girl or woman so maybe I'm entirely contradicting myself anyway. Or maybe I'll spend more useless hours of my life contrsuting a petition to make it an optional question. Or fight for Ms to be the only field.

Maybe not, there are bigger issues...

you're missing the point. OP says, quote: "and again feel judged and decide upon when I put Ms."
Ignoring the fact that this doesn't actually make sense, I am saying that nobody cares in her job if she calls herself ms.
Do any of you sit around your workplaces pondering why women are mrs or ms and what this say about them. Does anyone? No, because nobody cares.

Not really a difficult concept to grasp is it?

I think you should use Madamoiselle

Prunnhilda

I have never heard of it used as an old fashioned way of looking down on a divorced woman?

Apparently it's been used for years - just did some googling.

I

Sorry - I meant to say where did you hear that pru?

Select "Other" and when asked for specifics put Lady.
Then let 'em prove otherwise

it does matter if it makes you feel belittled when you're asked "are you married or not then"

I don't sit around pondering it, but have been in the situation applying for jobs or bursaries to be asked about it either openly or in a snide manner. The job that I do it is generally not considered as committed to your career if you've dared to marry (or I should say it goes against the "free loving" grain) and it is called into question if you are referred to as Ms

so, based on personal experience, I do care and so do others who I know

I read it on MN, I think.

I do think though it's hilarious that if it doesn't matter so much, why buzzlitebeer you're wasting your precious time in asnwering and trying to make me sound stupid? You sound like you care a hell of a lot more about it than I do

P, there were many such attitudes expressed on the 'proud of being a wife thread'. It doesn't matter if those views have no historical basis -- there's no doubt that Ms has baggage that Mr doesn't.

Certainly Wikipedia seems not to document any arsiness about women who use Ms. Good. Maybe it's just a few twits and my MIL, then.

me too P

I totally agree with the baggage element

Buzz I work in a male dominated environment and older men can get quite agitated if they receive correspondence from women that doesn't include a title in it as they seem to find it unsettling not knowing how to address them. Despite explaining that it's really irrelevant and to follow the lead of the woman and just address them by their first name, the concept is beyond them.

I think it's naturally dying out but there still are assumptions made about your choice of title. Personally I'd drop Mr for men too.

Don't look, Prunnhilda. [Thousand yard stare]

I agree, OP - I use Ms. but I'd rather use no title at all. Aren't there some religious groups that eschew titles? Maybe the Quakers or something? :)

really? didn't know that...but i like it

i've always worked in environments where it was easy to not know much about the people you're working with e.g.short term project based, fast moving environment

i'd always thought it the norm that it was professional to use Mr for men and Ms for women, but i do remember one meeting where a woman corrected someone addressing her in the room ("actually it's Mrs X") and it was hideously silent - utterly irrelevant whether she was married, unmarried, a divorcee, a bigamist, whatever - yet she brought this personal information into a board meeting room at a totally inappropriate time

i posted about it on MN because i found it so jarring (more specifically because the woman was only about early to mid 30s? so not that old) and i had a wave of people saying "so what? i've never heard of anyone using Ms here" or "i wouldn't use Ms to address you even if you asked" that I was

just goes to show that each person's view of what's "normal" is massively skewed by your own environment, even if it's not that different on the surface (in my case, a legal office environment but not in the legal industry - don't want to say more as i suspec ti've been outed on here and this would confirm it)

for the reference, i've been a Ms since about 12 or 13 and mum couldn't explain why she told the milkman she was married whilst my dad didn't. my mum's quite traditional, it never rubbed off.

I seem to remember reading that some regulation was introduced into the European Assembly making it compulsory to address the female MEPs by their first name thus avoiding all titles.

Made them sound a bit precious IME

My boss is a chauvanistic bastard and refuses to use "Ms" (even when Ms X is paying a ridiculous amount of money to discuss matters with him) and calls every woman over 20 Mrs. Long live Ms...

wow silentnight

Am I completely wrong in thinking in France you become Madame when you're 'older'....or is it when you're married?

I wonder why people get so uptight about names and titles. It's like some people have a set idea of what people should do and if they don't, they ascribe all sorts of ideas to them. But it comes out as though they slightly just cannot cope with the difference in something that after all is kind of unimportant except to the bearer of the name/title. Society will not fall apart because someone wants to be a Ms and another woman wants to be Mrs. What is it that engenders such strong feeling about other people's choice?