Mr Mrs Miss Ms ---Asking for your support

[PleaseCallMeMs]

"Ms" is a title that means "Miss or Mrs". It is the equivalent of "Mr", a title that can be used by any girl or lady that does not reveal anything about marital status. As some people put it, its short for "Mind your own businesS".

I have been trying for some time to get my bank to change my title from "Miss" to "Ms". When managing my account online, I cannot change my title directly. It defaults to "Miss" when I input my marital status as "with partner and children". I have emailed customer services a few times but got no reply. When I telephoned, the customer rep had to bring in "a specialist" to help out. They decided that I needed to take proof of my status to a branch to get my title changed!!!? When I asked what would be suitable proof that I'm a "Ms", they didn't know.

You may not think its a big deal, I'm not married and I should be happy with "Miss", but I really do find it offensive. I don't want to get married, but I'm in a committed relationship and I'm an older lady. I think its well within my rights to use the title of my preference and that our society should respect that. That's all I'm asking for. I agree it is only a little thing, but there is a deep issue here about the way we define women by their marital status. For example, a child will automatically know whether their female teachers are married or not, but won't have the same personal information to judge their male teachers. I believe that to create a truly equal society, it is important that we change the little things as well as the big things. Wouldn't it be better if, by default, when no information is known, a lady would be referred to as "Ms", instead of a guess being made about whether she is married or not? Those who wish to can, of course, use "Miss" or "Mrs". I'm not arguing that everyone should be forced to use "Ms". But those who want their marital status kept as their own business, should be able to do so.

There's been a few threads about "Ms" on Mumsnet in recent years. On one of them it was mentioned that someone should campaign about this. I thought I'd give it a go. So I've set up a twitter account in order to post about my experiences with the bank. I'd be glad if you would follow me, PleaseCallMeMs. I need a little momentum before I start to tweet to the bank's customer department. I'm hoping that if I get enough retweets, the bank will take notice! I'm new to twitter, so any advice will be gratefully received!!!

There is a male equiv to 'miss ' it's 'master'. But I understand your point

I generally just put the names without the title anyway.

So when does a Master become a Mr?

What about if your husband has died? DH passed away last year, but I still use Mrs, coz I didn't get un-married

Males:- Master, Mister or Esquire.

Though I quite like the idea of reviving "Esquire" on forms et cetera.

*BTB...Mr. & Esquire, should on no account be used at the same time.

E.g. Mr. J. Smith-correct. J Smith Esquire-correct. Mr J. Smith Esquire---wrong.

MC, I would have thought it was when they reach their majority 21 or now at 18 (voting ages?)

whoknowswherethetimegoes yes in my bank I would use your other cards as ID and if needed to get the BM to discretion the change of details.

sorry the reply is sooo late!

That's OK! I might try and get it done, it's long overdue. Unfortunately it's Lloyds and I have no idea where my nearest branch is since the one here changed to TSB.

E.g. Mr. J. Smith-correct. J Smith Esquire-correct. Mr J. Smith Esquire---wrong.

I have sent letters to J Smith, esq in the past (my parents always did). One friend had no idea what I was on about (the esquire bit; I did change J Smith to his own name, as that would have been excessively confusing.)

It is pretty archaic, though. I think you were meant to address letters to Mr J Smith if it's for trade, but J Smith esq for friends. (Because one wouldn't be friends with tradesmen, obviously.)

I think somebody needs to do a PhD on the many wacko ideas that seem to be common among the British about the title Ms.
Divorced?
Sullied?
Spinster?
Unmarried?
An insult?

How did all these misconceptions come about? And what do they say about how women see themselves and each other?

I have been Ms for many, many years - on everything.

An anecdote from 1985 when I was working in Customer Support and had to call a very difficult, (but valuable), customer. I introduced myself as FirstName Surname and he asked, " Is it Miss cricketpitch or Mrs cricketpitch?" I replied that it was First name cricketpitch. He insisted - "I prefer to use your correct title; is it Miss or Mrs?" I told him "Miss".

He said "Never mind dear, plenty of time, plenty of time. Now about my order..."

Mathanxiety I think you might have something there.

Single male- Mr
Married male- Mr
Divorced male- Mr
Widowed male- Mr
Any of the above who remarry- Mr.

Why do females have to run the gamut of nuances, pejorative assumptions, approbation or misconception based on their title? Males don't have to produce marriage certificates when they change their bank details, or update their passports. Why should women have to go through all the soul searching and admin palaver and agonising over what to call themselves, when men don't? Is that not very clearly sex discrimination?

Very interesting, that NYT article.

I'm quite pleased to hear that Ms is pronounced Mizz. I always thought it was Muhz.

It would be great if Ms were the accepted default. As an interim step, given that people have strong preferences for each of the alternatives, women could just use whichever they like best, regardless of marital status.

So I am getting divorced, but I still call myself Mrs Marriedname, because it's easier (and because I want the same name as my DCs).

For new stuff that insists on a title, I may well go for Ms now that I've read this, though.

In France, the Powers That Be have completely done away with 'Mademoiselle' as an official title. People still use it, but officially, all females of any age are 'Madame', just as all males are 'Monsieur'.

It'd be hard for English to follow suit though, maybe because Ms isn't short for an actual generic title for an adult woman. If it was, people might be less bothered by it maybe?

Actually Ms is the only generic title for an adult woman. Mrs and Miss are not generic - they are specific references to the marital status of girls and women.

It's just not short for anything as Mrs and Miss are.

Mrs, Miss, and Ms are all short for Mistress. Mrs was the standard abbreviation and used for married and unmarried women until sometime in the 17th century when Miss came into use for unmarried women. Ms is the attempt to come up with another abbreviation that does not signify marital status.

math, yes I had 'short for an actual word' in my original post but must have deleted it (Friday night syndrome)

That's what I mean in any case. Ms is construed as 'made up' whereas Mrs & Miss have a basis in history and are short for something. I was just saying that it's a shame we don't have an equivalent of 'Madame' which is used as a term of address for all women except the very young.

Gah, I mean 'term of address that has been applicable to all women whatever their marital status, for generations', unlike Ms.

I know what I mean!

Time I went to bed...

Mistress is the generic term in English. It's just that you have to go back 300-plus years for it.

For context, I am a 40 YO female in a long standing relationship with a male DP.

I don't see what point titles actually serve and would quite happily do away with them completely.

I would like to be addressed as Julie Jones* or Julie, but because I am usually forced to select a title, mostly on online forms, I am addressed as all three of Miss, Ms and Mrs Jones, none of which seem to be 'me'.

I have lately being defaulting to Ms Jones and have a perpetual argument with our office staff because they book things like car hire and hotels for us and appararently every one of these suppliers needs to know my marital status to provide me with these services.

And apparently Ms is incorrect because I am not divorced to be fair we are talking about public sector dinosaurs here.

Like many other PPs, this annoys me because it is an incovenience and difficultly that men do not have to deal with. And in most cases, whether the subject is male or female is also irrelevant, which makes titles even more unnecessary.

The situations where it is necessary to specify male or female must now be extremely small, now that it is illegal to use gender to set prices for life and car insurance, even when there is a demonstrable difference between male and female.

Gender is not even necessary to be displayed on bank cards, even though it would be a good security feature - with chip and pin, shop assistants don't see the cards.

If the card flashed up some simple detail about its owner to the shop assistant, it would greatly reduce the amount of fraud. If my card said that I was a 40 YO black female and a 20 YO white male tried to use my card, the shop assistant would know if was being used fraudulently and not allow the sale.

I would happily go with the Scandinavian way of doing things, where everyone addresses each other by their first names. I would be equally happy with either the European way of calling all adult women Mrs, regardless of marital status, or the US way of using Ms for all adult women.

Simply separting marital status from title for women, so that they are treated equally to men is all that I ask.

• Like other PPs my real name is not Julie Jones.

What are miss and mrs short for?

Mistress and mistress

Yanbu

I would prefer not to have a title and that as we are living in the 21st century, just call me by my name. My marital status is no ones business. Before I married people would assume I'm mrs because of my age, I would refuse to answer to it.
'Is mrs x there?' , no there is no one here by that name!
I think to get someone's name wrong is the height of rudeness and is offensive to the person.
As in 'You aren't important enough for me to remember your name!'
I might be ranting here but this would never arise with a bloke. No one assumes their marital status because there's no way of knowing it
I'll climb off my soapbox now!

The US is possibly more like Scandinavia in discarding titles altogether. As Scone says, many organisations address people as Dear Firstname Surname.

(Though apropos of nothing I will add that I rejoice in an Irish first name that is completely off the US radar, and sometimes those organisations that do insist on using titles in correspondence address me as Mr.)

I'm usually Ms (ironically, considering my username). This is because I am Sullied and the unmarried mother of an illegitimate child

I filled in a form the other day with the option of 'Mx' as title. I have no idea what this signifies or how it is pronounced. I selected it as it sounded intriguing. This was for a work related meeting and I have no idea what the organisers think this means.