AIBU to get annoyed when asked my marital status when leaving a message?

[peanutbutterandbanana]

GGGRRRR - I used to get this in the last century... you make a call and the person answering needs you to leave a message, so you give your details and they say 'Miss or Mrs?'. My marital status is unnecessary and a man would certainly not be asked to confirm his personal home setup.

I've just called someone who runs an employment agency and I know her quite well. She's a one-woman-band so obviously uses one of these answering services, so I had to spend ages spelling my name out, detailing whether I was an individual or a company and then asked 'is it Miss or Mrs?', "Irrelevant," I said.

But my blood is now boiling. I cannot believe that we are well into the 21st Century and this question is still being asked when it is absolutely not relevant to this call or to my potential employment or to anyone else, in fact, apart from me and my OH/DP/DH. AIBU?

I like being a Mrs as it's part of my name, nothing to do with being married.

In a way this makes sense to me and in a way I am

Because being a Mrs and being married is inextricably linked. Calling yourself Mrs if you not married (or divorced), you'd be considered something of a mad fantasist!

Another problematic female stereotype, that relies on the idea that women aspire to marriage in a way that men do not.

Now I am considering whether this would be a problem or cause confusion. My sense is that it would, but not sure why. Women's marital status does seem to be more important than men's, to the point that I feel there is some sort of obligation to represent it honestly - not socially, but when entering contracts I suppose

The whole thing is ridiculous and should be done away with.

okay - I'm changed my name....

If I set one up will you all support it please?

Yes!!!!!

Waves to the Dames and Wing Commanders. I'm trying to pluck up the courage to use Countess, the next time I have to give a title.

Online forms etc are annoying - they make titles compulsory and sometimes don't even give you the option to use Ms .

Rooty, do HSBC not allow you to be Ms? I have a Barclaycard that just has my initials and surname, but all my other cards, issued by First Direct and Halifax say Miss - I usually state Ms on online forms but haven't always in the past.

I've

But a father and son with same initials would of been a deliberate thing surely ? And until an adult the son would be addressed as master not mr.

They've done online petitions on this issue before and there hasn't been much support unfortunately - I remember looking into it last time I saw this issue discussed on here.

Ilkley HSBC quite properly allows you to be Initial Surname or Name Surname on your card, regardless of your gender.

But on adding DH to my bank account after our marriage (necessarily, he is American and had no UK credit history, so it was by far the most straightforward option) I was astonished to receive - unsolicited - a new bank card for Mrs R Pig (I have not changed my name, so our joint account has two surnames on it). I rang them and crossly explained that though married I was not a Mrs and would need a new bank card - at which point I was sent one that said Miss R Pig. So I rang again and finally made myself understood that I would like a bank card that said either R Pig or Rooty Pig. Which is what I had bloody started with

And, rootypig, men just do not have to go through all this hassle, something which some up-posters do not have a problem with ....

This is a difficult one for me. I understand that there is only one form of address for men and the feminist in me wants to complain about it. Other parts of me give not one fuck if people know if I'm married or not after all what difference does it make?

It's part of your full name.

What a silly statement. Even if your title is part of your full name (debatable) it's not a binary Mrs/Miss choice.

If someone must know your title, the correct question is 'what title do you prefer?'

I prefer Her Excellency, to be honest.

I feel really sorry for all the poor people just trying to take down details for a computer system (which sometimes will need it to dictate the right pronoun in standard letters, ie, he/she) who obviously just can't win because if they choose whatever Ms/Mrs/Miss they like there will always be someone who then contacts them to complain at length about the "error".

How about we take a leaf out of Granny Weatherwax's book (Terry Pratchett for the uninitiated) and all revert to Mistress, which is what all these abbreviations are referring to...

You have changed your nn!
I love it!
It suits you

No men do NOT have this hassle and it makes me so cross. Mr (ha) HSBC on the phone simply could not understand that I was not a Mrs. "But you are married!" Yes. "So you are a Mrs!" NO.

Piper is doesn't matter to you because it doesn't affect the way you see yourself. But it does affect the way women are seen by people who don't know them. Try it in your head. Imagine not knowing whether women you know in a non personal capacity (eg colleagues, your accountant, DC teachers, whatever) are married or not, just as we accept for men. It is different.

"Leaving no title at all for correspondence in our house would cause problems as DP and I have same initials and the same when I was living at my parents as my mum dad and I all had the same initial." --> I assume you don't have the same first name too?

Err no but correspondence doesn't usually come with your whole first name.... Just initial.

I always say 'either'.

Still surprises people - I would have thought they were used to flippant responses by now.

But correspondence CAN come with a first name - in this brave new world we are talking about, where people are distinguished by their names and not by a title that supervenes on marital status.

You already have the name see, so most of the work is done

Totally agree in principle, but the people in positions of asking these daft questions are often unlikely to have much interest in equality issues.

Also, don't underestimate the rage of a married woman of a certain age who is not adressed as Mrs. I saw a woman in tears of anger once because she had been called Ms on a letter.

'but I'm a Mrs!' she cried, as if Ms was the worst insult available to womanhood.

I think we have so much evolving still to do. Loads of people still think Mrs automatically confers respect. I use it myself, not because I think everybody is married, but because the offence taken at Ms-ing a Mrs is much more than the other way round.

Ms is never the wrong title for a woman, because it denotes that you are a woman. You may prefer the traditional 'mrs' to denote that you are married, but 'ms' doesn't denote that you are or not, so it cannot be wrong because it makes no assumptions which may turn out to be wrong.

As it is my OH/DH/DP is also a P. Butter. So if correspondence comes for P. Butter then one of us may open it and find that it is for the other, but it happens so rarely as usually people put our full first names or use the Mr/Ms/Mrs/Miss/Dame option (just look how many options I have!) and we trust each other enough not to nose through each other's mail. TBH he leaves most things for me to open, even if they are obviously from his DM.

So..... that is just not a reason to still have several titles for women and only one for men. I just told my OH about the driving licence thing to illustrate everyday sexism (his education continues) and he said 'yes, that does seem inconsistent'. If petitions don't work I shall write to whoever in govt is responsible for DVLC - is that Dept of Transport? And I shall write to their opposite number on the Labour bench.

No men do NOT have this hassle and it makes me so cross. Mr (ha) HSBC on the phone simply could not understand that I was not a Mrs. "But you are married!" Yes. "So you are a Mrs!" NO

I had a similar conversation with one of the admin staff at work about booking me a hire car:

Her: You aren't married, are you Ilkley?
Me: No, why?
Her: It was for the hire car booking
Me: Er, why do the hire car people need to know if I am married?
Her: So I can put Miss/Mrs/Ms on the online booking form as the driver's name.
Me: That's not the same question and anyway, you call yourself Mrs ExDH surname and you're divorced from him. Just put Ms please.

I can't believe that people actually care about this. They don't care if you're married or not. It wouldn't cross my mind to be annoyed.

YABU.

This really pees me off. I have had my bank card changed recently as it had Mrs 123rd. Now it's just 123rd
I never call myself Mrs. I am First name second name. Never make a reservation with a title.
The only difference/purpose it would serve is how some one would address me. And as long as they are polite and professional first name terms is fine

This is why Ms was invented. The more we use it the less this will happen.

rootypig the thing is I don't care how other people see me either. If they want to cast aspersions just because they know that I'm married/unmarried it actually doesn't bother me.

Osirus, if the person taking the message didn't care then why didn't she just take my name and pass the blinking message on? She asked for my name - Peanut Butter - and then asked if I was married by asking if I was Miss or Mrs. No option of 'Ms' was given. The person I was calling wouldn't have cared two hoots. A man would not have been asked 'married' or 'unmarried'?

Employment Laws are quite tough against sexism and I was calling an employment agency. Some employers don't want to take on unmarried women (they might have babies and maternity leave in the future for goodness sakes) so this kind of question is a subtle way of weeding out the marrieds from the unmarrieds. This kind of question should NOT BE ASKED of women in a potential employment situation. My husband recently went for a job interview and was not asked about his family situation either by the agency or by the hirer. If I had given my Miss or Mrs status to this silly person on the end of the phone I would have already given away something about my private status. It should not be allowed. Men and women should be treated equally.