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?

What she said ^

Am now wondering if there are any teachers in schools who call themselves Ms. I have only ever come across Miss Teacher or Mrs Teacher. Does the teaching profession have a view on this?

I literally could not give one shiny shit and I bet the person on the end of the phone cares even less than that.

And for what it's worth I am a teacher. I am married and use Mrs outside of work but am Miss and my maiden name at work. My marital status is irrelevant because no one actually cares.

damepb - in my experience, very few Mses in schools. I find this a bit sad but I guess female teachers sometimes find it easier to go with convention.

However, the preponderance of the appalling system in which all the male teachers are Sir and the females are Miss actually tends to mean that the pupils aren't sure what the women teachers use as their title anyway, and when they need to refer to them by name tend to use some hybrid of Ms and Miss anyway (think Mizz, trailing off into uncertainty about whether there's a final syllable, rather than Muz)! When they're not saying things like 'that other Miss told me to bring it in to you' etc.

Surely the obvious answer is for the person taking the message to ask everyone, 'What title would you like me to use?' - wouldn't that be the most equal way to deal with this?

My choice of title is Mrs - I don't want to be called Ms, but IMO, I can't insist on having my choice of title unless it is equally important that everyone else gets their choice of title and that no-one feels irritated or unequally treated because of their choice of title or choice to use no title.

AFAIk all the female teachers at the DDs school (big massive place) are either Mrs or Miss - a quick scan down the staff contact list doesn't show any Ms. But pretty much all female staff are called "Miss" to their faces by the pupils (male teachers get Sir) despite them being Mrs Smith or Mrs Jones. So I get DD coming home with long complicated tales of "Miss said this, so I went and spoke to sir, who sent me to (different miss) who found (other) sir and sorted it out. And you need to email miss and confirm", and I'm left floundering as to what teacher I need to email .

A couple do refuse to be called Miss as a generic and insist on full (Mrs X) names, but they're the minority, and tend to be older.

And until an adult the son would be addressed as master not mr.

Well quite Susie, yet a woman didn't graduate to "mrs" until she a man married her.

Ditto raised by misogynist to see Ms as cat-lesbian-feminist-harpy.

One of the reasons I'm keen to use it. Reclaiming it for DD as it's still the only neutral term available.

Having been exposed long term to an attitude of casual sexism and misogyny, it's a much bigger deal for me than it might be had I been raised in a more positive and enlightened environment. I agree that little things can matter - thin end of the wedge and all that. That point about the employment law considerations being a very good example.

Horrified at the DVLA usage. Didn't believe it could be true and went to check! Will happily sign a petition.

Piper these perceptions affect really HUGE things. Whether you're given a job. How seriously a doctor takes your symptoms.

It is nothing and everything all at once. Women are still not taken seriously in any number of ways and though you're absolutely entitled not to care or to want things to change, it's not an argument that gives me pause.

Vivacia. That's why I said it was an outdated old fashioned system. As a woman was often married off as soon as she ' became of age' so changed to mrs. This thankfully isn't the case anymore.

So why do you think the OP is BU to object to being labelled by her marital status?

Tobeabat No, that is true - but insofar as you might ever need a title that denotes gender, at least Ms doesn't make any other assumptions.

SusieDaisy no form should ever ask for a Christian name. That's as ancient as Mrs/Miss. And just as piss-boiling to some people.

Try forename.

My absolute corker enquiry into my marital status, a while back, was a bloke doing a delivery for Mr Inferior. I said I'd sign for it. Are you his partner, Bloke asks. Yes, I say (because I am). I sign. Bloke gets irate because I have a different surname....and went off knuckle-draggingly alleging that "he thought we were married" and thus presumably I would be Mrs Hisname. I looked passive-aggressively bemused at his various logical leaps.

If anyone asks me for my Christian name (they haven't, in decades) I point out mine isn't a Christian name it's a Hindu name. (I'm not a Hindu, but it's a Hindu name.) This annoys people.

I really ought to get out more.

Poster who pointed out the issue re this being an employment agency question is spot on - what assumptions are they making about childcare/pin money etc?

I've had the 'Dr' thing too - they still want to know if I've snared someone.

I've used 'Ms' for as long as I can remember when I have to make choice, but do check that it isn't just being put down as 'Miss' anyway. I also like to call other women 'Ms' in letters etc if a title is needed (teachers and the like) as it pisses me off royally when they emphasise their Miss/Mrs status . . . headteacher who puts Mrs First Name, Second Name on EVERY letter is infuriating. I know who you are, I have had children at your school for hundreds of years, I don't care that you were married once.

Well done OP, for raising this - it does matter.

So - I'm petty, I'm getting bothered about something that some other women don't care about, and I'm a feminist.

I'm happy with all of that.

mother how hilariously ridiculous! You would still be perfectly entitled to use your maiden name, even if you were married.

Exactly. I asked him what difference it would make if we had been married, in manner of someone who had never heard of this weird name-changing custom.

Being a Mrs doesn't necessarily denote marital status. I am a Mrs. I am a widow. My late DH's 1st wife has not remarried and she is a Mrs too. We haven't changed our titles because we can't be arsed. I do like Dame though!

Loving the Hindu name too (and wishing there was another way of putting maiden name - or is there one and I didn't know?)

Because I don't see it as a martial status so much as just a way to address someone.
I am divorced but have kept mrs and my married name mainly because I have dc and want to have the same name as them and also I can't be arsed to change all the paperwork but I am not married.
To me it's not giving private details of my relationship/sexlife status or my availability to men but just an old fashion outdated obsession within British class system to pigeon hole people in general. Right from the Middle Ages people have been labelled according to their wealth and social status, titles were invented to give people powers rights privileges and to put them in their place so everyone knew where they stood.

I simply don't understand how someone can get married possibly in a church buy into the whole bandwagon of a white dress, father walking you up the aisle, become mrs somebody, take the husbands name and give it to their kids but then get arsey when they have to use that title to register /identify themselves with another person or company.

Just my opinion