To be angry HR made this (relatively minor) assumption?

[SpaceCadet4000]

My DH and I got married last August. I made the decision to keep my surname and continue to use the title Ms. I don't mind if other people choose to change their name, but I personally am uncomfortable with the historical and gendered connotations of name changing. This have never been an issue- I just select the Ms box when filling in forms, and I don't shout about it to other people.

However, I have recently started a new job. On my second day I went for my induction with HR where they collected details about my next of kin (mentioned it was my husband as they needed the relationship stated), whether I wanted a pension, my NI number etc. All fairly innocuous, and actually very little form filling on my part, and certainly no disclosure of my title.

As I joined close to payday I received my pay check late through the post- it's addressed to Mrs Space Cadet. This suggests that the HR advisor has clearly assumed I'm a Mrs based on our conversation.

It's minor, and I assume fairly quick to rectify, but I feel really angry that someone else has made this decision about me. I'm no special snowflake, but I'm dismayed that my identity has been so casually undermined. The office culture is fairly conservative, so I also feel like I'll be judged as an SJW for asking for it to be changed.

AIBU to just email them and ask for it to be changed?

[EBearhug]

I have flown out of Gatwick today. I had hold luggage, so had to check it in. You do it yourself these days (which was new to me.) There's a terminal where you scan your boarding pass, and it prints the labels. On the screen, it said Mrs Emma Bearhug*. That was odd - I have never ever filled our a form as Mrs. It printed the labels and the receipt with Ms (which is what I expected, as it's how I filled in the booking form.) It's a weird lack of consistency.

• Actually, I used the surname in my passport, which isn't Bearhug.

[MissSeventies]

OP I don't think you are being a 'special snowflake' you have chosen to use Ms as your title and that should be respected. I didn't change my name on marriage (my FIL stormed out of our house when I told him this in response to a comment "next time I see you it will be your last few minutes as MyName" he said there was no point in getting married, but that is another long story!) a few months later my driving license came up for renewal. I duly filled in the form, changing the title to Ms. The license was returned with 'Miss' on it.

[ElanoraHeights]

Yes, HarlotBronte - very well put.

[HarlotBronte]

Pity that you're making the assumption something can't be both an honest mistake and related to ingrained sexism. They're not mutually exclusive...

[Debsie123]

Perhaps because you didn't tell them anything different and you mentioned your Husband they did make the assumption that your title would be Mrs, which I think is a natural assumption as a majority of married women do take the Mrs title. It doesn't sound like you make it clear that you were a Ms? I'm sure if you email the HR Department and ask them to ensure payroll are aware they will do this for you. Pity that you are making assumptions yourself that there is ingrained sexism and that the HR Advisor was trying to undermine your identity when I'm sure it was just an honest mistake on their behalf.

[Floggingmolly]

True...

[HarlotBronte]

Yes, you'll see that I have been extremely careful during this thread not to say that other women should call themselves anything, or that anyone has the right to make that call for another adult. The problem I have is when people fetishise choice in itself and refuse to accept the implications their decisions have. We get a choice, we don't get one in a vacuum. People have every right to call themselves Mrs Husbandsname and not worry about what it does to me or any other woman, but what they don't get to do is silence others who mention the effects.

[Floggingmolly]

Fair enough. It's your choice versus a completely different choice though, and yours doesn't necessarily carry more weight. If it did there wouldn't be an issue in the first place.

[HarlotBronte]

Covered this several times, but I'll go again:

It doesn't prevent people using Ms, but it does prevent it being neutral. Some of us want a neutral default, with no connotations about marital status or views, like men get with Mr. Ms isn't that, as this thread shows. It's intended to be, but while there are so many women choosing a title to indicate their marital status, or even their old marital status in the case of divorced women still using Mrs, it doesn't.

Basically, if you want a title to signify something, you're reliant on enough other people playing along for it to signify what you want it to. Not enough people do that to make Ms the equivalent of Mr. If all women did as I do and called themselves Ms regardless of marital status, it would be. Ergo, other women are stopping me from having my choice. The same argument works with all titles. If all women started using Mrs at a certain age, it would stop meaning a married woman. If half of married women used Mrs and half of single women did, it wouldn't mean much a t all. Those of you who want to call yourselves Mrs to show you're married wouldn't have that option if other women didn't play along in sufficient number- you could call yourself Mrs, but it wouldn't have the assumed meaning you want it to mean. If everyone started using Professor, it would cease being a title indicating that someone's in the higher reaches of academia, and if it were suddenly adopted by everyone with no academic qualifications at all, it would start to mean something quite different to what it does now.

[Floggingmolly]

How does some people using Mrs. actually prevent anybody else using a neutral title? It prevents the neutral title being exclusively used, but so what?
Doesn't affect anybody else.

[HarlotBronte]

Several have actually Harlot! I'm "letting the side down" according to one poster, I'm preventing another from "having an ambiguous title" etc etc!

Sorry for the late reply tessabelle, but you're wrong to conflate these two things you mention. You and women who choose to use Mrs to denote marriage ARE part of what's preventing other women from having a neutral title. That's just a fact. Just as, if every unmarried woman started using Mrs too, they'd be preventing you from having a title denoting your marital status because it would stop meaning what you want it to mean. As discussed upthread, when you use a title to signify something, you're reliant on enough people playing along for it to work. The choices we all make about titles impact on the choices others can make. You can like this or you can lump it, but it won't make it any less true and it won't give you the right not to hear it.

But it doesn't follow that the person pointing this fact out to you thinks you're letting the side down. Some of us try to hate the game not the player.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

There is a post on here which includes the words "hussy""proud to be married" and "having children in wedlock". Has there been a rift in the space/time continuum?

You are on roll here Bertrand

[magratvonlipwig]

Ebearhug
I would say just as many if not more people don't like ms.
Neither are wrong.
But tradition lends us towards Mrs and it's easily fixed if you dont want that.

[Serenitymummy]

Oh, and to the person who has it too and is 'wound up every month when you receive your payslip' why not take 30 seconds to send an email/make a call to have it corrected?! Sheesh!!!!!

[ToucheShay]

Has the OP been back with an update?

[Serenitymummy]

Ah magratvonlipwig, thank you! I'm a payroll processor and have to say that when I'm punching in new starters details day in, day out, the safe assumption is Mrs if you know the employee is married as in this case, or Ms if it's unknown. You are definitely in the minority OP that you're married, haven't taken the title Mrs, AND are bothered by what is on your payslip. I can honestly say that in 12 years of doing this job I can count on one hand the number of people that have asked me to change their title. And they were all Mr instead of Ms or vice versa, and mostly noticed by a manager handing out payslips rather than the employee themself getting pissed about it.

Also, payroll won't care if you send them an email and ask them to amend it, that's a ten second job that they won't give a second thought to, so just do it!

[EBearhug]

magrat, why isn't Ms the default for any woman whose preference you don't know?

[magratvonlipwig]

I write this as someone who has worked on payroll.
Sometimes the software demands an answer , you have 200 people in your payroll, there's a deadline, and you think married ladies title is probably Mrs.
So you put it in and carry on.

It's not undermining your identity and most people I know would be happy to change it if you let them know your preference.

I think you're over reacting a bit.
It's probably no big deal to change it.

[lorelei9here]

Bertrand, the majority of this thread has made me wonder when we reverted back to 1916. thank you for phrasing your posts so well.

[BertrandRussell]

There is a post on here which includes the words "hussy""proud to be married" and "having children in wedlock". Has there been a rift in the space/time continuum?

[lorelei9here]

Thanks Touché
I found that one too depressing to tackle after I looked at the first few replies. Big up to Bertrand I say!

[TakeItFromMe]

Wow. I hope you never have a REAL issue to worry about

[AgentPineapple]

Ingrained sexism, utter nonsense. You have become insulted and aggravated by something that most people choose to do.

[ToucheShay]

Bertrand, you're needed....

I thinks she's busy fighting the cause on another thread (about a nursery rhyme fgs)

[AgentPineapple]

YANBU to ask them to change it, however as you say you didn't specify your title and you told them you were married so they ANBU to assume your title is Mrs.

Think you have over reacted to a simple and easy to fix mistake.

I was married 18 months ago, I did change my name as it has no connotations for me, but on a lot of things I am still Miss and then my new surname. I have never felt the need to correct it, it's just not a big deal...