To return this cheque?

[MAFIL]

I've received a cheque today from an organisation that I have been embroiled in a legal dispute with for some time. They have finally admitted their fault and compensated me. All good, except the cheque is payable to Mrs MAFIL and, unsurprisingly, given its my name, my bank account is in the name of Dr MAFIL. Now I expect my bank will probably accept it, given it has the correct first name and surname on, but this has really pissed me off. I have been communicating with these people for over a year and on every occasion I have referred to myself as Dr. Nor do I ever recall disclosing my marital status as it is wholly irrelevant to the matter in hand. (I am married as it happens but my husband has a different surname.) The casual sexism really annoys me. As a middle aged woman it is assumed I must be married? And I am not entitled to the courtesy of my professional title?
I am tempted to return the cheque and insist on a new one being issued. But on the other hand, it has been such a battle to get to this point, half of me wants to just bank the money and forget about it. Given their general ineptitude to date, who knows when the new cheque will arrive.
WWYD? Send it back? Shrug it off and bank the cheque? Only complain if the cheque is refused by the bank? Bank it but send a letter complaining? Something else?

OP - they got your first name right, they got your second name right, therefore they got your name right.

Someone made a mistake with your title, do you think this was a deliberate sleight of hand intended to irritate you beyond reason or the new boy in accounts who is still learning? Maybe, someone thought you were not an ordinary lowly doctor, maybe they thought you were a surgeon and promoted you to Mrs.

Cash your cheque, you could be a long time waiting for a replacement. In a couple weeks, when the money is resting securely in your account, you can spend some energy sending them a stinker of a letter. And perhaps we should be getting all companies to address all of us as Mr. or Ms. and drop Mrs. and Miss entirely.

@DameFanny, you do have a point Fanny, by the way, how did you get your own title? Did you inherit it from Mama or Papa, did you get it from HRH or did you buy it from t'Internet?

I think we should drop titles altogether. I can't think of a time when it's necessary to know whether someone's a man or woman.

And are you sure you only use Dr because it's a sex-neutral option? There's not even a little bit of you that uses it because you think it will get you additional respect and better treatment?

People with a title shouldn't be given more respect or better treatment (and yes, I know this wasn't in the original post). A person could have Dr, Professor, Sir, Dame or HR bloody H, I wouldn't treat them any differently to the next person and if they tried to "trade" on it, they would get zero respect.

@PhilCornwall1 you're right, of course, but given OP's hang ups she definitely thinks it makes her sound superior

@GiveHerHellFromUs I couldn't possibly comment on that

DR Just Bank the check and count your blessings.
It will clear if that’s what you are worried about .

Aren't you a pair @GiveHerHellFromUs and @PhilCornwall1

I'd hate to live in your world where everyone's only doing anything to score points and put on airs

Try acting in good faith sometime - you might be pleasantly surprised

I fail to see any indication the op considers herself superior. I've just checked. She's concerned with sexism.

I'd only ever boast/swank about being a Dr if I was dressed up as Dr.Strange

@DameFanny I'd hate for you to live in my world too.

Fgs. Move on

YANBU, but you've already won by getting the compensation. Enjoy and move on.

This would piss me off too, but I think I'd probably bank the cheque myself on this occasion and wish them bad karma. If you return it, they'll no doubt fuss over it for an extraordinarily long time and make another spelling "mistake" on the next cheque.

This kind of stuff drives me mad. Chatting to someone local one day and he casually asked me "so... are you a housewife then?" I am not normally one to boast about my position in life, but he pissed me off so much by the presumption that I couldn't help but reply "no, I actually run my own [professional] practice in London". I did have to bite my tongue from saying "and I actually earn more than my DP" because I didn't want to sound too bitter!

Cash the check unless it's for £4.
You just photo em now so you can send original back.

I hate titles too. It’s time to drop them.

Using a work related title such as Doctor or Doctor (the other type) or Sargent or a Reverend or whatever should be dropped too as should inherited titles such as lord or Prince or whatever.

Miss and Mrs are really bad and I hate using them.

BTW we have a few doctors in our family (both types) and no one uses them outside of work. I’m know they are all understandably proud of being Doctors but don’t feel the need to tell random people.

FFS

You sound hard work - bank it and move on. If you've already spent "quite some time" in your words on it then it's not going to be an easy fix on their part. How do you have that much time on your hands to want to extend the process?

Get a grip

Grow up

@DameFanny I act in good faith by assuming people don't use the wrong title as a personal slight because of my feminine forename

Having slogged for years to get my qualifications and title I get very irritated when people who know better make me a Mrs. I understand where you are coming from!

But..... if you return it then you run the risk of waiting weeks or months for your cash, so in this case i’d Cash the thing. You know they are inept so this is just another example of crap ness.

I get it OP and would be annoyed too. If they're not going to use the correct title - which must be known to them - they should use Ms or no title at all. I'd cash the cheque then write to them.

Also disgusted at the abuse you're getting and the happy acceptance of everyday sexism here.

Honestly you are just being silly. If it’s taken this long to get a cheque why start messing around again just because they called you Mrs. I am a Miss, the number of tines I am called Mrs, I don’t care. And I wouldn’t care in your position either as long as I had the cheque. Get over yourself

Sounds like a lot of people are jealous of the Dr title...