Is so hard to address a woman as ‘Ms’?!

[skwish]

I’m married, but have kept my maiden name. Eldest DC has ex-P’s surname, younger ones have DH’s. Recently moved to country from big city (south of England do not exactly the Moon). DCs’ primary school staff INSIST on either calling me Mrs DH or Miss Skwish (having taken some time to stop addressing me as Mrs Ex-P). Despite many reminders, they just will not address me as Ms Skwish, which as a grown woman in her 40s, I expect to have used as default. Now seem to gravitate towards Miss Skwish which I find infantilising and offensive, as well as inaccurate.

Quietly fume every time this happens, and have now been tipped over the edge by DC1’s new secondary school, who have just addressed me as Mrs Ex-P in a reply to an email, from me , despite me signing as Firstname Skwish.

Is Ms just a city thing? Have I gone into some weird time warp? Surely Ms is normal and polite and default everywhere? AIBU?

Geez, the patriarchy’s done quite the number on us. “Proud” to be Mrs? Christ on a bike.

I am Ms Baker. I have been Ms since 16, when I felt I was old enough to stop using Miss. I was Ms when single and married.

My marital status isn’t relevant to tradespeople, companies trying to flog me stuff. I love DH to bits, but why be proud of “Mrs” like it’s some achievement everyone must be informed of?

If no one needs to know marital status of men at every introduction, they don’t need to know mine.

And I use Ms for all women until told otherwise because again, who am I to assume for them. YANBU, OP.

@LemonRoses

Oceanbliss I don’t actually disagree. Of course women shouldn’t feel they must remain in an abusive relationship. I don’t think I ever suggested anything of the sort. I merely pointed out that recognition of good marriages was necessarily a bad thing.

I don’t think it’s shaming to be cognisant of facts.

Away with your derailing and your condemning nonsense about single parents.

Geez, the patriarchy’s done quite the number on us. “Proud” to be Mrs? Christ on a bike.

Yep. Why would you be "proud" of being married?

I'm not opposed to marriage: its in many cases a very sensible way of organising your financial lives. But why be proud of it? That's a bit like saying you're proud of having a mortgage and insisting that you take a special prefix to let people know you're a homeowner.

Honorific titles aren’t legal abbreviations they’re just used out of courtesy.

I’ve never heard anyone addressed as Ms, only in written form.

It’s meaningless surely as it isn’t an actual abbreviation of anything.

But feminists have taken it up to ‘hide’ their marital status, which is fair enough if a woman is ashamed of being unmarried, or even of being married!, or just doesn’t want anyone to know either way.

It’s just unnecessarily complicating things though. The thought of having to inform my kids school and all other organisations that I’d only like to be addressed as Ms, or that I prefer this pronoun or that pronoun, or that you must use the term ‘woman’ in any communication with me in case I identify as a lamppost or a wheelie bin instead, it’s just too much.

Traditional honorifics are one of the last few remaining common courtesies. I’d like to see them kept.

Honestly, they have enough to worry about.

I think this is it - in the context of schools, anyway. Schools are the last bastion of formality: nowhere else do we use titles routinely. It’s maintained, I’m sure, to set an example to the children; they and we are expected to call their teachers “Mr Smith” and “Mrs Brown”. It’s then not seen as polite to expect me to call someone “Mrs Brown” while she refers to me as “DD’s mummy” - hence she will call me “Mrs Cross” in return. This also has the huge advantage that the teacher doesn’t have to learn the names of 50 parents as well as 25 kids every year! But I’m sure that sometimes they just can’t remember. I must admit that I struggle, even with some friends - precisely because everyone uses first names routinely. So my school mum friend is Jackie and I know her surname is Jones. I know her son is Sam and her partner is Phil - but unless I know her really well, I maybe don’t know Phil’s surname or what surname Sam has. But because life isn’t formal, it doesn’t matter. If I’m introducing them to others, I’ll say “Meet Jackie and Phil”. It’s only in a school context that it’s highlighted. And I’m sure that, in the vast majority of cases, if they call you the wrong name it’s because they can’t remember, rather than to make a point.

It’s meaningless surely as it isn’t an actual abbreviation of anything.

😂

In lieu of you actually reading the thread before generously bestowing your pearls of wisdom, I’ll help you out. Ms is an abbreviation and derivation of exactly the same word that Mrs and Miss are.

I wonder why men don’t get accused of trying to ‘hide’ their marital status? Or of being ‘ashamed’ of it?

Agree with everything that stuckinatrap wrote. For this reason I decided at 12 that I would never get married, and at 14 I decided to be a Ms.

I’m 47 now and I can’t say I’ve had any reason to regret or change either decision.

Ms is definitely common among my unmarried friends or those who chose not to change their surname when they married.

I love being a Ms - it feels like equality with Mr.

It's only unnecessarily complicated because women choose to use a variety of titles or change them on marriage . If we all just used Ms from about age 16 it would be completely straightforward. As it is for men.

Miss - Unmarried
Mrs - Married
Ms - Usually for young adults

@BalancedIndividual

Miss - Unmarried Mrs - Married Ms - Usually for young adults

What rubbish. I’ve been Ms since the 1970s and never Mrs in or out of my two marriages.

The majority of female teachers in the Dcs secondary schools were 'Ms' and none of the students had any issue with saying it, whatsoever.

I have been Ms since I was 14 and declined to ever, ever, have my partnership status as part of my title, and will stay Ms until I become 'The Late...'

I never assume that it means anything other than 'title for a female person'. IMO it is as outdated to assume it means divorcee etc as it is to make a song and dance about it in any way.

An uneducated POV is one that makes sweeping generalisations to suits one's own agenda. I am well aware of the statistics on single parenthood, for example the Joseph Rowntree foundation provides these and advocates for single parents. However, in choosing to ignore very positive outcomes for children of single parent families, you are ignoring their reality.

I think correlating hedonism with single parenthood evidences your daily mail thinking and flawed arguments.

It simply is not true that marriage directly equates to good outcomes. I see poor outcomes daily, partly perhaps (although I am not them, simply making an observation) because some couples feel regardless of the dynamics in their relationship that as long as marriage persists they can appear well functioning.

Anyway, perhaps Miss, Ms, Mrs will be 'breed out' with younger generations adopting gender neutral pronouns? Also, as woman become more and more independent, perhaps less and less adopt male surname (-less old wifeys who rely on husbands to provide and drive them around-!)

I used to run a gym and whenever we signed up a new female member I never asked for their title, I simply recorded them as Ms as we recorded all men as Mr. It seems simple to me. Why not just one title for women and one for men. Why should we have to 'advertise' our marital status?

In fact, I don't know why we need titles at all! At the gym we just used to refer to everyone by their actual name. I only added the title to their membership record because the system wouldn't let me proceed without doing so. Perhaps we need to change the systems!

@EventuallyDeleted

It's only unnecessarily complicated because women choose to use a variety of titles or change them on marriage . If we all just used Ms from about age 16 it would be completely straightforward. As it is for men.

Why does Ms have to the default though if we do go down that line, which I agree could be useful.

Maybe we use Miss for girls, alongside Master for boys.
Then Mrs for adult women, Mr for adult men.

If we want a distinction that Mrs is a more distinct sound than Ms is from Miss - in some accents they sound very similar.

less old wifeys who rely on husbands to provide and drive them around-!

What a very nasty bit of ageism and misogyny.

I don't mind whether it's Ms or Mrs, so long as it is used by default for all adult women.

it depends if you are talking about written down, or spoken. Written down there is no excuse, but spoken Ms sounds really awkward, so I am Ms Dietrich, but I am called Miss at school when addressed verbally.

Miss and Mrs are the non-default titles that should only be used when requested. You definitely may have entered a time portal.

Written down there is no excuse, but spoken Ms sounds really awkward,

I’m still baffled by this. Are his and fizz awkward too?

Personally I hate being addressed as Ms......I don't actually mind if someone calls me Miss or Mrs (have never been married), but Ms just hacks me off. If I am feeling particularly narky I will correct them and ask them to call me Dr.

That being said, the school should have a database with your details on and correct form of address and should be using it - in writing at least. When it comes to conversation, it can be more difficult to remember with teh number of families they work with so I would cut them some slack about the title, but not about the wrong surname.

I am Ms Away. I kept my surname after I got married and dd took my surname. It's funny how her dad never gets Mr Away in the same way mums with different surnames to their kids do get called Mrs ChildSurname. Mrs makes my skin crawl; I am so much more than my martial status.

@thepeopleversuswork

Geez, the patriarchy’s done quite the number on us. “Proud” to be Mrs? Christ on a bike.

Yep. Why would you be "proud" of being married?

I'm not opposed to marriage: its in many cases a very sensible way of organising your financial lives. But why be proud of it? That's a bit like saying you're proud of having a mortgage and insisting that you take a special prefix to let people know you're a homeowner.

I’m surprised there isn’t more of a push for this in some quarters tbh. I think lots of people (perhaps because they’ve achieved very little else in life) who are ‘proud to be a mrs’ would jump at the chance to have their status as home owners reflected in their honorific. If you could also bring in something that reflected being in possession of a man, a house and an ideal BMI as well, then they’d probably orgasm to death.

@CheesecakeAddict

I am Ms Away. I kept my surname after I got married and dd took my surname. It's funny how her dad never gets Mr Away in the same way mums with different surnames to their kids do get called Mrs ChildSurname. Mrs makes my skin crawl; I am so much more than my martial status.

But a lot of men do - my bloke’s spent 20 odd years going along with being Mr Detective because it’s easier than correcting it.

@vinylDetective ... it was purely sarcastic way of displaying misogyny, which this thread speaks to