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?

I absolutley hate it when I get referred to as Ms - I'm not a spinster!

Well, that’s not what Ms means so don’t worry about that.

But why is ‘spinster’ so abhorrent? Is not getting married so shameful?

@Beseigedbykillersquirrels

I can't stand being called Ms. I don't agree that it should be the default at all. You don't get to decide other people's preferences because of what yours is.

This.

I’m a teacher and I don’t care if parents call me Miss, Ms or Mrs even though they know I’m a Miss, it’s really not something to get offended about!

Maybe we should just bring back Mistress. Or Goody.

I am married, I am not even middle aged. I am an annoying strident feminist. I am Ms.

FWIW though all the best people I know are spinsters.

Weirdly I’m having the opposite problem! I’ve separated from STBEXH and have gone back to Miss DWP as my I never changed my driving licence or passport name anyway, but my kids school insist on calling me ‘ms’ even though I always sign off/refer to myself as miss

I would be down with Mistress.

One thing I think is interesting is that mistress has taken on its own bad connotation. When again it just means woman really.

I wonder why, when creating a new title for themselves women couldn't come up with something better, something easier to say that was a real word?

But... it really isn’t hard to say. No harder than lots of common English words. As explained upthread.

It’s basically taking the common elements of Miss and Mrs isn’t it? It’s part of the same (abbreviated) word family. Perfectly sensible.

I’d have rocked the original ‘Mistress’ but sadly that has other connotations these days...

Snap, MrM.

First - why do you think Ms denotes ‘middle aged spinster’?

Second - why do you think ‘middle aged spinster’ is such an appalling thing to be?

Because spinster is a dated and derogatory term for an unmarried woman, typically an older woman beyond the usual age for marriage.

Women are either deemed as young (Miss), owned by someone (Mrs) or old and alone (Ms). Interestingly the closest equivilent term for a single, unmarried male is 'bachelor' which doesn't exactly conjure up the too old and past it image that spinster does.

Personally I think that Ms has no place in todays society.

One thing I think is interesting is that mistress has taken on its own bad connotation. When again it just means woman really.

When I was younger I used to think Ms meant Mistress aka the other women and would wonder why some of my teachers had that as their name

Also, we didn't come up with it! It's been around since the time of those other acceptable words.

So we can all just stop saying that it is unpronounceable. Only if you're a bit dim and can't pronounce Liz.

Or that it is made up, as it is no more "made up" than Mrs.

Just say "I really want people selling me insurance to know that someone married me".

I think over time ms will become the default and all the Check Out How Married I Am people will become the ones constantly correcting people

I hate Ms. I'm an unmarried mum and my dc's school always insist on calling me Ms. Makes me feel like I should be embarrassed to be a Miss in my mid 30's with children

@toocold54

One thing I think is interesting is that mistress has taken on its own bad connotation. When again it just means woman really.

When I was younger I used to think Ms meant Mistress aka the other women and would wonder why some of my teachers had that as their name

@quieterinreallife

I hate Ms. I'm an unmarried mum and my dc's school always insist on calling me Ms. Makes me feel like I should be embarrassed to be a Miss in my mid 30's with children

Is your children's father embarrassed about being Mr not Master? I'm guessing not. Be strident. It feels good.

I wonder why, when creating a new title for themselves women couldn't come up with something better, something easier to say that was a real word?

I wonder why UK just didn't copy other countries that use one title for young girls and one for adult women, no matter what their marital status is.

@pennylane83 your complete misunderstanding of a word doesn't make it so. My primary school aged daughter is Ms. She is of course unmarried. But I don't think anyone sees that as a problem.

I absolutely hate it when I get referred to as Ms - I'm not a spinster!

I cant believe some of these out dated views and ways to put down women, I see an independent women rather than a spinster

@DinosaurDiana

Its time we had a one fits all title, like Mr.

God, totally agree. Absolute nonsense we should be 'sorted' by marital status like chattels.

@Notabove25 We need a new title that applies to all adult women

Ah, the problem is that around 30-40 years ago a bunch of women came to this exact same conclusion and resurrected Ms. But because of Sexist Reasons, even all these years later using this new catch-all title is still apparently enormously problematic because vast swathes of women have internalised the idea that they exist only to be Wife and Mother, and so cling to the archaic Miss and Mrs.

Ms does not sound remotely odd. As others have pointed out all through this thread, it has the same sound as a myriad of common everyday words that we manage to pronounce without our heads falling off. The problems people have with Ms are not phonetic, they're societal.

I can assure you that exactly the same problems would persist even if we came up with yet another neutral title for women that didn't happen to rhyme with fizz.

@G5000

I wonder why, when creating a new title for themselves women couldn't come up with something better, something easier to say that was a real word?

I wonder why UK just didn't copy other countries that use one title for young girls and one for adult women, no matter what their marital status is.

I think the English option of Ms had already gained traction before it was common in those counties. It certainly is very common in America and has been for decades. Realistically we don't need a special title for the young. I had never heard master used for a young man until I arrived in the UK. I was always Ms from a young teen.

I’ve been Ms for many years. I get all sorts! Mrs DH’s name, Miss Corvid, Mrs Corvid. DH has been referred to as Mr Corvid before now. It’s often older people who can’t seem to compute we are married but have different names, or they do know and don’t respect it. I’d happily vote for Mistress as a title

@pennylane83 I don’t disagree that ‘spinster’ is dated or derogatory.

I disagree that ‘Ms’ denotes ‘spinster’ however (just as much as I’ve disagreed with others on this thread who insist it means ‘divorced woman’).

And I disagree that ‘people might think me older and unmarried!’ is a particularly good reason to be offended by the use of ‘Ms’.

I think the idea of titles that communicate marital status (or in fact even communicate lack of inclination to share marital status) has no place in today’s society. Why single out Ms?

I’ve got 2 dds who have gone through primary and secondary and I can’t even remember a time when I’ve been called anything at all.

What a total non issue.