To not find Miss/Mrs/Ms relevant today

[helenabonhamfarter]

In the modern world why do I have to specify if I'm married or not.
Why is it relevant?
Every website wants my title
Even the dry cleaner when I drop my washing off asks "is that Miss or Mrs?"

Why is first name and last name insufficient?
I do have a professional title which I can wheel out which is gender neutral and do so if I want to get arsey but seriously why are we doing this???

I can't say I even pay attention to it anymore. I get post addressed to Ms, Miss, Mrs and even a Mr on some occasions. I'm just happy enough when they manage to spell my name correctly.

I can guarantee that the poor lass/lad on the phone did not make the decision on what to call customers though.

Ms is very relevant. Miss and Mrs are totally irrelevant and shouldn’t be used.

All they are asking is what do you want want to be called.
There's no hidden agenda
It's really no big deal
If you want Ms put Ms
If you want Mrs put Mrs
That's all they want to know

In your opinion

Do you find their tone changes when they say “Can I call you Big Woolly?” and you say “No, please call me Mrs Jumpers”?

I much prefer being called by my first name (partly because I work in a school so I’m constantly referred to as Ms Flatwhite), so I always say yes when they ask me that. I think if I were the person in the call centre and that was part of my script I’d probably feel a bit awkward when people said no.

Titles just aren’t necessary at all.
For most circumstances, gender is as irrelevant as marital status.

I agree, I really don’t see how it’s relevant & it seems very old fashioned.

I just randomly swapped to Mrs at some point, was sick of Miss and mum was a militant Ms and we have issues.. There is no legal basis to the titles.

I'd prefer people just used my name.

I agree with you, I just use Miss and will continue to do so after I get married, along with continuing to use my 'maiden' name

I'm married but changed nothing, so I'm just Miss Bean. It confuses people but I don't care.

It is outdated and sexist, no one is caring if men are married or not!

It only matters if you think that simply by being married you are superior to someone who is single (or vice versa). I prefer to believe that marital status doesn't in itself change how important someone is as a valid human being, so the whole Miss/Mrs naming is irrelevant. Call yourself whichever you prefer, I won't think more or less of you because of it.

I’m confused by this question. Why would my children’s teachers use anything other than my name? I don’t use Mrs. I don’t have my children’s surname. If they need to contact a parent/guardian, they look up on the system the name and number/email of that child’s primary contact. Why would that not be how it works? There are many, many reasons why the primary contact will not be called Mrs Childsurname.

Totally agree! Hate it. I'm not their mate!

And I like being known as Mrs. I am short and look young for my age and have ADHD so struggle with word and fact finding which can make me sound like an idiot when I'm not, so need all the help I can get on the garnering respect front!

You can claw "Mrs" out of my cold dead hands. I might even ask to have it put on my gravestone 😂

I agree mostly it's irrelevant. I don't have a problem being asked because nobody really cares what they answer is. They just want to complete a form or a drop down menu.

However, this won't change until we have only one option for women. Mr only indicates male. Miss, Ms, Mrs indicates female but a whole range of other things including judgments based on which one is chosen.

The act of choosing creates another issue.

I'd opt for Mrs being the only title because it's unlikely we'll get rid of titles anytime soon and some women really enjoy being a Mrs so they won't change. Also it's similar to what other countries have done.

But presumably that doesn't go on marketing material

i stopped all my friends kids who were told to call me auntie, this began when I was 19 and it made me feel 90! Going by age is a bad idea.

Mr and Ms are fine, a title, no need to indicate anything else.

Historically miss meant young woman, Mrs meant older woman. But that got (re) interpreted as married as almost all women got married.

It's misogynistic to use marriage specific titles but also age ones.

It should be ms for all.

Always been Ms as well and some people do act as if you’ve slapped them. Dunno why.

Why do women have to do this and men don't? It's just a stupid load of shit. I'm miss and never getting married so staying as that.

@Sapphire387 You have my sympathy, Drs surgeries are the worst for this! At my old surgery they insisted that I was called Mrs then my husband’s second name. They also insisted that we had the same GP. Just don’t get me started!

Some women enjoy being Ms. I’m one of them. It’s already descriptive of both married and single women. It’s age neutral. Why can’t we use that? Why don’t we - it’s not even always an option.

if some random women are proud simply of being married and think it brings them status let them be the exception. No need for all women to define themselves by marital status just because some do.

I agree, I work in a job that requires me to put client titles (not legal docs), I just put ‘ms’ every time. A few times I’ve had calls back from angry women telling me their title is ‘Mrs’ so obviously it’s important to some women.

I don't like Ms. I don't like how it sounds. To my ears is missing something, not sure what. I prefer to use Mrs.

Often it's used for online forms as another way to mark individual records. If you have two Jane smiths but one uses Ms the other Miss it is just another way to differentiate them.

FWIW my brother uses Dr to distinguish him from my father who is Mr. they used to work in the same place. At one point me and my mum also worked there so it was very useful to have a Dr, Mr, Mrs and Miss Twizbe

Agreed, I am baffled by people who think using a first name is “too familiar” 😂

I’m the opposite, I don’t have an automatic response to being called by a title and surname (whether people use Ms, Miss or Mrs) because I’d far rather people just used my first name, or full name.

I’m also married but prefer not to use Mrs & a lot of people are completely thrown by it.