To think its time to get rid of personal titles ie. Miss, Mrs, Ms?

[jumpingbean1810]

I was ordering something in a shop the other day and the assistant, in her 20s, was putting my details into their system. She said, I hate asking this, I find it so embarrassing but are you Miss, Ms or Mrs? I replied I'm Miss. I was there with my daughter so in that one exchange I'd divulged I was a single, unmarried parent. It's not information the shop needs for me to order a lamp. And if I was a man, they'd be Mr and none the wiser as to marital status. I know I could say Ms but does any married woman really use Ms? So Ms just ends up sounding like a Miss with issues. It got me thinking why do we need personal titles, how often are they really used anyway? Can they not just be scrapped from form filling? With the increasing desire by the younger generation to not even be defined by gender, identifying women by their marital status feels so outdated. It's international women's day tomorrow and in the spirit of embracing equity, isn't it time we abolished women being defined by marital status?

To avoid divulging any other personal info about themselves, i.e. marital status. I use mine for exactly this reason and agree with the OP 100%. I would happily not use a title at all tbh.

I agree totally

Agreed 👍🏻

oh please! The offended are already trying to banish words like ‘mother, breastfeeding’ & other words/titles used for females. losing our titles too would be ridiculous. I’m proud of my title.

I sometimes think the biggest benefit of my PhD is being able to sidestep all the Miss/Ms/Mrs stuff! I don't always use it but in some situations I find it very gratifying to be able to say 'Dr' to the tedious 'Is that Miss or Mrs?' question.

Ah @RosaBonheur you could be right. I like using Miss because technically I'm not Miss so perhaps Mx is suitable too!

Low IQ, 6/10, lard arse, bad breath are all undesirable qualities, that's not just my perception.

OK @GoldDuster here's my take....

Lard arse, bad breath, low IQ are to me undesirable
Tory & Lefty.....let's say they are cancel each other out,
6/10 and Mixed Race are neutral
So 3 undesirable traits out of a total of 7.
Please don't make it into something it isn't. Just delete mixed-race in your head and replace with shy, Sagittarius or Northern

OP I feel you!!!!
I have a daughter, who is a Miss
I’m not married to her Dad, but I am 39 so how can I also be a ‘Miss’ so I always put ‘Ms’ but then I get asked, oh are you divorced?!
I think it’s total nonsense and is fully designed to out a woman’s relationship status and the fact that there’s no differentiation in a Man just proves the old adage that Men can do what they bloody want, regardless of their martial status.
After all, a married man who cheats is clearly ‘not getting what he NEEDS at home’ !!!!!!!!!!

I apologise for my terrible lack of punctuation. This is definitely a trigger topic for me! 😂😂

What does being 39 have to do with whether or not you're a Miss?

Oh lawd not another one to say get rid of this because I’m judgmental secretly. No one cares. I’m a 45 year old miss. Who cares.

Same . Used Ms for last 17 yrs even though issues in marriage are more recent. Still use maiden surname. No fucks given

Obviously, a lot of people care, quite clearly.

Calm down. What a horrible way to speak to someone on a forum. Completely unnecessary.

Just delete it in my head?

As if this thread could get any more exhausting.

Years ago, I remember boys were called ‘master’ and then became ‘Mr’ as an adult… Then they abolished the ‘master’…
I wonder why women aren’t just automatically Mrs at 18…

I am divorcing now and intend to stay Mrs, I associate ‘ms’ as a divorced woman who doesn’t want to keep Mrs but doesn’t want to be Miss again. (Probably not the case)

Completely agree OP.
Why is my marital status, or even gender identity, anyone else’s business?
I have a professional title that I use when a form or computer insists on a title, otherwise I just leave it blank as it’s an archaic tradition.
Also have you noticed that those who complain the loudest about declaring gendered pronouns on emails, are weirdly also tied to gendered titles?

No.

I just think ‘Miss’ sounds like it’s for a young girl. Like ‘Master’ is for a young man.

Absolutely. I come from a country where we do not use titles and it’s always been an annoyance to me tk have to fill that in

I was happy as a Miss, and happy now as a Mrs. I quite like it, and I'm really not keen on Ms. So I wouldn't personally like to change it. Also I'm not keen on cold callers eg calling me by my first name. But I totally get that others aren't so keen on the titles.

Almost all of the married women I know use "Ms." The exceptions are those who are over 80, and those who are enamored of their spouse's position in society, and who actively want to announce that they are "MRS. Got Money."

This. 100%. I always say Ms. What really irks me is when they put a period after it. It’s not an abbreviation. It’s a whole word by itself. Mr. is an abbreviation for Mister. Mrs. is an abbreviation for Mistress (yes, really). Ms is not an abbreviation for anything. I like the Mx for non-binary folks.

To those asking why we can't just get rid of the titles, it's because we need a formal way of addressing people in a professional capacity.

A professional business won't usually address their customer as, say, "John" because it's overly familiar, or "Smith" as it sounds too blunt, so "Mr. Smith" is a respectful middle ground.

As for women's titles, I think "Ms" is a good option if people don't want to divulge their martial status or have kept their maiden name.