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desire by the younger generation to not even be defined by gender, identifying women by their marital status feels so outdated.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?

Also have you noticed that those who complain the loudest about declaring gendered pronouns on emails, are weirdly also tied to gendered titles?

I've noticed the opposite. I work for a distributed company (offices in various countries + many employees working remotely). We've had a policy for years prohibiting putting pronouns or titles in any official communications (email signature, user/intranet profiles, SMS handle, etc.) Occasionally an employee asks for them and management debates/explains again.

The main reason people want either/both is (1) to clarify sex - a lot of first names are unisex or may be traditionally used in different ways in different cultures, plus the remote/distributed culture means frequently having to refer to a colleage you've never met or spoken with. (2) More rarely, someone might request a non-standard title/pronoun or want to encourage others to do so. The reasons we don't allow it are also the same for both titles and pronouns: it's detrimental to women and to people with less dominant/non-"standard" identities and the company doesn't want to risk the reality or appearance of illegal bias or discrimination.

Feminists tried to introduce sex-neutral pronouns and titles in the 1980s or so, and ran into a related problem: having your status as part of a structurally marginalised group highlighted is a disadvantage and having your status as part of a structurally privileged group is an advantage. Therefore in general men are less likely to adopt the new forms. The radical solution would be to abolish Mr. and he/him.

I’ve no problem with Titles…. Except that I LIKE being Mrs… I was married to ex Dh for 30 years before the divorce came through. I have continued to use it . Not least because I am a TA…. Though I get called Miss a lot a there anyway!!! However I am about to remarry and I will be taking new DH’s surname because I WANT to! Ms is okay… but it’s a bit impersonal. I don’t make a fuss if I get called it. What I don’t like is being called by my first name when I hardly know people ( like at hospital appointments etc) it’s just rude, a lack of respect, in my opinion.

We don't need a formal way to address people, its just convention and it can, and possibly in the future might, change.

Though in my experience, I'm in my 50s, Ms is seen as used by women with a history, divorced, feminist, unmarried but living with partner m/f. Mr doesn't cause any of those.

Use of titles also irks me and for last 15 years or so, unless it's an official .gov sort of form I fill it in as Mr because its none of anyone else's business.

Does annoy the DH also but that's because he's always Mr and he's really a Dr, PhD lol.

I think we can safely say based on this thread that;

People assume/judge different things about adult women based upon their title. Mrs, Ms, Miss.

Female
Older
Young
married
single
widowed
divorced
feminist
unmarried mother
difficult person (I have actually been told this for using Ms)
and more....

People make these assumptions about adult men's title. Mr.

Male

This is the point, there isn't a 'choice' for women not to have assumptions made about them. So, women who want to announce to everyone they're married take away choice for women not to be judged/categorised by default.

Please feel free to add to the list.

Well I like being Mrs, it’s a good way to indicate that the overwhelmingly likelihood is I had a previous surname.

it was probably the 80s when then tried to use ms instead of miss of Mrs, never really took off tgen or since. Do the assumption must be most married women like Mrs

li would think Ms has issues. Why do you think that? There seems a lot of projection here. Do you think there’s something wrong with being an unmarried mother. I didn’t marry my sons dad for a few years so was still a miss with a different name to my son - never thought about it.

You may not think Ms has issues but some people do.

This is why we should have multiple titles that judge and categorised women.

This is the point, there isn't a 'choice' for women not to have assumptions made about them. So, women who want to announce to everyone they're married take away choice for women not to be judged/categorised by default.

Yep.

Well said.

But if I had to choose, I'd rather people assumed I was a feminist and a difficult woman, so Ms it is.

This! It’s an argument for keeping titles, really: learning someone is a Ms is like a coded wink, another member of the difficult feminists club, let’s be friends.

I am married and always used Ms before and after marriage.
I did have a car insurance salesman tell me I had to be Mrs if I was married once. He sad it was my name on my marriage certificate 🤡

just had try this!

Yay! Friends!

So that I do not have to choose between Miss, Ms and Mrs!

I've always used and seen Ms and female version of Mr, with no other meaning or implication than that and certainly not anything to do with issues.
I'd see Miss as similar to Master for children but rarely used these days.
Miss and Mrs are fine too if your preference.

So the whole of this thread is about all of us "assuming" stuff about people we meet.

Maybe we need to stop doing that and there would be no issues

I'm married and I use Ms.

Such an outdated concept.

No.

Mr is the abbreviation of Mister so Ms could simply be short for Miss. I married in 68 s

Ms, Mrs and Miss are all abbreviations of Mistress.

Posted too soon so I was automatically a Mrs and which I still use officially as its on my credit cards, driving licence etc. Why not keep just Miss for everyone?

Much easier to stop insisting on titles than change human nature.

And perhaps because being a Dr is actually an achievement worth publicising?

Of course it does. But you must realise that not all choices are feminist ones/rooted in equality.

If you consider yourself equal to a man and want equality of opportunity and freedoms then you are a feminist whether you identify as one or not.

Another vote for the French system. Miss for a child (under 18) and Mrs for an adult (18 and over) because these are proper words. I hate Ms with a vengeance because it's not a word, it's just a noise. I find it impossible to hear or say without thinking it sounds stupid or feeling stupid for saying it!