Mrs, Ms or Miss: why do forms require women reveal their marital status and not men?

[Ludlow2]

That's it really.

Why do women have to reveal this and not men?
Isn't it time we changed this.

But the more women choose Ms, the less awkward it becomes. I've never felt awkward about it, but if you do it is literally only because of the patriarchy.

It doesn't require you to identify your marital status, it allows you to select the title you prefer to be known by. Personally I've used Ms. since I was about 18 which is always there as an option should you prefer not to disclose your status.

I don't like pronouncing Ms, I wish that the original feminists had gone for Mrs for everyone the way that it tended to go in other languages. But I don't otherwise feel awkward and as titles are used less, it's less of a problem.

Yanbu yanbu strongly!

absolutely it’s a feature of the patriarchy which will be hard to scrap.

when I was married i didn’t change my name. I didn’t mind being Miss or ms applejack. Of course people just changed it themselves anyway to my husband’s name. Or Mrs applejack.

another twist: I’m widowed young. Still the same person. Still preferably miss/ms.
the system is a mess and sadly so many women don’t realise it. I sincerely don’t mean disrespect to women who enjoy Mrs etc.

It would be interesting to know how many happily married women still prefer Ms for feminist reasons.

Agree

I was once seen by a doctor and I had used the title Ms on a form.
He told me that is wrong and I should use Mrs as Ms was for divorced women.
Male Doctors have always been the best mansplainers 🤣
I always use Ms and I never ask marital status. Men are Mr, women are Ms (unless academically titled).

There is no genuine organisational reason, it's just lazy computer program/form writing - they look at other forms from the same or other organisations, and just glibly copy what others do.

I've been through this with my own small business when we last did a GDPR review of our data. We could think of no reason at all why we needed to know whether a client was a Ms, Mrs, or Mr, so in accordance with the GDPR regulations, we deleted such data from our databases and removed the field from all our forms.

The only "effect" was that some clients (mostly more elderly ones) didn't like their letters being addressed to "Mandy Smith" and "Dear Mandy" and preferred it to be the old fashioned "Mrs Smith". That seems to be the only reason to justify keeping a "salutation" field in databases, i.e. for the benefit of the recipient rather than the organisation themselves, for communication purposes.

By the way, as part of the same GDPR review, we were a bit bolder and took the decision to delete any sex/gender fields from our databases too, for the same reason, that we didn't actually need to know if a client was a man, woman, or whatever, so again had no grounds to keep such data.

@Pottedpalm I wonder if I worked at the same place. It really wound me up (not the only thing that did there tbh), but when I mentioned it to someone they couldn’t understand my issue.

I always used to use Ms when I was married. Now I am widowed, I tend to use Mrs. No logic, but I somehow feel it connects me more to my late DH. Bonkers really, but a purely emotional reactionto losing him.

Students of all ages always ask why I’m Ms and many of them have never even heard of it. They usually also ask me if I’m married. I explain that the point of Ms is to not tell people if I’m married or not because it’s nobody’s business. @Tusktusk

This is what my teacher told in 1996 and I have never used Mrs after marrying (it's easy if you don't change your surname).

I do think it's about making some fuss around it is all it needs. Most women don't stop think it means 'of a Mr'. It's not removing choices - just talking about overdue mindset change.

I understand its origin. I still prefer and use Mrs. I like the sound of it and I have no objection to people knowing I am married.

Hence I activate my choice to use what makes me comfortable. I intently dislike what I see more and more and its this assumption that because I chose differently to what you (plural you) prefer somehow equals I am uneducated.

Feminism IS about choice however this gets forgotten so often in the name of feminism and feminism gets used to bulldoze others choices.

If it generally is outdated it will automatically phase out and women will start to use Ms more and more and the other two options will disappear.

Please do not assume that others who make a difference choice to you somehow are uneducated or wrong.

It's about using your choice.

@Kazzyhoward

The only "effect" was that some clients (mostly more elderly ones) didn't like their letters being addressed to "Mandy Smith" and "Dear Mandy" and preferred it to be the old fashioned "Mrs Smith". That seems to be the only reason to justify keeping a "salutation" field in databases, i.e. for the benefit of the recipient rather than the organisation themselves, for communication purposes.

They've got a point though. Unless it's a situation where you'd first-name the writer right back, this sort of thing can feel bloody patronizing. Pretty sure most physicians wouldn't like for their patients to call them John, Pete or Mandy. And don't get me started on "Dear Firstname Surname", that just sounds illiterate.

By the way, as part of the same GDPR review, we were a bit bolder and took the decision to delete any sex/gender fields from our databases too, for the same reason, that we didn't actually need to know if a client was a man, woman, or whatever, so again had no grounds to keep such data.

Ironically that could lead to problems if you were to be accused of some sort of discrimination, and were unable to provide data to disprove it. Which then fairly makes it OK to collect it - for the purposes of complying with existing legislation.

I totally get the point. But I am sure some compliance types would be a tad anxious.

(Mind you, in the same vein, I have never answered the weasely "ethnic background" question). Funny how you are almost always allowed to have a "prefer not to say" option for that, but not for title ?

I use whichever I fancy.
Some women want to use them correctly, others can use Ms as neutral. Others can be Mrs one day, Ms next day 😁

In my home country it's the equivalent of Mrs now for every woman. Every female teacher we had we called her Mrs. I have no clue whether they were married or not, by default we called them that.

The only time I have ever being called miss was when I was in school and we had a couple of teachers calling the girls miss Last Name and the boys Mr Last Name. I think as a teen I also had a couple of elderly people adress me as miss.

Once I got older it was Mrs. In a way in my head Mrs is associated with having grown up. I remember being late teens helping my mum in her shop and a young boy coming over with his mum. The boy addressed me as mrs. He made me feel so old! A slap in the face really!
At uni I had a friend who was studying to be a primary school teacher. They were doing some placements while studying and she felt the same way as me when the students kept calling her Mrs! It's a reality check that you are now an adult!

But put Dr as your title and you can pretty much guarantee that people will assume you are male!

The wedding industry perpetuates this shit with all the tacky 'Mr & Mrs' merchandise. I'm sure it must exist but I've never seen 'Mr & Ms'. But so many women buy into it. You see letters in people's houses saying 'Mr & Mrs'. Mixed bag at work with who goes for Ms or Mrs on the work database - I always notice.

An awful lot of people assume Ms means you're divorced. Even some organisations - I think they've updated now, but when I was responsible for getting criminal record checks done on employees, they would send straight back any form on which a woman had given their title as Ms but hadn't listed a previous surname, demanding to know what their name "used to be".

I was Ms before and after I got married.

I applied for my daughter's passport and the options for a title were 'master' or 'miss' so I clicked the other box and made her a Ms. She is only a few months old but dislike Mrs/Miss. She can change it when she is older if she likes.

Kazzyhoward · Today 07:23
I've been through this with my own small business when we last did a GDPR review of our data. We could think of no reason at all why we needed to know whether a client was a Ms, Mrs, or Mr, so in accordance with the GDPR regulations, we deleted such data from our databases and removed the field from all our forms.

The only "effect" was that some clients (mostly more elderly ones) didn't like their letters being addressed to "Mandy Smith" and "Dear Mandy" and preferred it to be the old fashioned "Mrs Smith". That seems to be the only reason to justify keeping a "salutation" field in databases, i.e. for the benefit of the recipient rather than the organisation themselves, for communication purposes.

That is interesting, though the "only effect" that you refer to doesn't surprise me in the slightest. All the elderly married/ widowed women I know are still very attached to Mrs, and the one elderly spinster I know is equally attached to Miss, getting very angry when she is addressed by any other title.

Don't the lists sometimes include a 'none' option? I am married, and for most of those 40-odd years I have always ticked Mrs, but in recent years it increasingly annoys me and I have started to choose Ms. Given the option, I would prefer to select 'none'

I choose to put Miss.

I'm not ashamed of the fact I walked away from an abusive relationship before marrying him and stayed single to sprained our disabled child alone.

I could use Ms. But I choose not to.

So do I. I've been Miss for fifty years and anybody who wants to deny me the choice of what I call myself can go and fuck themselves.

Doesn't work like that unfortunately once your married they assume the husband is the Dr. We work for the NHS and people always assume DH is a doctor and I must be a nurse......neither is right we are both scientists.

It used to annoy me, now I'm proud we have started a family and our relationship has survived so happy to be Mr and Mrs most of the time. God knows being a wife and mother is harder than any of my qualifications!!!!

Agree. Many women on here think Mrs is a badge of honour, precisely why we should get rid of it on forms.

Well yes, we do first names for ourselves to, I always sign off my business letters and emails, as Katie and not Ms/Miss/Mrs Howard. I'm not a teacher after all which seems to be the only place these days where titles remain widely required. In fact, I find it quite strange when an occasional client will email me Dear Mrs Howard, but it is a very rare occurrence now. I even use my first name widely on my business website and prospective customers will email me "Dear Katie" which is absolutely fine by me.

Contrary to a lot of posters here who seem to think titles are imposed by organisations, I think it's the opposite, and that titles are required/expected by the recipient, which is perhaps why a lot of organisations still require them in forms. I.e. blame the person wanting to be addressed as Ms/Miss/Jones rather than the organisation!

My OH who has cancer is on first name terms with his oncologist and the last few times I've been to see a GP, they've introduced themselves as "Chris Smith" rather than Dr Smith. It would sound really strange to me if someone middle aged or younger introduced themselves as Mrs Jones outside a school environment.

I think titles will have disappeared completely in another decade or so.