‘Sir’ and ‘Miss’ in schools is everyday sexism

[putyourshoesonnow]

To me the terms ‘Sir’ and ‘Miss’ are unequal because ‘Sir’ is a term of respect whilst ‘Miss’ has less gravitas as it has connotations of youth, juniority and marital status and can be seen as diminishing to adult women.

This has bugged me for a while, as I think it is exactly the wrong message that young people should be receiving in school.

A perfect alternative may not exist, but surely we can do better than this?

YABU - Sir and Miss are fine, no problem here
YANBU - Sir and Miss are too unequal and we should seek an alternative

Much as I hate being called Miss, I really don't like 'Teacher', which is v common in my Irish school. I am v clear to students that I prefer Ms M and 99% of them remember it.
It's not about respect from students, for me anyway, it's the idea of me, as I said in a pp, calling a 22yo sir while he calls me Miss and I'm more than twice his age!! I also think it's what you're used to.. I'd taught for many years before hearing this in current school and it's v much 'a thing', eg I bumped into a male teacher during the summer holidays and he said 'Hi Miss' 😆 Both of us are over 40! I laughed at him and tbf he laughed too.

Ridiculous

My work the students and staff call everyone by their first names. No disrespect, no misgendering, no pronoun preference issues

Very good point.

Yes!

@Ddakji it's not actually an objective fact. I have been in education since I was 4 up to my advanced age now. I have never, in thirty years of teaching had a colleague say they feel demeaned by "Miss". I have never felt I was honouring a male colleague more if I used Sir instead Miss if explaining to a child they needed to see their head of year. I work with teens who have a very strong and clear idea about identity, sexism, equality. They are not backwards in coming forward if they things are amiss and they have never once raised this spontaneously. I have actually had classroom discussions about it and none of them felt that it prioritised or raised men above women.
As far as I am concerned, in my fairly extensive experience, it's not an issue and there are far more actual problems to focus on. Stirring up angst over nonsense like this is a distraction from real issues.

I used to work in a school that used Sir and Miss. I can completely see the OPs point but found it to be used in a pretty respectful way (the behaviour was very variable but this wasn’t one of the problems). It felt pretty neutral/respectful in practice.

It is, that’s what my DC have in their secondary. I agree with the OP that these titles are not equal, although I do not think this is how DC see it these days.
(we used title surname when I was at school)

Teacher. Or just use first harness. Worked perfectly well in my dc's school

In Norway we called our teachers by their first names - much less sexism there, and a much better school culture 😊. A much less toxic country overall. We didn't wear uniform either!

Maybe kids should just call them by their first name in 2025

I don't really care and don't think I'd like to be called Ma'am....I would feel like a police woman. Kids either call me Miss or just address me as Mrs Wanda...or occasional Mum or Sir by accident.

Id hate to be called by my first name. My colleagues call me by my first name. There are someone schools in Ireland that use first names.

Sir and Miss are used generally at our school. I am married but pupils call me Miss and I sign-off as Miss on emails. If I am talking about/to other teachers I would use Sir/Miss too. I can see OP’s point but it is simple and personally I always feel like it is said respectfully by pupils.

I don't think kids in a large secondary know all the teachers by name whether first name or surname hence Sir/Miss. As a primary school teacher I was Miss/Mrs [name] but when I retired and did exam invigilation for 5 years I was called Miss as they didn't know my name (unless I had taught them as 5 year olds).

In school colleagues called me by my full first name but friends outside school called me the shortened version. I liked to maintain some separation.

Isn't that just Miss and Madam? Although granted Miss implies marital status too.

Why on earth can’t they learn their names? Presumably they know the names of all 30 kids in their class plus a load more from their year. They can cope with learning, what, a dozen or so teachers’ names, surely.

We are always trying to change things. Sir and Miss work. What would the alternative be?

I think it’s important that we don’t remove these titles so that there is a clear distinction in who is in charge and respect. I was speaking to a friend about respectful cultures and language - in the UK it’s common for young people to call an adult by first name - whilst in other cultures titles are used and I think it’s a nice way to show respect.

I worked in one that did this. I really didn't like it - not sure why. I think it was the way it sounded perpetually arsey when said by a surly teen. The students definitely didn't distinguish it as more equal, it was just another thing you had to pull people up on... Miss and Sir are just names, rather than a signifier of respect in a school context.

I generally use Ms, am Miss in school and Mrs on old bills/odd things (I kept my married name post divorce). I really couldn't care less by which I am called (though correct the children if they use Mr or Sir, unless they're excited or upset). I'd rather my name, but that's not allowed in my current school.

What’s your alternative out of interest? I honestly don’t see the issue or even care. Kids don’t see it like that.

I can see the argument either way. Most of the teachers and teaching assistants I know are just generally happy if spoken to kindly, with some preferring [title] name.

For me, my everyday sexism gripe is whether we use Miss, Ms, or Mrs, it's just part of a word. Mister is always said in full even if written as Mr., but we have to cut up Mistress because of the negative and/or sexual connotations that are attached to that and pretty much every other title we come up with for women.

And we can't really opt out - I'd rather have no title, but 'computer says no' a lot of the time.

I don't see why we have to mess about with women's titles and diminished them rather than let society reach parity.

Women's titles, in English, being solely about marriage is a late Victorian/early Edwardian messabout that could be argued was quite diminishing. We have records before that of women in professions using the whole range and more merrily before it got watered down.

Similar to the idea that everyone has a title and how respect is entrenched in the idea of titles rather than being respected enough with our names.

There will 70+ teachers in a large secondary, many of whom will never be the regular class teacher if a particular child but might cover a lesson or be on lunch queue duty. It's perfectly reasonable that lots of kids will never know the names of lots of the teachers and vice versa.

Beyond unreasonable, nutter carry on.

So many issues in the world and you are worrying about that!!

I absolutely do not allow children to call me “Miss” at work, anymore than I let them call me “Teacher”. It just doesn’t sit well with me. I’d rather a child called me by my first name. It’s taught language, and although children will be unaware that it’s sexist to call male staff “sir” and female staff “miss”
doesn’t mean it’s OK.

Our HT calls all staff Sir or Miss, even though he knows our names perfectly well. It’s one battle at a time with him, but he is receptive to adapting with the times, so I am going to be raising it before too long.