To find "Mrs" in a work email signature a bit cringe

[Whyohwhyohwhy26]

Just that really, is this a new thing or I'm just noticing it more nowadays that some female colleagues have Mrs first name last name on their email signatures where the norm is just names + job title etc. I've never seen a male colleague's email signature be "Mr X" and i'd find that equally odd to be honest. Unless it's a professional title like Dr or Professor AIBU to think putting your personal title in an email signature a bit cringe ?

I have done this twice. Both times in response to being told off for using Mr (genuine mistake) or Ms (no indication of preferences and female name) both assuming my unisex name to be male. So I responded to their issue and signed off Mrs Enko

Yes it might be petty but ot got the point across.

I know many wish to get rid od it but I like it I will usw what prefix you all prefer so please use what I prefer.

If it is as oldfashioned as many here says it will slowly die naturally much like calling young boys master x has.

@BoredZelda That's nice. But a Mrs cannot be a feminist.

I work in a school office and hate having to introduce myself as Mrs GloryDias so I always say Glory, I find it cute when the little ones call me Mrs xxx though!

I work in nhs and have seen some senior quite old women, who have since retired, had Mrs xxx yyy on their office doors. I think it’s maybe just an old fashioned thing.

Yes she can. Theres no requirement for a feminist to be 'perfect'.

Its possible to call yourself Mrs and doggedly run a domestic violence shelter, or be the person raising women's voices, or campaigning against fgm, be supporting women owned business, take up space, or lobby for change around childcare and use the term Mrs.

The only person I’ve seen do this is - I think - clarifying that her name is female as she’s not British.

I’d far rather someone did this than “she/her” bollocks.

Presumably because that's not an AIBU and the reason why I'd be asking is I find it a bit cringe. Are you saying that they're making a choice that they want to be addressed as that in their emails? I'm not asking why anyone would chose to use that when they're being addressed

No, some people do including some who include a title but our company template only asks for name, job title, department, contact number.

So you think they want to be referred to as such in an email response then?

That would make sense they've probably always had that but these are fairly young women.

Thinking about it, the reason this so obviously doesn't apply and hasn't been adopted in email based jobs is because they're a creation of a newer age. While email itself has been around a long time, the move to written communication based jobs being conducted primarily via email was much later. So I think that's why most people who use email a lot in their jobs, outside of perhaps some customer service roles, would immediately identify that as batshit.

Why do you need to know if they're female

No it shouldn't and hasn't done for some time

Bizarre - maybe not in a primary school but outside of that I would cringe on reading that too.

Not really, unless you're getting at the fact it wouldn't change whether they're married or not so it's irrelevant but so is a female title in a work setting.

In this day and age of personal choice, she can call herself whatever she chooses (or they can call themselves whatever they choose).

This is it, I get it where email correspondence is communicating like a letter to a customer, but not for internal company emails.

Of course they can! I don't disagree but your email signature is usually what you want people to call you, and surely they don't actually want to be called Mrs X at work?

I work in education and see it more often. Don’t remember seeing this previously in other sectors I worked in.

I disagree - I would argue that a man can’t be a feminist but saying you can’t as you use Mrs as a title is just daft - equally using Ms as a title doesn’t make you a feminist.

understanding and fighting against the oppression of women in all forms is what makes you a feminist and personal choice of titles don’t alter that.

@KittyMcKitty But how can you change your title and name to Mrs HisName upon marriage and still claim you are a feminist? I just don't think that is possible.

Eh, I think some women have clearly been feminists and Mrs name changers. Mrs Shirley Williams and her work for equal pay, for example. A better way to put it is that the use of Mrs is not feminist, and indeed makes parity in this area harder to achieve. But it's only one of a huge number of actions a woman might take across a lifetime.

(Ms here).

Mrs is my title 😃
Why can I not use it when folk use Doctor, Professor, Sir, Lord, Lady? 🤣

Each to their own, their culture and to the company culture and industry. There's nothing wrong or odd in it.

I've seen it, with the person signing off their email with their first name above it. All fine.

I use it and have done for ages. I don't want to.be a Ms and I am not using pronouns. (OP: both these options are more 'cringe' to me!.)

It used to be helpful when things were more formal in the work context and use of first names for senior staff was still quite unusual in my then sector (local government).

Nowadays I have my own.business (professional) and most of my emails are to external.clients. We generally use first names but I still think it is polite to indicate the title they should use if they wish.(And it avoids me having to suffer being referred to as a Ms.)

Quite surprised to hear it is a.thing with Millennials though as I would have thought they would be far more likely to use first names with each other.

PS I am a feminist...