Am I Ms Mrs or Miss?

[Mymadlife]

I didn't change my surname when I got married. My maiden surname is Kaye and my husband's is Sanders. I'm a teacher and I want to keep my name as Kaye.....so should I be known as Mrs Kaye or Miss Kaye. If I use Mrs the Kaye is not my married name and if I use Miss then it implies I'm not married.....anyone ? Please help? Ps Ms.... just sounds secretive lol

Ms suggests I may once have been married and that's something I'd rather forget all together!!
🙄 no it doesn't. It's precisely the equivalent of mr. Just because some people can't grasp that advertising one's marital status isn't something that al women find joy and pride in so assume that all Ms are divorced, doesn't mean that's actually what Ms means. Take a stand. Be Ms.

It was only when I started on MNtgat I discovered to my astonishment that lots of people associate Ms with being divorced, widowed etc. Just shows that misogyny flourishes in new ways all the time. I enjoy using Ms even more as a result

whilst I disagree with Ella on principle, some people do think that's what Ms means - I had this very conversation recently with a young guy at work, late 20s, who said exactly that - 'isn't Ms what women use if they're divorced?'

So she's not alone in thinking that.

Well if it was me I'd call myself Mrs. You are married so Mrs but that doesn't mean you need to change your surname Using Mrs and a different name to your husband just looks weird, like you're actually married to someone else. I'm Ms Myname because it's my name and there's no reason I should advertise my marital status.

You could cause a sensation in the playground by using Mx

please please don't.

I use Ms MarriedName
I wanted to take my husbands name but I don’t see why my martial status is relevant and husbands isn’t. Deeply sexist.
I can tell people are bamboozled by it though!

Quite a few of the teachers at DC's school are Mx.
I think they are all loaded into the system that way and some of them haven't bothered to change it. They are listed as Ms/Mr/Mrs/Miss/Dr elsewhere.

I changed my surname on marriage (only because I couldn't wait to be rid of my dads surname that I have no contact with). I'm Mrs day to day but for work I'm Ms. Easier all round.

How are you supposed to pronounce Mx?

‘Mix Surname’ sounds a bit odd really.

you pronounce Mx 'narcissistic bellend who wants everything to be about meeeeeeeeee', Crustaceans.

Ah. Doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue.

Although, neither does Mix as a title.

yeah, but it marks you out as special, different, which is the whole point.

I've been Ms since I was 18. Got married when I was 38, didn't change my lovely, distinctive surname when I got married in my 30s and am still Ms (and celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary last year )

Never been a problem - and no-one has ever assumed I am divorced.

....although my preference is for no title at all (which reminds me of the occasion in my 1st job when I didn't want a title on business card and the bloke organising them complained to my boss that with my combination of shortened 1st name and German sounding surname, people wouldn't know what sex I was, to which my boss replied that since you tend to hand business cards out, if they hadn't worked that out I was a very attractive 23 year old at the time , then they had bigger problems ).

When I got married I changed my name but kept as Miss Maiden Name for teaching. For me it would be like changing my first name suddenly. As a teacher you don’t use first names much and everyone calls you by Miss Whatever. Only occasionally confuses new office folk with regards to pay as they look for a Mrs Married Name.

Whilst I don't agree that Ms should mean "divorced", the reality is a lot of people do assume that.

I've been Ms since I was 16. I'm now 43. I have a feeling this is another issue where things have gone backwards.

It was always thought to be Mr/Ms because there was no need for a woman to declare her marital status in her title.

In my 40 odd years of using "Ms" (both as a single woman and as a married woman), the only place I have come across where I've been told that people assume Ms means that you are divorced is Mumsnet

Maybe I have just mixed and worked with a more informed group of people

it’s amazing how many people think that there is a legal obligation to use a title, or that names change automatically on marriage.
I agree that things seem to be going backwards - we should be so far past the idea of a neutral (not related to marital status) equivalent to Mr being noteworthy now, but it still seems to be controversial.

@enjoyingscience agree, I didn't change my name on marriage and had sooo many people asking 'how to do it' legally. They were shocked when I said 'actually I don't, you only have to do something when you change it!'. A lot of people think it's just an automatic thing when you sign your registry!

Go leftfield. Mr, perhaps, or Reverend Professor.

Ms suggests you're female and don't think your marital status is anyone else's business.

Wot Isthisafreename said ^

In almost every circumstance I am OhThe Roses. That only changes when somebody else wishes me to call them Mr Mrs Miss Ms or more commonly in that situations Dr. Anyone who thinks I should address them deferentially with a title when they use my first name without asking may call me Mrs Roses. I am married and that's what I chose. Generally I prefer my first name or first name, surname but do not tolerate that when not invited to use someone elses.

At the DC's primary their head was always Mrs Bloggs therefore I was always Mrs Roses. Interestingly at their independent schools their teachers to parents and them in 6th form were first names. Their head teachers too were Jane x, John x and Andrew x - no standing on ceremony with Mr, Mrs, Ms or Miss at all. Therefore I was of course OhThe.

Titles are dated and should not be used to subordinate.

Don’t you think doctors / head teachers deserve a bit of deference?

Why should people be deferential to their doctors or to head teachers?

They’re just doing a job. And the medical profession in particular has really been trying to move away from weird old paternalistic practices and ideas and seeing their role as a subject expert working with patients to help them make the right decisions for them.