the Ms thing

[justabit]

Three times in the last week (on a work call, British Gas, and now returning something to a company) I have heard myself saying "sorry but it isn't Mrs it is Ms). In each case I have already filled in a form and they have my database entry in front of them. I think that this is why I have (in one case) even interrupted them to say this. How many more decades do we need to keep daily insisting on the right to have the title we want used? As an irritant this one comes and goes with me but right now I feel that it is a very strong signifier of a refusal to accept a woman's right to set her own conditions for engaging with the world. I have felt quite strongly over the past few years that resistance to the daily markers of feminism is getting stronger. Having typed this now I am wondering if I should have posted it in AIBU? Maybe posting in feminism is a cop out? So tell me if you think that feminism has moved on and there are more important things to worry about?

When I've had to send things out to people I've just put "Ms" for everyone unless they've given their name (unprompted) as "Mrs Betsy Finklewang" or similar.

love evil ants response - it so sums up what is wrong with the whole mrs/miss type thing.

i'm personally not bothered - i tend to use mrs, as currently i'm a sahm with no finance, credit record etc of my own, so rely on dh's name & credit to get anything. once i've got my finances sorted, i intend to start using ms more.

as a teacher i was miss all the time, even miss surname, so i just put a lot of it down to laziness. over here children call adults miss firstname (or mr firstname) so i just float between miss, ms, or mrs depending on the situation.

it would be so much simpler if everyone was just me though. why do women need to 'show off' that they're married, but men don't?

I posted about this when it happened, but I ended up having a huge row with the CRB people about the fact that I'm a Ms and I hasn't put my 'other' surname on the form.
I explained that though I probably had a different surname at some point eg immediately prior to being adopted as a 3 week old baby, I didn't know the name and had never been asked for it. Then they explained that they wanted my maiden name or former married name. I said that I had never been married. Then I twigged that they (like a few other arseholes) think that 'Ms' means bitter manhating feminist divorced
I am bloody well going to reclaim Miss now (as that actually winds people up even more - that I am quite obviously middle aged and Not Married.)

I had the same problem SGB (bar the adoption part) - it is official CRB policy (they blamed the police in their reply to my hopping mad letter) to assume that women who put "Ms" but no other surnames are either VERY forgetful or just plain lying.