"Miss goes missing on French official forms" - let's do the same here!

[Alittlefeminist]

Hurray for French feminists who have pushed through a revision of women's titles: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/22/mademoiselle-removed-from-french-official-forms :)

Let's do the same!

Oh come now Maryz, I did not say your mum was racist! That's a bit of a leap! All I mean is that the talk of older women who might well be against change isn't really a smoking gun argument for never changing, in any debate.

I said pages ago that I wasn't in favour of 'bannning' older women from calling themselves Mrs, but I do hope that we as a society can gradually move away from such an outdated concept.

It's not a choice - it's an imposition. That's why men don't want it and nor do I.

sigh

It is a big deal because it's not a default choice - ie, you have to be the 'different' one if you do want to tell people you're married. Because 'Ms' is choice three - 'I'm not going to tell you!' - 'not telling' has to be a proactive, usually awkward, generally sneered at option. 'Not telling' is not the same as 'not being asked'. I DO NOT want to be asked whether I'm married all the time just because I am a woman!

Gah nothing - it is a preferred method of address based on WHETHER OR NOT YOU ARE MARRIED.

for men the option is - do you have a professional or aristocratic title or not. For women it is do you have any of those, and if not, are you married.

You can keep saying it in capitals (and I assure you it's as tiresome to read as I imagine it is to write!), but it is not an answer.

Yeah, you can tick what you like. Like when I ticked 'Dr' for my CRB and then got a phone call saying 'I know you ticked Dr, but are you actually a miss, or are you a mrs'? .

But I'd already told them my correct form of address! hence the phone call. That makes no sense at all.

Do you think they rang all the Mr's, or the male Drs, up to ask them if they were actually Master or Mister?

Had there been a box to tick for marital status, I should have ticked the appropriate one. There wasn't. They use title to determine it. And when the title didn't tell them what they apparently needed to know, only that it was my title, they needed to ring me up to ask if I was, or had been, married.

.

you are saying that if only Ms was available I would then get asked if I was married or not anyway?

No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that because Miss and Mrs are in common use, and because lots of people are a bit dim, and don't know quite what to do when a woman is neither, they then ring up to find out which of the two main ways of defining a woman anyone 'actually' is. If Miss and Mrs weren't in common use, of course no-one would ring up to ask which you were.

I should imagine that the reasoning is to find out whether you've ever had a different surname. Which they think they can ascertain by your title.

Personally, I'd just put a box in to tick if you've ever had a different surname, but I expect that's me being oppressive and removing choice etc etc.

How on earth do you know how the forms would go?

Also, it's not about 'privacy' or my being coy about my status. I have no problem with a 'living with partner' box. I just don't want it to determine my title.

Feel free