Would you get rid of the titles "Miss" and "Mrs" and use just "Ms" if you could?

[peppaistired]

I would like to campaign somewhere about this. I don't see the point in having so many titles around for women, and only one and simple for men: "Mr"
After all, why should people or society care if we're married, or single? They don't seem to care in the case of men, why is there still an issue with women's marital status?

yonic the women are ma'am at dp's school - miss is felt not to be on a par with sir

For those of you saying "I just like it" (or dislike it) but I can't explain why. Let me help you: it's called unconscious bias. It's unconscious which is why you aren't aware of what is driving your thought process. But the bottom line is that some people think that a woman has more merit, if she is married. That it says something positive about her and her worth...

That's really interesting, I might start using Ms on anything new from now on. :)

Teacher I'd like to ask you a question, not to get at you, but to explore something you said.

Do you think men who can use the title Dr. often choose not to in case it makes them sound pretentious or unapproachable?

Or is there something about the way women are socialised to make themselves smaller and less significant, to care about other people's perceived comfort as opposed to embracing our authority, even when it is earned?

And why would a woman feel 'proud' to be married if she didn't in some way feel that being married is in some way superior to being single?

OK - that decision to leave didn't last long.

I don't think I am superior to someone who is not married. I do think my life is better since I got married than it was before. I know I am happier married than I was when I was single.

And I think that there are far worse forces oppressing women than me and the other women who choose to be called Mrs - but maybe we are an easier target.

And maybe feminism will never achieve it's ends when it expends it's energies attacking other women.

It would be interesting to give people pictures of clothes/accessories and ask them to divide them into those associated with Miss/Ms/Mrs.

SDTG please don't feel attacked . People are just airing opinions . Of course there are worse forces.

I don't think questioning the choices or behaviour of other women is a problem though. I don't know much about feminism as a movement, but it is surely about being judged on something other than gender, so being female shouldn't buy you immunity.

Firstly you are not being targeted.
Secondly this part of patriarchy is not an easy target! Look how much has changed over the years to benefit women in terms of sexist language but this stays strong.
Thirdly it is not a small thing because all parts of patriarchy work together. It's all interlinked. It may seem small but it's part of the bigger picture where women are seen as secondary to men. All the little things add up and cause the big ones. A society that thinks women's names should change has less respect for her notoriety in her career. A woman who has to tell her new job through her title if she's married or single when men don't means her marital status is important in places where it should be completely irrelevant.

I've been a Ms and a Mrs.

I'd be happy with no titles, and I'd also be happy to be called by my surname by strangers, as I don't like people I don't know calling me by my first name.

SDTG, I'm sure my saying that your choice oppresses me is contributing to your sense of being attacked. I do think that your choice oppresses me because of the way it means we have to continue enshrining inequality when we come into contact with the institutions of society. I'm not sure how to phrase that in a way that you don't feel attacked. I'm fairly certain that you don't have any intention to upset, offend or oppress me with your choice in this respect, if that helps. But whatsoever your intentions wrt to using Mrs as an honorific or insisting that you have a right to that choice, the effect is that we continue to communicate, enshrine and perpetuate my inequality in with men in relation to institutions. So in that sense, you contribute to my oppression.

If people need to be able to choose their post-marriage honorific in order to be free, why do men not need this freedom?

No I like mrs. It defines me as a married woman. If I didn't want people to realise I was married I wouldn't get married iykwim
I like the distinction

I quite like "Miss" on the basis that I have made an active choice not to marry or have a CP, and it emphasises that choice.

Isn't it inequitable to deny some people their choice of title, though, OutsSelf?

And it's not it easy to say that something must be sacrificed (in this case, my choice of title) for the greater good, when you aren't sacrificing something dear to you, but something dear to someone else (me and the others who choose Mrs)?

Sorry - that should be 'Is it not easy...' not 'it's not it easy'.

Can someone explain to me how I am contributing to the oppression of women by taking my husband's name upon marriage and using the title 'Mrs', please? (Actions which were taken after considerable thought and discussion between my husband and I - no one forced/expected me to take his name or assumed I would)

If this is such a hotbed of oppression, instead of attacking other women on their personal choices, why not campaign for men to be given the same choices? Why is it that what men have is better than what women have? Can't it be that us having a myriad of choices with regards to which title to use is better than having no choice at all?

As an aside, I like that titles convey additional (basic) information about a person. It allows me to make small talk, in the same way that wearing a wedding ring, or an engagment ring does. If you don't like those things being 'public' then don't use Miss or Mrs, or wear a ring etc. But if I choose to, that's my choice, and I have the right to do so.

Oh, and Yy to everything SDTG has said.

No, it is not inequitable, SDTG, because men don't have a choice; and also while losing that choice might be counter to your personal preferences it will not damage your capacity to access or effect the institutions of the state or social justice. However, the inequalities between me and men, which your protecting your choice would continue to perpetuate, do damage my capacity to access social structures in relation to men. And yours, obviously. You may be willing to give up that access to social justice, but it is illiberal to deny me it. I am denying you a preference - you are denying me equality to men as a class

Men do have it better because they don't have to put up with either having to be asked their title or people guessing and getting it wrong all the time.

Much of this goes back to the historical common law doctrine of coverture, whereby a woman's legal existence was entirely subsumed in her husband's when she married. Her legal status, her personhood changed when she married; the man's was immutable. It's this continuing immutability through social, and to some extent, legal usage in the matter of names and titles that I find oppressive.

I quite happily go along with the current use of titles being inequitable, both from a gender and class perspective, but to use the word "oppressive" so lightly makes me wince.

As I've got older, some people have called me Mrs Bearhug (in one case, even after I've said, "Please call me Emma.") I've been Miss and Ms, but never Mrs. They just seem to assume that as I'm older (I have grey hair showing), I must be married. Or they're not sure, and assume I'll be less offended by them assuming I'm married when I'm not, than assuming I'm not married when I am.

Mrs Bearhug was my mother. (Or my aunt. Or grandmother.) Not me. I'll accept Miss Bearhug, as I grew up with that, and I'll accept Ms Bearhug, but I prefer no title at all.

We had a Dr Smith at school (not Smith actually.) But he was a he. I don't know if we had any PhD-ed female teachers; if we did, they clearly chose not to use that title. We did have a Ms Brown (not actually Brown, either.) No idea if she was single, married, divorced, whether it was her first surname, or another surname, or..

If that was directed at me, IPityThePontipines (other people on the thread have used "oppressive"), believe me, I do not use it lightly.