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?

I'm late 40s and only have the vaguest recollection of people associating Ms with divorcees or extreme feminists in the 80s, never felt discriminated against myself for using it. I find people use titles all the time, delivery or trades people, shop workers, doctors, receptionists, call centre staff, it really brightens my day when they use Ms by default, i.e. without actually knowing my preference, feels so much more respectful than Mrs.

Yonic - it might help that I lived in an area with a lot of angry, lefty, navel gazing types about! But "Ms" has a lot of baggage in the way that Miss and Mrs don't. And an official move to using Ms wouldn't stop most people using Miss/Mrs. Making Mrs be applied to all adult woman would change that. Plus Ms was traditionally used for divorced woman, and amongst older woman you'll get resistance to using it for that reason.

Personally, I noticed a change in how i was treated when I became a Mrs, but then I think that's just that "Mrs XXX" sounds more "grown up" than "Miss XXX" - the status isn't that I'm now married, but more that I have a more adult sounding title. Mrs should just be the adult title for all adult woman in the way that Madame is in French.

"Plus Ms was traditionally used for divorced woman, and amongst older woman you'll get resistance to using it for that reason."

Really? What, older women like the 70s feminists who fought for a lot of the freedoms that younger women take for granted?

Mrs and miss come with plenty of baggage - just baggage that you're prepared to put up with more than that of Ms

Men don't have any of that

I would be ok with Mrs applied to all adult women, but i suspect that would happen less naturally than a critical mass being reached of women choosing Ms as adults, married or not

Mrs and Miss don't have baggage? You're kidding!

Hakluyt - some woman in the 70s were feminist activist, the bulk weren't. Amongst those woman, Ms often does mean 'divorced', less so amongst younger woman.

Interesting that there is something- shame?- as baggage attached to a title that a few people might think means you're divorced, but pride attached to a title that indicates you're married.

More and more evidence for the need to move to Ms only!

It's Miss and Mrs that have the baggage. While I can see that many people who currently use Miss or Mrs would continue to do that in the face of any "official" change, I do think that if there were to be a shift in thinking so that Ms was always used as default unless a preference was expressed otherwise, the archaic Miss and Mrs would die out over a couple of generations anyway, as Ms became normalised.

I am Ms am not married and never would be and have never thought about it indicating bias! When I see it I think it indicates someone who is not defined by someone else.

I don't think it would matter if Ms or Mrs was used, as long as there was a single title used for all adult women. Both have baggage, but that would disappear pretty quickly for whichever was the default.

whoknows in some industries i think Ms is the default - it definitely is in mine (or Dr)

i mentioned above my colleague who styles her email signature as "jane smith (mrs)" and i assume she does that because she doesn't like being called Ms

in private life (schools, hcps etc) i suspect it's less likely to be the default

Baggage not bias

But if we all woke up tomorrow and were Ms, it wouldn't signify anything, except "woman" - that's the point!

I wouldn't want mrs as default as it indicates marriage

Yes, but if it became the default it would no longer indicate marriage.

I'm Miss. I like being Miss. I don't want to be Ms.
In fact I know someone who refuses to call me Miss and always uses Ms (on the rare occasion she needs to use my title)
She is quite verbally aggressive in her insistence that I should be Ms.
I don't see how my choice of title agents anyone else.

If you want to me Ms be Ms.
I honestly can't remember ever filling in a form as an adult which doesn't offer it as a choice.

In my industry it's first names all the way, so this just doesn't arise, but in every day life I get called Mrs frequently, which shows how ingrained the sexist attitudes are. Some of it may be because I wear a wedding ring and they have noticed that, but other times that is unlikely (phone callers etc). It seems that it is more of a faux-pas to call a married women Miss or Ms than it is to call a single one Mrs, which reinforces the "married is better as far as women are concerned" message.

Ms would makes us all the same which is what I like. Men don't indicate marital status

x-posted. I do that if I can Chunderella but as my job is completely non-public facing I don't often get the chance. I address personal letters and cards without titles, apart from elderly relatives.

"It seems that it is more of a faux-pas to call a married women Miss or Ms than it is to call a single one Mrs, which reinforces the "married is better as far as women are concerned" message"

definitely

The pride argument is so sad I am utterly amazed people still think like that

Sadly I think this is more likely to be evolution than revolution so it seems that the first thing that needs to happen is that women need to stop being offended if they are called Ms by those who would have no cause to already know a preferred title.

Calling a woman Ms simply means that they are being addressed as an individual, not with reference to their (real or presumed) marital status. It is intended as a positive form of address not as an insult.

For goodness sake. Does all correctness have to go out of the window? Signing at the end of a letter should only include your name unless it is necessary to determine your marital status. In that case you may add Mrs in brackets. For addressing an envelope I would go with any info given and if necessary select Miss or Ms if you really must.