No Miss, no Ms... just Mrs

[guinnessgirl]

Hi all. First op on this board so please be gentle!

I was reading this blog post recently, and it really got me thinking. vagendamagazine.com/2014/09/why-you-shouldnt-bother-calling-yourself-ms/

I disagree with the idea at the end about us all being Mr, but the idea of all adult women being Mrs really appeals to me. As the writer says, for good or bad it's the highest status title of the three that we currently use, and it's got a direct parallel in Mr.

What do you think? And do you think there's any real hope of change if enough women adopted it?

DH doesn't use his Dr (PhD) title outside work at all, he just doesn't think it's relevant, in fact he finds it slightly embarrassing. Where I work (private sector science) about half the staff have PhDs but to be honest I only know this because part of my job is to hold the copies of their qualification certificates. They probably have it on their business cards too (I'm not one but do have all the letters after my name on my cards).

Your DH shouldn't feel embarrassed to use it, that's where the problem lies he has earned the legal right to use it and shouldn't be judged for that. People may be misunderstanding what I mean by using it. I would never go around adding dr to the front of my name for the sake of it but anything that formally requires a title I will certainly be proud to state dr.

My sister has a PhD and works in the tech industry in the States. She doesn't use it professionally or socially. I think that is the norm for her employer.

Medical doctors, dentists, and veterinarians in the US all tend to use Dr both professionally and socially. With PhDs, it's a mix I think.

The law degree in the US is a doctorate, but lawyers don't use it professionally or socially.

In academia, there can be a sort of inverse snobbery. In some of the more elite institutions, it's Mr. and Ms rather than Dr or Professor (and most academic positions in the US are professorships).

Nicola - there are a small who do introduce themselves as Dr so and so, but as was said upthread, they are from the old "don't you know who I am" school. Most people don't use their titles - and in the NHS where I work there is an assumption that if you are a Dr you are a medical Dr.

I am a huge supporter of no titles - I really don't believe that there are necessary outside of your professional field.

He uses it in a work setting but it is completely irrelevant in his private life. He chooses to use the title Mr because that is the title which most men use and reveals the least about himself, which is the same reason I use Ms. He isn't embarrassed that he has a PhD, but sees no need for the world to be reminded every time he hands over a credit card.

He also doesn't ever want to be mistaken for a medical doctor.

I don't know about Frau but titles like Madame and Señora (and the more formal Doña) have always denoted women of a certain age / standing as well as women who were married. A bit like how the cook and housekeeper in a grand house would be Mrs X regardless of whether they were married or not (in all likelihood not). So basically you're going to be a Madame whether you like it or not in France, whereas short of getting a job in Downton Abbey you're not going to have to be a Mrs. I would really object to having to take the title Mrs as a form of standardisation and would probably insist on something like Admiral instead just to be difficult.

I think that (professional ones apart) titles still persist just because it often sounds wrong to talk to someone you don't know well without it in the English convention.

On written communication, E. Dragon on the envelope would be fine. But

Dear E. Dragon or Dear Errol Dragon looks a bit wrong (and Dear Errol too informal for first communication). Meeting someone, 'Hello ....' what? Maybe we will need to just drop all formality and go straight to forename if we don't want to use an honorific. (The only person who ever greets people 'Hello Firstname Lastname' is Joe Grundy in The Archers afaik )

I reckon being a cantankerous old git like Joe can be isn't necessarily a bad way to go.

I prefer not to use a title at all (because in most cases, it's no one's business whether I'm male or female, let alone married or not.) I have a sparkly new bank card with no title after I went in a few weeks ago to request that when my card expires, it doesn't have one. That's fine for the card, but apparently I can't have a bank account without a title. When I have the energy (probably this weekend, when I am avoiding writing the rest of my Christmas cards), I'm going to write to them to ask why. Can't they just have a box for M/F/other?

If they must use a title, I favour Ms, but I'd rather have something that doesn't indicate my gender either. (Comrade is fine, but it'd be gendered in some languages - Kamerad/Kameradin.)

nicola, my reasoning is simply that, in theory, I don't see any logic to the use of Dr in academia.

Of course, the world being what it is, I use it to annoy patronizing salesmen with 'Is it Miss or Mrs' questions, and of course I get a little jolt of pride thinking 'ooh! I'm Dr DeMontbaston, wow, how exciting' (cos I am newly Dr'd).

But, if we could manage to change conventions such that titles weren't used, I wouldn't need it for the first, and I am sure there would be some other detail that would keep reminding me how proud I was of my hard work.

After all, if we were all in Germany, we'd all no doubt be seeing newly-qualified professionals of all kinds experiencing the same sense of pride when they looked at their brand-new titles. But we're not used to becoming Architect DeMontbaston, or Engineer DeMontbaston or whatever, so we never miss it.

It's purely conventional.

Oh, and btw, for honesty's sake I'll point out I always said I would totally use my title outside work, because fewer women PhDs do this than men and I see it as a tiny way of changing the public image of what 'Dr' means.

I was very adamant about this.

I handed in my thesis in July 2013 and I have still not got around to changing my bank cards over, and precisely two people in the word address mail to me as Dr: my employer, and, er .. my ex-husband.

I am not sure what that says about the intersection of marital customs and misogyny.

One of my great-aunts used to address letters to, "Miss E Bearhug*, BA (Hons), MSc" - she had been to uni herself when it was far rarer for women to do so, and I think women getting degrees was still a big deal to her. However, if work or the bank or someone started doing that, I would think it very odd.

• In truth, she used my RL surname...

Oh, that is lovely.

I totally get the pride.

I just think, if we didn't live in a title-focussed culture, we'd find another way of saying 'you're awesome, and you're a woman, and some people don't expect that'. Which is what it is, I think?

Did I misunderstand - you have a Phd therefore you are awesome?

Don't like Ms at all, seems neither here or there!! I am married and a Mrs and proud of that. I am not defined by my married status nor the property of anyone BUT I have no reason to hide the fact that I am married either.

but your comment 'seems neither here nor there' does show that you personally are defined by your married status tbh

So do you think there should be alternative honorifics for single and married men too?

I am a feminist and have been since I was a teenager when I used ms to refer to myself. But when I got married I happily changed to Mrs. It simply doesn't bother me. However I would like to see equivalent titles for men. Master And Mr perhaps.
I dint mind reflecting my marriage through my name as it is double barreled so the use of mrs just cements that. I do object to the fact that the title infers something special though. It just doesn't. It just reflects my choice to marry.

DH has just booked our summer hols - DD will be 16 then and he commented (with a bit of PFB ) that the booking shows up as 3 adults and that she's now a Ms rather than a Miss. Quite right too, I said.

I generally try to live in a world where titles don't exist. They really are pointless. There is no reason at all why anyone needs to address me as anything other than Calamitously or Calamitously Wrong in any situation.

However, since so much of the world insists we use a title, I use Dr. DH sometimes uses Dr too now, just because I do. I really resented having to make a choice about Miss/Ms/Mrs, particularly as it's partially about making some sort of statement.

At work they insist in using our titles all over the place. My door plate says 'Dr calamitously wrong', so does the university website and every bit if paperwork they seem to produce for any audience. Colleagues without doctorates don't get a title, but those of us who can be called Dr (or Prof) have it thrown around everywhere. I presume that serves the university's purposes so I leave them to it. Some of the students are a bit funny about it and immediately assume the staff who aren't listed as Dr will be more approachable

I have had my Dr (which I was forced to choose from a drop down menu) changed to Mr in quite a few situations. Once by a British airport check in system (the woman on the desk insisted on changing it before giving me my boarding card; she changed it to Mrs without asking me). The Spanish airport at the other end just left it as Dr though. I laughed about it with DH.

The best example of my Dr getting changed to Mr was on a prescription for my oral contraceptives.

(I'd had to pull out my Dr with the GP as sadly he seemed to think a Mrs wouldn't understand technical terms)

I often pick random titles - I've been Prof, Dr, Rear Admiral, Rev, Lady and many more over the years. Funnily enough, I've never been asked for proof of my naval prowess or my religious leanings

SirC - was that question to me?

If so, no. I was answering nicola. I'm trying to say - any time you achieve something, it's natural you feel proud, and it's natural you get attached to whatever the conventional way of displaying that pride is. So you get pregnant, you feel excited about the scan photo (in my group of friends anyway!) you put it up on facebook. I think it's the same with using 'Dr' as a title for most people - sure, it's all lovely to think ooh, I did this thing. But honestly, if we'd never used the title we'd never miss it, just as pregnant women before scan pics were perfectly capable of getting excited without 'seeing' their baby.

(NB: not comparing a PhD to a baby. It just struck me as the easiest example.)

Ah Ok - just so long as you weren't equating a Phd (or indeed any title, academic or otherwise) with awesomeness

Oh, I absolutely was equating a PhD with awesomeness - I think nicola is completely right to feel proud. Same with any achievement.

But that's not the same as equating the title with awesomeness. And the kind of person who goes around saying 'Oh, yes, I am Dr So-and-so, don't you know' is a wanker.

But it's like my mate was saying the other day - you don't go round calling yourself 'mummy' because it would be twee and bizarre, but it didn't stop her getting soppy on FB the first time her DS managed to call her it.