Gym thinks only men can be Drs

[DrElizabethPlimpton]

I've just seen a link to a Daily Fail article (I won't link obviously) about a gym in Cambridgeshire

A paediatrician joined and she found that her electronic key wouldn't allow her access to the female changing room. The 'glitch' was explained by staff - apparently her title Dr automatically defaulted to the assumption she was male.
I'm currently speechless.

I see the thread has moved on but the statements for DH & my joint account are addressed to 'Mr DH' and 'Mr DH & Mrs DW'. Has always bothered me that he gets his own statement but I don't and 'my' statement is sent to both of us.
Not bothered enough to do anything about it, naturally :) especially as both statements are exactly the same...but still, tis a wierd set up by the bank

Well, there's an awful lot you 'haven't seen', isn't there?

Like, the story the OP was referring to.

pom - that's an odd one!

Is he the first named account holder, by any chance? I've read on here before about banks that 'just happen' to designate men as first-named account holders, even if you specified the opposite when you opened the account, so it might be that is what happened?

Very dodgy.

I joined Facebook a few years ago and didn't set my gender. A couple of years later, I marked my brother as "Brother", and he presumably marked me back.

When I went on his profile later, I saw myself listed as " FatCunt - Brother"

So Facebook assumed I'm male.

Pom, that makes no sense though, if both the statements are for the same account and sent to you and your DH.

Okay it is ghastly but I am always a little hmm when people use Dr outside of work. None of my doctor friends ever do only a friend with a PhD does.

Well, that will be because your 'doctor friends' are technically only 'doctors' at work. They are doctors, like a plumber is a plumber, because doctoring is what they do. It isn't actually their title. That's why consultants become Mr/Mrs/Ms again, because they are no longer doctors. Unless they have a PhD ;)

Whereas a person who has a PhD - their title IS doctor. It refers to something that is inalienably about them, isn't transferable and doesn't change whatever job they do. For women especially, it's certainly a far more relevant way of titling oneself (if applicable) than marital status. No-one needs titles, they're redundant in modern society, but until they fall out of use, a person with a PhD calling themselves by the title 'Dr' is just as sensible, if not more so, than someone changing from Miss to Mrs simply because they signed a different bit of paper.

It's a shame that being a medic and achieving a doctorate use the same words to describe them, but far more depressing is the inevitable chippiness that pops up (which always, and so stupidly, sneers something along the lines of 'proper doctors', referring to medical staff) whenever PhDs are mentioned. It's baffling - I don't think it happens outside of the UK. Perhaps they'd all be happier if we all referred to one another as 'Plumber Smith' 'Optician Johnson' 'CallCentreOperative Clarkson' and the like

Huh. That's really dubious, fat - I thought FB had introduced a huge spectrum of identities, so you'd think they'd be really hot on that sort of thing?

sylv - to be fair, though, that's only because of conventions, and they are odd conventions. There's no strong reason why it should be the case - only, it has been defined as such.

Actually buffy I think it's likely worse than assuming doctors are male. I would lay odds that the code is along the lines of all customers defaulting to male, then, only if you select a definitely female title does it switch you to female. I've seen it too often.

Pom - my bank did this when I added dp to my account. I complained, they fixed it, and gave me 50 quid to apologise.

"Unemployed Cunt."

Hmm. It does have a certain ring to it.

I admit, I am struggling to find a polite way to address you, FC, with that name!

Disbelieve me if you like about the Facebook thing I couldn't believe it either, in such a big company with so many users and an image to maintain. They must just have male and female users, and those who are unspecified remain male but with, presumably, bits changed here and there that tell the page to use a gender-neutral pronoun

Oh, god no! I meant 'dubious' in the sense of, a dubious policy for them to have if they want to claim to be all caring and lovely about gender, which they do.

I didn't mean I doubted you. Sorry!

I like the notion of being "Director Screwdriver"

Oops, I misread you - I didn't think you really disbelieved me, though, just that it is kinda unbelievable.

No, it was me, not a very clear post!

But yes ... it's mind-boggling.

I wonder if they've changed it now.

Anothernumber, why would you not use dr if it is your title?

I do, because I am neither a miss or mrs, I am dr.

I rather like that my title doesn't automatically declare my marital status.

It was a couple of years ago, I think. I "corrected" my stated gender and I became my brother's sister.

And fwiw I can't see why we bother with titles anymore, first and surname is sufficient, but when asked if I am miss or mrs I will say dr as that is my correct title, and not just because I am up my own arse.

They seemed to suggest it was a two-system fault, which would make it more a data-pass communications glitch to the key device. Those devices commonly have an exact pre-defined identity, ie Mr John Smith living at 123 ABC Lane, etc, so they can be tested independent of any other system. They are not designed to accept human input and have those defaults overwritten by another software system sending them information. Could be the system was not so much sexist as failing to pass what the device needed to change its defaults, missed in testing because Dr is uncommon and a male doctor using the facility would not trigger awareness of the fault. Damn it would be good to see the source code to see where and why it flaked out. Glitch, sloppy, sexist, any of those is possible.

I'm not wildly convinced, dadwas - I mean, I get it, I just think that you can't really get round the fact that someone, at some stage, had to put their bias into the system or it wouldn't be there.

But, I will say, in Cambridgeshire Dr can't be that unusual a title. It's a county with a couple of large universities and big hospitals.

DadWasHere, I'm itching to look at the source too. I'm inclining towards sloppy, poorly tested code but would love look.

To derail further, many of us do have our ancestors' occupations as our names... Cooper, Smith. Maybe we can return to that system but change our last name by deed poll every time we change job. Then maybe Susan Jane Physicist can also be barred from the women's changing rooms by a similar computer glitch.