Institutional Sexism : The Honours list

[TalkinPeace]

Good evening,
this is my first ever thread on this board but I suspect the people on here might "get" the issue rather better than the fluffy boards.

Here is the official Honours list
www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/434869/Queens_birthday_honours_list_2015.pdf

Why is the marital status of all of the women shown, but none of the men?
Why do the women who work under their birth names have to have their husband's names listed
Hilary Mantel was listed under her husband's name FWIW

Isn't it about time that the protocol for listing names stopped looking at ladies' wedding rings?

I have complained to Buck House, but I am just a lone voice.
Hopefully the folks on this board will be able to kick something into action in time for New Year

I have no underlying problem with the Honours system BTW, it has its uses, but it need not be sexist

Oh for goodness sake clearly some married women must have made a conscious decision they wanted their married name used. What a fuss about nothing.

I actually think in such a formal situation as this the oddity, to the point of not being polite, is that certain males get no courtesy title at all.

Well, since it's all social convention it should be changed. Ridiculous that women have the choice of having their name mucked about with, or losing it entirely just because they are calling themselves Mrs.

You're right though, it would be easier to just have no title at all, or all be Ms.

I did just pop over to Debretts to look at it, and I suppose it depends on the context, but it suggests for lists of Directors/Patrons (which to me feels closer to what this is than an invitation) you should ask the lady herself.. I wonder if they did, or if it was presented in a fait accompli style list of options?

Step forward someone who's been honoured - surely we must have someone, somewhere who knows!

OK,
so this board thinks its fine for women and men to be treated differently by default

clearly Tim Hunt is not a dinosaur

Oh and I'm 56 and "Ms" never meant the person was divorced.

That was never the point of it nor how it was used. So if you are going to bang on about using or not using titles it might help if you actually knew what they meant.

Whilst I hate "Mrs" many women like it. It's very high handed of you to dismiss what clearly was their choice.

Lass
My problem is not with Mrs
My problem is that
why is it relevant to their work at HMRC or the MOD or a bank or a charity or a council?

Unlike you I think not using ",Mr" for those who men have no other title is odd.

Ms , Miss, Mrs, Dr , Prof , Sir, Lady , are all fine in my book. So as far as I'm concerned the question is why should certain men not get any title when all women and some men do.

And you have misunderstood what the point and usage of "Ms " is.

Lass - I agree - either all should have titles, or none should have the default ones (Mr and Ms) in my opinion.

I'm not sure that the Mrs title-holders really chose to be presented that way - at least not with an informed decision, or surely at least one or two would have suggested that they could be the same as the men? Or one or two of the Ms women? The fact that they are all the same suggests that a blanket rule was applied which is contrary to Debretts which says on lists of Directors or Patrons - which is the closest to what this is - that the lady should choose. Perhaps another injustice to the poor blokes, as Debretts says that when writing to an untitled man (amusingly right at the bottom of the list with the untitled women, as those without titles clearly don't matter as much ) the writer gets to choose the method of address (Mr, no Mr, or Esquire).

The honours list would be the perfect place to reform the use of titles.

Stop using them altogether and just put any appropriate letters after the name - like Americans do with Jane Smith, PhD or MD more often than Dr Jane Smith when written. It's already what happens with OBE etc. Ditch the meaningless M... thing entirely.

I'd been puzzled by the weird Jane, Mrs Smith thing in that list - never occurred to me that would be the 'correct' way to avoid the dreadful Mrs John Smith - it's the 21st century FFS. They should just stop that, surely that would be uncontroversial?

chunky as we have discussed, they are not all the same, so some choices would have had to be made.