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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

Ms, Mrs,Miss

520 replies

LookAtMeGo · 05/08/2015 22:05

Apologies in advance, as I'm sure it has been done to death. But today I realised the truth of why I refer to myself as Mrs even though I'm divorced. My mum is divorced and told me as a child in response to me asking why she is still Mrs that it is so nobody judges her and she looks respectable (not her actual words, but that's what I got from the convo at the age of about ten)

Even as a highly educated professional, I still wanted to hold on to the title post-divorce and I feel pretty... I don't know... angry? Upset? Ashamed? I really don't know. All I know is I don't feel good, and I shall be Ms from now on.

Any thoughts? Is there something else I should be doing?

OP posts:
achieve6 · 08/08/2015 12:25

SirChenjin - there's also the thing about children addressing teachers etc. I am generally pretty informal but I just think there are times - dealing with certain clients even - when formality is useful.

BeaufortBelle - please could you expand on your NHS comment? Apologies if missing something obvious.

LassUnparalleled · 08/08/2015 12:27

The solicitor who prepared our wills tried to tell me that I would automatically be Yonic DHName on marriage unless i took steps to stop it.

And I would hope you took your business away from any solicitor whose knowledge of the law is non-existent. Frankly I'd have no confidence anything else he did was correct either.

BitterChocolate · 08/08/2015 12:32

Some countries have avoided the whole 'Ms' thing by changing title when the person is an adult rather than when the marital status changes. So, for instance, adult women in Germany are Frau and in France are Madame regardless of their marital status.

I have been Ms Chocolate since my teens, and have remained Ms Chocolate through 24 years of marriage and two DC and, honestly, it has been a complete non-issue. Sometimes people refer to me as Mrs Indian-word-for-chocolate because they know H's name and know that I am married to him but don't know my name and I'm fine with that. I'd only bother mentioning my name if they might need to know it in the future. Sometimes the reverse happens and they call H 'Mr Chocolate' and it doesn't bother him either. If a form doesn't have 'Ms' on it then I will use 'Mr' as all the available titles are equally wrong so it doesn't matter which one I use.

It helps that I don't care in the slightest what other people about me (about many things, not just this), nor do I care what they choose to do, so any comments about the 'right' thing to do gets closed down when I say 'you should do whatever suits you best, you don't need to justify yourself to me, and I don't need to explain myself to you'.

achieve6 · 08/08/2015 12:56

BitterChocolate "Some countries have avoided the whole 'Ms' thing by changing title when the person is an adult rather than when the marital status changes. So, for instance, adult women in Germany are Frau and in France are Madame regardless of their marital status."

exactly, so why can't we have that here?

BeaufortBelle · 08/08/2015 13:03

Ah, well in the NHS it goes like this.

All patients addressed by first name by nurses, receptionists, doctors, etc or usually so.

Nurse or person in nurses uniform, "Jane Smith"

Person says, "hello, who am I seeing today?"
"you are seeing Mr/Dr/Miss Jones

Dr arrives "hello Jane, I'm Dr Jones"
I say "how nice to meet you, I'm Mrs Smith

Dr then either gives first name or raises eyebrows "oh Mrs Smith"

Why I the 21st century should any human address another as their subordinate. It is wrong. It us a title for all or fir none. I will not address a doctor by title if they do not afford me the basic courtesy of using mine. The practice smacks of subordinating the identity of the patient and it is an equality issue. To address another as subordinate indicates an innate lack of respect.

I simply don't understand how a person as educated as a doctor thinks it is acceptable for me to use their title whilst they expect to use my first name and don't even ask if they may.

BitterChocolate · 08/08/2015 13:08

We could have it here achieve6 but it seems to be culturally uncomfortable for most people, and so Ms is a good option instead.

SirChenjin · 08/08/2015 13:14

Beau - they shouldn't behave that way, and most of the Drs I work with will introduce themselves as Dr John Smith or whatever. Staff in the NHS should ask their patients how they would like to be addressed - can't remember which policy it's in, but there is something somewhere iirc (here in Scotland). The Dr thing is interesting - it's there to help patients understand that they are seeing a Dr as opposed to NMAHP staff (nursing, midwifery, allied health professionals) - but I totally agree, it should be first name or title for both Dr and patients. It's a throwback to the days when Dr was God - we're moving forward, but there are still a few dinosaurs roaming the wards.

BeaufortBelle · 08/08/2015 13:41

SirChejin I'm 55. I have never been asked how I would like to be addressed by any member of the NHS. In fact I got a hospital appointment reminder by text yesterday. "Jane, your apt is on... at... ". Not even Jane Smith. I think it's shocking and underlines embedded disrespect. That's St George's, London, so a respected teaching hospital which should be setting standards. I was referred to in the last copy letter I received as her and she by a woman consultant, late thirties who actually signed herself as Miss Jones. I found it disgraceful and I did complain about it and got a very nice reply from the CEO. But thus shouldn't be happening.

I do always approach it with a charm offensive though but where I live there seems to be a purposeful refusal to address patients equally. in outpatients they will call Mr someone but will not givecwomen a title. I wonder if it's because so many women make a fuss over Miss/Mrs/Ms and they are worried about getting it wrong?

SirChenjin · 08/08/2015 13:58

I agree - it shouldn't happen, absolutely not.

achieve6 · 08/08/2015 14:00

BitterChocolate - "We could have it here achieve6 but it seems to be culturally uncomfortable for most people, and so Ms is a good option instead."

sorry, I must not have explained myself properly. I mean why don't we have the same i.e. Miss for under 16, Ms for over 16? Ms is a great option, hence my bemusement that there is any resistance at all to sticking with Mr & Ms for adults.

BeaufortBelle · 08/08/2015 14:13

But achieve I like being married and I like being Mrs. I don't want to be Ms. I never had an issue being single and I don't have an issue being married. However, I do think it's done better on the Continent and it would be good to adopt that practice.

BitterChocolate · 08/08/2015 14:28

I think it's too late now to try and have 'Mrs' used for all adult women because married women are no longer deserving of more respect than single women. The change would have needed to happen at least five generations ago when it was embarrassing to be on the shelf after a certain age and single women would have been more likely to welcome the respectfulness of an honorary married title. There were come cases where single women were commonly referred to as Mrs, senior household staff for instance, but it didn't catch on for the general population. Who knows why? It might have been a mysogynistic desire to keep single women childlike and powerless (very few women then had control over their own finances or life choices) or it might have been a reluctance on the part of married women to loose their superiority over single women, whatever, it never caught on.

Anyway, it's not as though other countries are easy going about marital status even if they don't have the title problem. I lived in Germany and everyone happily referred to me as Frau Chocolate, but if they ever found out that I was married to Herr Not-Chocolate then they were horrified/perplexed and would say things like 'How is that possible?' and 'No, if you are married to Herr Not-Chocolate then you must be Frau Not-Chocolate'.

rosy71 · 08/08/2015 14:28

I was referred to in the last copy letter I received as her and she by a woman consultant, late thirties who actually signed herself as Miss Jones

Off topic, but ds2 was once referred to as "it" in a doctor's letter. "The child indicated where its leg hurt." !!!

rosy71 · 08/08/2015 14:32

there were come cases where single women were commonly referred to as Mrs, senior household staff for instance, but it didn't catch on for the general population. Who knows why?

That is discussed in the article someone linked to above. It was very interesting. Mrs was generally used by women in important positions e.g. business women, senior household staff etc & was the direct equivalent of Mr. Lots of people would have had no title at all. The article says Mrs used exclusively to show a married woman only became the norm around 1900.

rosy71 · 08/08/2015 14:32

It also has 17th (?) century examples of Ms being used.

BertrandRussell · 08/08/2015 14:35

If people really don't see an issue with women being identified in terms of their marital status it shows that feminism still has a long way to go!

Mehitabel6 · 08/08/2015 14:36

I have never been addressed like that in NHS.
If I have one of those telephone consultations they just say is that Jane Smith? - this is Matthew Jones. They are my doctors and I know who they are!
I am against anyone using a first name and expecting a surname back.
e.g when I go to the hairdresser I call her Emma and she calls me by my first name.
I am glad to find that others can't see the need for titles either.
Just fascinated to know where you all use them - I don't much.
School was about the only place when they would phone up and ask for Mrs Smith, but then they generally gave me the wrong surname , but they meant me so I just said 'yes' it was simpler.

Mehitabel6 · 08/08/2015 14:40

Or it shows that we have gone a long way, BertrandRussell and are all feisty women who couldn't care about a title we are not interested anyway.
My mother is a strong woman - and no one would have messed with my grandmother!
I say- forget about how you shorten Mistress and do away with it altogether.

SirChenjin · 08/08/2015 14:54

I don't see a problem Bertrand, providing the woman has freedom to make a particular choice. Feminism (for me) is about that choice - the fact that we now have that means that we have come a long way. Whether that suits a particular feminist agenda is immaterial to me - being told what I should think or do by one particular set of people is as unwanted as being told what I should think or do by another. There is no moral high ground to be had by imposing one's will on another.

Mehitabel6 · 08/08/2015 14:58

I have said lots of times that to me feminism is choice, but lots of times I have been told that I am wrong.

I wish someone could actually tell me why we need a title in front of names.

SenecaFalls · 08/08/2015 14:58

I agree with Bertrand. Having choice in this particular instance is anti-feminist. It does not advance the equality of women in any way.

SirChenjin · 08/08/2015 15:04

Yes it does advance the equality of women. It provides freedom of choice to determine what title you use, whether that's Ms, Miss, Mrs or whatever else it might be (no title, of course, is best imo) - unless of course you are arrogant enough to believe that you know what is best for women generally, rather than entrusting them to make decisions which are best for themselves - y'know, as adults.

SenecaFalls · 08/08/2015 15:08

Men are adults. Why don't they have freedom of choice to identify themselves in relation to whether they are married?

SirChenjin · 08/08/2015 15:15

I'm not interested in what men are doing. If they wish to start a movement which campaigns for a title to identify themselves as married then that's their prerogative. We have 3 choices - how wonderful! Tick the box you want, and stop worrying about what other women are doing.

BertrandRussell · 08/08/2015 15:15

Feminism is about more than choice.

Not sure about scrapping titles- there are circumstances where a relationship needs to be on a formal footing. But women choosing to identify themselves by their marital status when men don't is just perpetuating the sexist assumption that a woman is categorised and valued by her relationship to men. Anything which reinforces that mindset is a bad thing, surely?