I have many things to catch up on, posts started, not finished. Hopefully I will finish. In the meantime, a personal gripe.
Titles.
I have earned one, through many years of hard work. It is Dr. It is the only title I use. In real life people call me Dr. or use my first name. I am fine with both, though I emphasize the Dr. with freshman, and try to get grad students to call me by my given name.
Now, on occasion a website or a form REQUIRES a title. A good proportion of the time when this is the case, the choices are Mr. Miss, Mrs., and Ms. Now, each of these titles means something.
Mr. - I am a man
Miss - I am an unmarried woman or a girl who is fine with conventional double standards for women as compared to men and/or I want to make sure you know I'm single.
Mrs. - I am a married woman who is fine with conventional double standards for women as compared to men and/or I want to make sure you know I'm married.
Ms. - I am a woman who thinks it is none of your business to categorize me in an old-fashioned patriarchal way, gender should be sufficient as it is for men.
Now, if you are female your title therefore says something about your opinions and your politics. Men have no such issues. Truly, I wish women generally used Ms. and dealt with their status the way men do, and that there were not other messages about politics or personal lives attached. Married women who want to express that could say so, and talk fondly of their husbands. Unmarried women could mention being single. Women who wish to discuss feminism could and come down on one side or the other but they would not have to. Ms. almost caught on for universal usage but we went backwards, and have returned more to past double standards. At least in the red states, Ms. causes raised eyebrows. A friend assures me that in her town in her blue state, Ms. is still the prefered title for women. That was reassuring.
In the meantime, I have a title I EARNED and that is the only title I want to use. I will not use another, so some things are barred to me.
About Me
- H
- I am a solitary creature. Not from dislike of my fellows, but just by my nature. I tend to absorb completely in whatever I am doing, losing track of everything else. It is a strength and a weakness. I am not a multitasker. I think the world is an amazing and beautiful place. The more we know about it, the more astounding it is.
Maukie - the virtual cat
4 comments:
I've thought about this too. For some reason (raised eyebrows bother me perhaps?), I can't use Ms. comfortably. So I use Miss when forced to choose, and will admit to liking that I can use Dr. to avoid the whole issue sometimes.
I'm so glad you commented, by the way. I hadn't found you before and there's a simple elegance that I like very much in what I've read so far. I'm looking forward to doing some catching up.
Hey, H,
I've thought about this issue, too, and it bothers me quite a bit. As you say, you can't use Ms. without it being a political statement. Quite frankly, I've always thought we should use Mrs. for everyone, since historically the Mrs. carries more weight than the Miss or Ms. (As in Germany, where they've pretty much given up Fraulein and use Frau for all mature women (or so I'm told)).
Whatever we do, we'll have to change the meaning of one of those titles in order to achieve something equal to Mr. It's these little things that bug the hell out of me.
(I have a Master's. Can I ask people to call me Master instead of Ms.?)
The thing that bugs me about Ms is that it doesn't mean anything. I mean, Mr is short for 'Mister', Miss isn't an abbreviation at all, and Mrs is short for 'Missus'. I think...
But 'Ms' is just a shortened conglomeration of Miss and Mrs. It even sounds horrible when said aloud. I agree completely that it would be much easier to have one title for women as for men, but I don't think it should be Ms. It just seems inadequate, somehow. A sort of stubborn compromise with no actual meaning.
Ata thinks that, perhaps, she should insist on being Madame.
Although then it is nearly certain that many people will think she runs a house of ill repute.
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