02 November 2012
By Sandrine Berges
This amusing post came out a few days ago in Feminist Philosophers. The person who wrote the email was the victim of some automated response gone wrong. When you submit a paper to a journal, these days, you ofen have to fill in a form, with scroll down options for your title. Somehow, in his case, 'dr' got replaced by 'miss'.
I have two thoughts about this. First, why do they have 'miss' as an option at all? Isn't it enough to have 'Ms' and 'Mr'? Does anybody still prefer to be refered to as 'Miss', and if so, should we, in the light of the fact that it's a sexist appellation which gives information about your marital status in a way that cannot be done for men, humour them?
Secondly, if you have a professional title (dr, prof, or something else), should you use that at all times or only in professional contexts? This clearly was a professional context (journal publishing), but how about on your credit card, or phone bills? Are you a dr or a ms or mr? While I was still leaving in the UK, I remember finding it a bit pretensious to have the bank call me 'dr', until they started calling me 'Miss'. Then I insisted they change my credit and debit card to 'Dr.'. They never did. Now I'm in Turkey, my credit cards simply have my name on them. When I receive a letter, there is no title. When people want to use a title, they use 'hanim' (honorific title for woman, and the feminine version of 'bey') or ('hoca' used here to mean teacher) after my first name. So I'm Sandrine hanim, or Sandrine hoca. Which is ok.
Blanka Sengerová13 November 2012 at 10:12 PM
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I think this is a very country-specific issue. In the UK, no one seems to use the Dr in front of their name outside academia so I've come across a few people with PhDs about whom I had no idea they had them. But then people here also use first names much more readily than in other cultures/countries.
I've changed to Dr on my bank account, but only because I was changing my name at the same time. The result of which was my husband putting his title to Dr on our joint account (which is in the bank where I had my account originally) - so we didn't end up with a Dr & Mr account! He'd never bothered until then.
In the Czech Republic and Germany, it is usual for people to address others as Mr Professor, Mr Doctor, Mr Teacher, etc. and they seem to be much more into their titles. I've never bothered putting my titles (MA or PhD) into my ID card or passport in the Czech Republic because it would probably involve some translation and official confirmation of my certificates, nothwistanding the need to reapply for my ID card.
I think what amused me a bit was the letter to Miss with my married name. Surely something went a little wrong there?
I'm not enough of a feminist to be bothered by the use of the Miss/Mrs title, though what does irk me is the use of Mrs John Smith (as in Mr & Mrs John Smith or Mr & Mrs J Smith) - surely the woman still has her own first name even if she married the bloke. I've trained most of my husband's family to never use that title when sending letters to the two of us...
Sandrine Berges26 November 2012 at 09:06 AM
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Thanks for this Blanka. It's interesting to have an international perspective on this. In France, of course, we don't even have an equivalent for Ms. We're just Madame or Mademoiselle, and never Docteur, as this is for MDs only. I sometimes think that this is one of the reasons I left France!
Whenever French companies send letters to us, they send two, one addressed to M. et Mme Wringe (my husband's name) and one to M. et Mme Berges. It simply does not enter into their consciousness that a couple might have different last names!