I don’t like it when someone calls me MRS. It’s somehow automatically offensive to me. My marital status doesn’t need to be advertised (yet I wear my wedding band gladly). I don’t care to have anyone identify me solely as The Wife Of, rather than simply Me. And that is what the tag MRS. means to me. I am happy to be married, and I chose to take my husband’s name for an uncomplicated reason: I liked the sound of my first name with his last name better than what I already had. If I hadn’t liked his last name, I would’ve kept my ‘maiden’ name without a second thought. I remember when I was a kid, in the 70’s, the idea of using ‘Ms.’ was still quite new – and often was treated as a joke (as much of the Women’s Movement was and still is by certain portions of the population). I thought, "Cool – good idea!"
Like what has often been termed Political Correctness, it seems to me that to identify a person as he or she WANTS to be identified is simple politeness. My marital status is thoroughly irrelevent at my place of work, for one – but it’s also irrelevent almost anywhere else I go. When someone calls me MRS. <—–> – I correct him without a second thought: "MS. <—–> – Mrs. <—–> is my mother-in-law." That throws people off, for some reason. I don’t mean to surprise people – it seems odd to ME that anyone would assume I identify myself as the wife of my husband rather than as my individual self.
It’s become standard practice in business communication to use ‘Ms.’, but for some reason that hasn’t carried over into regular, everyday, at-the-grocery-store-and-in-the-park communication. Perhaps we have focused so much of the fight on getting further in the work world that we’ve left the private person-to-person world to stew about somewhere in the late seventies. Sometimes it’s the strangest thing – I check out at the grocery store (I’m alone), and the clerk sees my name on the receipt (some stores have those club card things, y’know), and says, "You saved X dollars, Mrs.<—–>!" How does she know I’m married? Where does that come from? Freaks me out a little. Do I *look* married? Is there a certain aspect of my dress that gives it away? No, I think it’s the assumption that a woman buying groceries who appears to be older than 21 MUST be married. And a married woman MUST be MRS. Because no woman over A Certain Age should be single – and no married woman would keep her maiden name. Just assumption, assumption. And that’s what gets me riled. Assume that you know me, how I identify myself, what kind of homelife I have, what my goals and ambitions are … and you will piss me off. My life is my own business. For me, that’s what feminism is about – getting other people’s assumptions out of my space, freeing me to live by my own standards rather than those of others. Developing into a fully-realized person without giving regard to someone else’s idea of what & who I should be (or appear to be).
I don’t know why this was on my mind this evening, but it was. I really enjoy reading quote Feminist Blogs unquote – I don’t claim to be a well-read feminist scholar, but I always enjoy the conversations and discussions at blogs like the ones on my sidebar that would probably identify as such. I usually don’t talk specifically about big-F Feminism, because (one) I’m not well-versed enough in the academic end of things and (two) I don’t have grand insights into gender relations and society – but I do know feminism enters into almost everything we do. It’s in what we think about stereotypes and who should make dinner. It’s in why a young woman knows better than to say Thank You when a male coworker compliments her figure. It’s in boring-ass details like why I prefer ‘Ms.’ to ‘Mrs.’ and why I think it’s sad that women working at my agency have to deal with different behavior from clients than the men do. I guess I just don’t see as many writers as I’d like talking about the daily dull realities of gender inequality. We should all write about this stuff. It’s just part of our lives – it’s not exotic stuff, so let’s talk about what’s right there everyday, before we get to thinking it doesn’t matter.
