Opinion | Miss, Mrs, Ms, or Mx, which honorific to go by? None of the above, thank you
Why do forms still require women to indicate their marital status while all men come under a single term – Mr
On getting married several years ago, I unilaterally considered a name change to mark my new status, but there was a proviso. I’d become Mrs G only if my other half, Charles, agreed to take my surname. But thoughts of a swap were frivolous and unwise: Charlie Chan, like Fu Manchu and other bucktoothed Asian stereotypes, can no longer be considered funny. But I digress.
I mention that moment of silliness only to explain the slight pause that always interrupts my signing of official forms, the most recent being a five-pager from HSBC. In the old days, marriage conferred on a woman the right to abandon her father’s name for that of her husband. Mrs was a step up from Miss but still tainted by the legacy of coverture, the doctrine by which wives lacked a legal identity. In the 21st century, neither honorific nor their awkward alternatives are necessary.
Am I a Mrs? Well, yes, because I’m married, but no, because I retain my “maiden” name? Or Miss? I can’t say that word without conjuring Miss Prissy, the skinny, bonnet-wearing spinster hen with glasses on her beak. How about Ms? It’s never wrong but two things weigh it down – reality (single women have largely co-opted the title) and political baggage.
Dangling it as a choice is asking: are you a feminist? The title, introduced in the 17th century, was revived in the early 1960s by American feminist Sheila Michaels, who didn’t see why women should be identified by their relationships to men. A decade later, it was used as the title for the groundbreaking magazine co-founded by another American feminist, Gloria Steinem.
Feminism is not monolithic but if we are talking about supporting equal opportunity and calling out sex-based discrimination, then, of course, I’m a feminist, and consciously so since my teens, when French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir’s 1949 book, The Second Sex, opened my eyes to the female construct. But, really, in the civilised world these days, apart from Donald Trump and his pussy-grabbing enablers, who can afford not to be a feminist?