Wow! What an interesting thread. Personally, I cannot abide being called Miss, Mrs or Ms. Never could, before marriage, during marriage, or after, always hated them, from as far back as I can remember. I see them as sexist and degrading to women, since their sole purpose is to indicate marriage status. Where are the male titles that indicate marriage status? Oh, I know that Ms was originally designed to be used as Mr., but that is not what happened. As far as I'm concerned, there should be one title that indicates adult human being, and one that indicates young human being. Mr. works as an adult human being title for me. Yes, there have been some interesting episodes when I stood in front of people and asked to be addressed as Mr, but I take this immensely seriously.
While I was married, my name was hyphenated. If people did not pronounce both names, I didn't answer. If people used his first name in referring to me, I didn't answer. I answered to my name only. Since he worked with the Canadian and American military, you can imagine the difficulties I had. On the other hand, I have never really cared if people want to use the full first name, or just half. Lots of people have difficulty pronouncing Aurore, so I don't mind being called Lise, or Lise-Aurore. I have since partly solved the title problem. Having completely a PhD, when asked my title, I use Dr. Nice, not sexist, has no marriage status or gender connotations. I like it. But, there remains the problem of many forms, especially the ones you fill in electronically, that do not recognize Dr. In those cases, I either refuse to fill in the form and send a message to the administrator, or fill in the form with Mr. and then send a message to the administrator. And then there are the people, like my mother, who insist that I have no right to the title Dr. because I am not a medical practitioner. And then, there's the usage in French, where I am referred to as Madame le docteur. I'm not to crazy about that, but it is difficult to make people believe that I'm a Monsieur. I was rather distressed this spring, when everyone in France seemed to want to call me Mademoiselle. How very insulting!!!! I did speak up, and insisted on Monsieur. Lise-Aurore Lise-Aurore Lapalme, PhD [EMAIL PROTECTED] (613) 995-9065 facsimile/télécopieur (613) 992-8581 Natural Resources Canada/Ressources naturelles Canada 580 Booth, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E4 Government of Canada/Gouvernement du Canada To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
