Are women’s titles antiquated? Conflict strategist and Mediator Sarah Blake discusses

Published Jan 23, 2025, 5:28 AM

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Well.

Over time, language changes, some of it loses its relevancy, and meanings change and we have new words that emerge. What do you think about women's titles? Is it antiquated to still have three different options if you're a woman, miss if you're not married, missus if you're married.

And miss if you're divorced. Why do we need them? For men? It's pretty easy. You feel out a form and you're a mister.

Whether you're married, whether you're divorced, whether you're single, it doesn't matter. So why does it matter for women? Let's have this discussion. Would you like to see it simplified or are you a traditionalist and.

You want to keep it?

Lee on the text line says Hi Stacy, get rid of it. My opinion, it's no one's business. I am a miss. No, I haven't been divorced. Yes, Lee, I am with you on that. And then we have Adam, leave our gendered language alone.

This is typical lefties again, Adam.

There's nothing political about this.

You can have your gendered language, but it's easy for you because you're a mister. Has anyone ever asked you what your title is? No?

I don't think they have eight double two three double o double Oh.

I'd love to get your thoughts on this.

Let's talk about it with Sarah Blake. She's a conflict strategist and mediator.

Hello, Sarah, Jay, how are you going? I'm good?

How are you? Yeah?

Yeah, Look, it's such a good conversation. In fact, such a good conversation. I had it with my son yesterday.

Oh how old your son?

He's twelve? Right, And it's one of those sort of things that don't really come up in conversation. We don't talk about, hey, how do we lay with ourselves? Very often? And I think because of all the politics, it led to a conversation with him and he's like, why does it even matter?

Mum?

You just you know, like why, great question.

I love talking to kids about things like this because their perspectives on it are so I don't want to say simple and it come across in a bad way, but it is. Sometimes it is really simple. Kids are just like why does it matter?

And You're like, that is a great question.

They kind of just cut through it, so.

Yeah, okay.

So because because I think this is something that is actually introduced to us quite young, because once you get into school, you have teachers, and.

I really struggled with it.

At school, working out why it was miss ives and then why it was missus rollie, and then it gets explained to you and then you think, okay, So then there's all of the men are misters, so are they married or not? And you know your parents are like, well, it doesn't really matter for men.

Yeah, it's so interesting. I don't think I ever had that explained to me as a kid, Like, I don't remember that conversation. I feel like it was just assumed we all knew and on the whole it was just missus unless it was an old spinster as such, you never got married and it was miss spinster. Thank god that that was your function back then. And I just think, I don't know about you, but I remember as I transitioned from being you know, like in my early twenties, as I was getting a bit older and you're having to fill out more forms and what am I miss doesn't really sound right anymore. I'm not like a little kid, I'm grown up. How do we reflect that?

Yeah? Yeah, well, Sue has sent a text. I see no need for a title at all, men or women. The days of being embarrassed to be unmarried along gone miss was invented to supposedly save us the shame of being unmarried. Just call me Sue, please, yes, Sue.

I think that's great that I do too.

And there's another text here she came through earlier. I'm just trying to find it here it is. I think it's in France, where all adult women, regardless of marital status, are referred to as missus.

So that's interesting as well.

It's really interesting, It really interesting because in a particular region of France they remove the word mademoiselle for excuse my French, which is no good. But this notion that you were a young woman, and that they just made it generic you are a woman. So I think that there is a lot going on that we just don't talk about.

Absolutely. I've got one here.

A young male is a master and a young female is a miss. I have never heard of a man being called referred to as a master or no.

Well, maybe a young boy when you're filling out a passport form or something like that. There's a transition that happens about eighteen, you know, become a man right and personally, I think I probably used myths when I didn't know any better. But as I started to learn more, I made a really conscious despite being married, I made a conscious decision. I used myths all the time unless I'm filling out a passport form where marital status sometimes matters in some country, Yes, I.

Do as well.

I always use miss because I just don't care. Except sometimes if I feel like having a bit of fun and lady is available in the drop down menu, I'll.

Just do lady because I'm like, why does it matter?

It doesn't matter if I'm a mess, It doesn't matter if I'm a missus.

Why does it matter if I'm a lady? I could be lady Lee.

Look, I knowing we were going to have this conversation, I did a little bit of research around where does this language merge from? And it was really interesting to understand that missus or miss emerged from this notion of master and mistress. So it wasn't even about a status of are you married or not, but almost like an authority, and that in fact, it came to be associated with almost a business woman like you. You were significant, you had control and some authority.

Oh okay, so it wasn't about marital status at all.

In the beginning No, And isn't that a great example of how meanings change and about intent? And I think that's the question around what the intent in using it and is it relevant? And need it now?

Okay? So I'm getting a lot of texts from all men that probably won't surprise you, who are saying we don't need to change everything. This person says it hasn't mattered until now, Stacy, just leave it alone. This person says it's called the English language, just.

Leave it alone.

Someone's being really derogatory towards women there, Dan in Port Clinton. You'll be blocked if you continue that, Dan. But there's a lot of people saying we don't need to change these things. But somewhere it changed along the line because it was never referred to as miss and missus as marital status.

That's right. So things do change. And it's a great example of conversations that do lead to conflict because it's associated with identity and often power, and we don't really talk about how having to make a choice for indicated if you're ma a lot my impact how you feel and you know, maybe it's been used as a respect title, but also it's there are lots of examples of the more you categorize. Are you a doctor? Are you a miss?

So?

This is are you your honor? All of those of the status things help gather data for marketing as well, so it can be usedful lot for different things.

Right, Okay, we've got one here from Vicky and she says, good afternoon, Stacy. Regarding titles, I'm proudly a miss, having not nor want to be married. Government papers always address me as miss, and it makes me angry. I always cross out miss and insert miss. Young women are miss until married, not miss. Get it right, people, So this is important for some people because of that tradition that has come that miss is refers to someone who's unmarried, and for Vicky that's important.

Yeah. Absolutely, And I think in all of this that the labels we use, you know, will matter to some people matter a lot and they'll feel very strongly about it. And sometimes I think we need to think about parking our judgment and why does it matter what someone else decides. If they want to do that, then that's fantastic. And if I want to do something different, is it harming the other person? That's not so it should be okay. So I think it's important to have the conversation to really dig down and say, hey, where does the history lay and what does it have meaning for me in this day and age.

Is it about collecting data?

Do these companies that ask does my doctor's surgery need to harvest my data? And oh she was single until four years ago, but now she's married.

Yeah, yeah, look I don't. I think probably My guess is that they're just doing it automatically. It's become a habit and something that they do. And whether they actually use that data or not as a doctor's surgery, probably not. But certainly, you know, I've seen some websites for shopping places, you know, certainly in the UK, where they go down to if you've been in the Middle carry, it might plued your military title, baronessa, you know, whatever that status you have. And so it goes right down into about twenty five different drop choices, and that's clearly been used to help them create niches in their marketing.

Oh so when I book my flights under Lady Lee, they must think, oh wow, we've got to We've got someone a royal on the plane.

Maybe he's an upgrade.

Right, It's never led to any better treatments. It has worked so far.

It's just keep hoping that.

I like this message from Dean. Good afternoon.

Well, you have an issue in our medical profession. Profession physicians are called doctors and surgeons are called mister. What so if there's a female surgeon, they're called a mister?

Yes? Well really interesting. I didn't know that. Well I knew that they went doctor anymore, but I didn't know there was gender associated with it.

Oh that's crazy.

Yeah, isn't that so interesting?

So can we talk about what some potential alternatives would be. What if we're just going to get rid of different titles.

For women and treat women like men. Oh God, heaven.

Dare we what would what would we use? Would we'd keep mister for men, you'd have to keep doctor for doctors?

Yeah, look, you're in a status that gravitates to them. I personally I like ms ns. And if if we go back to the roots of the meaning of the word originally, I think that more accurately reflects a gender. Well, you know, a mutual term for female, So mister, miz and doctor or maybe to flee the black box. So if people don't want to have a label, they don't have to have a label.

Yes, I once asked, because it was I was booking something on the phone and they said, oh and your title and.

I said, oh, do you need it?

And then there was this awkward silence and they said yeah, so is it miss, missus or miss And I said.

Does it matter? Can we just skip that part?

And the poor receptionist, I don't know, she just got me on a bad day. And she said, I actually can't go through with the form until I put something in.

And I said, okay, just put doctor. She was like, are you a doctor? And I'm like no, but I'd.

Love to be, so I just said, just do miss. I don't just put something in. Let's move on.

But there are some forms where you have to put it in.

Yes. And I don't know about you, but there is this hit As a woman, there's this confusion. There's this sense of guilt. Am I doing the right thing? What is the right thing? What is the expectation? But we're having to process all of this and finding it own way through it. It's much simpler when you're a bloke and you say, hey, I'm missed.

It's just mister, and.

It doesn't good and you've never had to think about it or worry about it.

Yeah, exactly right, simplicity. I like simplicity. We've got enough to worry about, I think without having a fight about this.

We do, we do.

We're getting a few calls on this, so I'll take some calls in just a moment. But I think this is almost text of the day from Simon, Hi, Stacy. Just to confuse your lists, I'm going with Miss Simon.

Love it.

Miss Simon, thank you for the text, and Sarah, thank you for your time today.

Really appreciate it.

My absolute pleasure. Good luck everyone, good.

Tark, thank you.

That's Miss Sarah Blake, conflict strategist and mediator. Eight double two to three, double O, double oh is the number to call?

What do you think? Let's do a poll. Should we get rid of it? Is it antiquated?

Should we ditch the miss missus miss for women and just have one like there is for men?

Five double A afternoon Swiss Stacey Lee

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