Sophie Robertshaw, music teacher at Wimbledon High School, looks into the forms of address for female staff.
There are a huge variety of ways of addressing a woman in a school context. By contrast, men are addressed only as Mr or Sir. Having worked with children as a teacher and music tutor since I was a teenager, over the years I have been addressed in a wide variety of ways, ranging from a casual first name greeting to the somewhat unexpected “ma’am” (rhyming with palm).
I would expect adult learners to address me by my first name – anything else would seem condescending. However, in a school context, I feel that it is important for pupils to use a more formal mode of address as I believe it promotes discipline and respect for those in authority; skills which are in vital in success within a workplace. This brings me to the issue of what exactly I should be called in a professional context – am I a Miss, Mrs or Ms? Or perhaps something else entirely?
The problem is that all these traditional titles have particular connotations about my marital status, as Dr Amy Louise Erickson of Cambridge University explains: “The ubiquitous forms of address for women ‘Mrs’ and ‘Miss’ are both abbreviations of ‘mistress’. ‘Mrs’ did not describe a married woman: it described a woman who governed subjects (i.e., employees or servants or apprentices) or a woman who was skilled or who taught. It described a social, rather than a marital status.” However, unlike Mrs, which has changed from a social to a marital meaning over time, Miss always indicated an unmarried woman.
Why does this matter? As a young, recently qualified teacher I feel that it is unnecessary for my pupils and their parents to know whether I am married or not. My marital status has absolutely no impact on my ability to teach. As a “Miss” I occasionally feel that there can be negative connotations in the minds of some students and parents – that I am less experienced, less mature, less qualified. A “Mrs” on the other hand conjures images perhaps of an older woman, with children of her own, who has greater experience and expertise and is therefore an inherently better teacher than her unmarried childless counterpart. “Ms” is to my mind an unsatisfactory halfway house.
So, what then is the solution? Should an address include education and qualifications details? Should the whole system of Mrs, Ms or Miss be replaced? Or expanded in favour of gender-neutral titles in support of equal rights not just for females, but individuals within the LGBTQ+ community?
Back in 2017, Stuart Barette, a transgender project manager at HSBC, announced the expansion of gender-neutral titles within their banking systems to include “Ind” (individual meaning free of gender), and “Mre” (mystery). An article published in the Independent in March 2017 goes on to explain that within the title section, “Mx” is listed as an option, but that the bank will also allow nine other new titles, including “M”, “Misc”, “Msr”, “Myr” and “Sai”.
Whatever the answer, Wimbledon High School has high aspirations for all its students to become highly educated, confident and articulate young women, capable of great success in their career and life choices and they should not find themselves limited in any way by the title society chooses to address them by.