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I have yet to recognize an obvious correlation between my gender, my relationship status and my name. Although many of us were raised to call our friend’s mother Mrs. So-and-so and their father Mr. So-and-so, the world is changing faster than the language.

Society is a teaspoon more accepting than it has been in the past, but the manner in which we speak tends to clutch more tightly to tradition. Mr. and Mrs., followed by a shared last name, is used to acknowledge a married couple. However, we address our female unmarried first grade teacher as Miss, but our unmarried male teacher still as Mr.

This strange double-standard creates a special system of immediately assigning women as taken or single instead of as a person. Typically, personal titles are employed when speaking to someone deserving of respect. Be it a mentor, a superior or a teacher, using a title should demonstrate respect, not a recognition of their relationship status — that’s why we have Facebook.

SydneyMaki3-2

But alas, we are saved from awkwardly staring at left hands to figure out how to address women. Ms. exists to show respect to a female without alluding to marital status, as Mr. does. As a product of the women’s movement, it was originally used to describe a woman whose marital status was either “unknown or irrelevant.” However, my mind draws blank on a moment where relationship status is relevant to a conversation. And if it is so important to someone, no one is stopping them from asking.

In her novel, “The Language of Sisterhood,” Angela Carter wrote, “If Miss means respectably unmarried, and Mrs. respectably married, then Ms. means nudge, nudge, wink, wink,” insinuating a flaw in the linguistics of gender-exclusive titles by calling out the allusion that lies within the Mrs., Miss, Ms. controversy.

 

Nowadays, people are better able to express themselves than they have in the past. This fortunate allows more people to be honest in their sentiments of how they would like to be identified. Without a doubt, if someone wants to be called by male pronouns, you use “he” and “him” in reference to that individual, regardless of the gender assigned to them at birth.

If someone named Tiffany with long hair and perfect eyelashes, wearing a sundress and sandals asks me to please use male pronouns when referring to him, then sure. Why not? It will avoid hurt feelings, and it is what dearest Tiffany prefers. If football player, gym-obsessed Mike wants to be “she,” then she can. Of course, sometimes people will not outwardly ask and make it as easy to avoid accidental misspeaking. At times, you may be unsure of someone’s gender or which gender they would prefer to be identified with — which creates a problem.

Transgender individuals are often left out of the conversation, and left to fend for themselves in a world of ignorance. When you are forced to guess how to address someone, feelings can get hurt. It can be offensive to ask someone outright, and it can be painful to tip toe around it long enough to figure it out. This hesitation is an unfortunate scar from the pain of the past, where misunderstanding and trivial ideals won out more often than not. With such stress associated with a simple title, it would make infinitely more sense to find a gender-inclusive title to use.

Gendered salutations are being eliminated from schools in New York, according to The Wall Street Journal. Allison Steinberg called titles like Mr., Mrs., Ms. and Miss “an outdated and unnecessary formality (that) serves no purpose other than to label and risk misrepresentation.”

This could potentially revolutionize the manner in which we address people, finally leaning toward gender-inclusive pronouns and titles and unlearning a bit of tradition.

 

Reach the columnist at smmaki@asu.edu or follow @Syd_neym on Twitter.

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Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.

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