The end
You were all waiting on tenterhooks to find out what the last word was in the debate between Ruplestilt and Froglet. Over the brief month or two that we communicated I suspended my disbelief that there was a man worth noticing out there, and of course, predictably, I realised I had wasted my time:
On 05 May 2006, at 11:22 AM, Ruplestilt wrote (to his boss, but mistakenly Replied All):
It is however interesting to note that Froglet and I subsequently entered into quite lengthy discussions about the whole titling issue, feminism, etc. etc. at a personal level and that a good rapport was established between us relating to the the whole sexist / gender issue. That said – I am no longer communicating with her … primarily because of her fixed mindset and unreasonable (if not irrational) views on these issues.
In those conversations she acknowledged that she is indeed a gay feminist / activist … I suspect that she has been hurt in some or other big way and has a huge log on her shoulder about whatever it is that swayed her so drastically … sad and unfortunate to live life with such negativity and prejudice … particularly if it was as a result of some hurt or abuse inflicted by someone else.
Just thought you might want a little insight before you respond to her…
Ruplestilt
And I replied to him:
Ruplestilt
Thanks for the heads up.
“In those conversations she acknowledged that she is indeed a gay feminist / activist … I suspect that she has been hurt in some or other big way and has a huge log on her shoulder about whatever it is that swayed her so drastically … sad and unfortunate to live life with such negativity and prejudice … particularly if it was as a result of some hurt or abuse inflicted by someone else.”
In fact, none of this is true, and offensive, libellous even.
Sadly men like you don’t realise that a woman can be educated enough to believe that this kind of sexism, no matter how subtle it is – that a man cannot perceive it – is offensive. We do not have to be raped/abused/slighted in order to recognise sexism.
There’s your heads up.
Your use of my personal relationship with you in this manner indicates what kind of a person you are. But doesn’t surprise me.
Froglet
And I’ll just bet he is wondering if I sent a note to his boss.
ROFLMFAO
I like mine better…
Froglet: ROFLMFAO? Roll Over Fuckhead and Leave Me the Fuck Alone Olready? Grin.
Ruplestilt: ROFLMFAO = Rolling on floor laughing my f*ing ass off
Assholes
Ruplestilt: …is that if feminists did indeed open up and allow me in, and come to the realisation that men are indeed not ALL the same …
Froglet: Ditto (feminist) women.
Ruplestilt: …then the foundation of an often very deep-rooted belief system has been seriously shaken … and this is something that is much, much harder to deal with than to keep holding onto the notion that all men are assholes.
Froglet: As difficult for (sexist) men to deal with the notion that all women are not (and I intend the crude reference) assholes. (Ooh, that was aggressive, can I take it back?) I am actually in a wonderful mood and couldn’t resist the parry.
Boy≠Girl
Ruplestilt
TOE-CRUNCHING is an easier letter to respond to.
I have Pisces in the 6th House which governs competence. And it is remarkable how many ideas we have in common (‘selfish’ notion). And how strangely differing the ones we don’t agree on are (‘titling’ notion). Do you think that the ones we have in common are Astrological and the ones we don’t are Genderal?
I am a Libran, don’t puke. I am fortunate that my Libran tendencies are mediated by my Gemini moon rising, and the cat-o-nine-tails universe I live in, cheerfully.
I was also grinning. You can’t just go around naming new friends by who is gushing on you. My goodness, have some discretion, man. I compliment where compliment is due, I am not shy. I know what hard work it took for you to think like you do, that you are even prepared to engage the issue is HUGE.
Now prepare yourself, I am going to share my beliefs, but you will have to consider very hard if you are going to punish me for it.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER is a difficult letter to respond to.
There is so much stuff, so much background, so many tiny nuances. How can I cover them all? So, I want you to know that the world makes perfect coherent sense to me except for one thing. Why do computers only behave when the technician is in the office?
So if you hear something that doesn’t make sense, then it is some missing piece of info, a glitch. But yes, it may also be a temporal shift – something that has changed in my attitudes or thinking because of some new additions. But still there is sense in the progression, even if all the ripples haven’t been resolved yet.
Feminism is awkward territory because it has no status quo that people have settled into comfortably, written books about, and studied on the scale that Sexism has, in its efforts to prop itself up.
If you think about what real progress I made with CENSORED (Company) on the Titling issue you can see that moving forward is a slog. Now consider the sexist practices, they are already there – possession is nine tenths of the law – once you own a thing, it is almost impossible to make you let go of it. CENSORED (Company) owns the paper form and the e-form, the sexism on the form, and the possibility of change. Sexism is entrenched, and change is hard. I am sure that we are working harder to repeal the Title Mrs than the effort that went into setting it up in the first place. The hard part IS doing something about the status quo. I have consistently sent out emails, followed them up, taken steps forward, taken steps back on the Titling issue, among others. I live what I think.
Feminism, like Sexism, (and there is a thin line, one that I joyfully cross every chance I get) covers every little nook and cranny of every possible theory, thing, word, whatever. And we feminists like to think of it as a circle, a continuum. Exponential algebraic anti-formulas everywhere. Somewhere on that continuum falls the woman who supports Mrs, and who would never think of herself as a feminist. And somewhere on the continuum lies the radicallesbianseparatist. And all the bits in between are also feminists. We cannot all think alike, that is insane. That is just another Stepford-Wife type projection onto feminism.
In fact, my personal brand of feminism is woman-centered and informed-choice-centered. I have worked hard to de-focus from ‘in-comparison-to-men’, from ‘what are they doing, get me some of that’. It is really hard to think outside the box. I don’t always succeed.
And here is my ‘criticism’ or your ‘toe-crunching’ (perspective is everything), warmly delivered, because I still would fight to the death for your right to think like this, because it is an informed decision, that I believe you are constantly tweaking and tinkering with your beliefs, as I am with my beliefs. I, however, do not agree with you. That doesn’t mean that what you think is wrong. So:
Our website still upholds the Titling thing. I disagree with Titling altogether. I want ‘None’, I want ‘input field’. You know this, but (and I gave you veto power, willingly, AND you took that power) you took away that option because you have the skill to do it, you ‘control’ possibility. And that’s fine. I don’t have that skill, otherwise I would have put FPI up myself. You had the idea, you have the skill, so your ideas are represented. And I am grateful for the opportunity you gave me to support you in this endeavour, it is meaningful to me.
OK now that is out the way, back to the point about thinking outside the box. You are not thinking outside the box. No biggie, you might like the box. I don’t like the box. I don’t like what men are doing. I want choice. I don’t want to work, that’s my choice, I want to work, that’s my choice, I want to stay at home with 10 babies, that’s my choice, I don’t want to have babies, that’s my choice, I want to do volunteer work, that’s my choice, I want to be the CEO of Microsoft, that’s my choice. Choice. I don’t care what it is, but I believe we should all be operating in a choicefull environment. And Prof, Dr, Mrs, Ms, Miss, Mr, is not choice. It’s defining me in terms of my relationship to a man and how much education I have managed to eke out in an education-defined-by-man universe. It’s the box defined. Add Compeer, Citizen, Person, Gazi, etc. More defined. Still not including undefined ‘none’ and ‘input field’. Still not addressing the underlying issue that we are man-defined. You and me both.
So subtly, you, and I am sure you have no grave intentions, have overtaken FPI with your beliefs and desires. You have not included me and my beliefs, you have ridden roughshod over them. Inclusivity would have cost nothing – You + Me. I have not yet made up my mind what to make of the fact that you did this, but your infectious enthusiasm is wonderful to behold. And I have, over the years of battling the Titling thing, become aware that others don’t necessarily agree with me (ya think?).
I am tired of the negativity, and love your positivity. I am tired of the brick walls, and love your pock-marked wall.
Maybe you have cottoned onto something, maybe you are right, in which case I was a part of it, even if I was skeptical. In that case, I would berate myself for my skepticism, my mind would be more opened to the good men out there. Win-Win for me. Win-Win for you?
And I still want to and love to do FPI. Any little bit of info that we collect, or create is foundational. Foundational not just to the movements that might be involved but to our personhood.
And I have come across the ‘lacks ambition’ thing. My retort is similar (and, as everything always is, under constant review), “Who would want to be equal to a man? They are inferior.” I told you radical radical.
Are you still reading, or have you whipped FPI off the web? Don’t. Can two people be honest with each other, no matter how far apart their thinking, without someone nuking someone?
Froglet
Fanatic
Dear Ruplestilt
Thank you for your attention. Most companies I have contacted have already had some form of encouragement to address this issue and send me back a note to say, ‘Already added to list of things our programmers must attend to.’ And I am pleased to report that although at the start of a new year, or after some communication on my part with the various companies, I have occasionally reverted back to Ms, I pop through an email and am returned to my no-reference-to-marital-status status, over and over and over. (I have an infinite amount of patience in this regard.) I have had ongoing communications with several companies, and you have provided the most comprehensive response to my suggestion. Thank you.
Dear Fetsiboomsticks
As the IT manager for CENSORED, the CENSORED call centre has forwarded your communication to me for response. Thank you for your email and address update – your records will be updated accordingly.
Please be assured that your email address will never be sold to any third party. This has been and will remain the policy of the CENSORED program.
Your objection to the use of “Ms.” as a title is also noted – but I am in a bit of a quandary about how to rectify this particular issue for you alone on our system – as the system does indeed require something to be entered for a CENSORED member’s title. The current CENSORED membership count stands at over 400,000 members and I am sure you will accept that we communicate with these members on an ongoing basis – either via the printed medium or via electronic mail.
I am aware of this programming problem. However, I, and others like me, are trying to raise corporate awareness of this issue and the changes currently under way. You will find that CENSORED and CENSORED, among others, have an area where the client can choose what title, if any, to go by. I choose Fetsiboomsticks and it has been no problem, on the whole. The companies often have an area the data processor can actually key into, if they so wish, as opposed to being forced to choose what is socially acceptable, or corporately acceptable. My mail is addressed to Fetsiboomsticks and I am addressed in person as Fetsiboomsticks because the telephonist is alerted to what my preference is. When I phone I am impressed and excited to be addressed as Fetsiboomsticks and not by Fetsiboomsticks+marital status. As a potentially responsive company, you, as IT manager, might consider adding this suggestion to your list of items on your programs that would be tweaked over time. I realize that tweaking doesn’t happen daily, and that you might only have occasion to change this in the future, if you were considering changing it.
Either way, the communication is in the written form and, as professional communicators, we are very aware of the need to address members in a respectful and politically correct manner. To this end, and knowing that some controversy did exist around the correct form of address for women, we painstakingly researched the topic and came to the conclusion that “Ms.” was brought into practice specifically to eliminate the perceived sexist connotations of using either “Mrs.” or “Miss.” For your convenience, I have included some extracts of the material referred to while we were making every attempt to be politically correct in addressing our members.
Your and CENSORED’ efforts on behalf of me, and other women are noted. However, current thinking suggests that men do not designate themselves married or not with ‘Mr’, and no matter how hard we (who preferred to not designate marital status) try, some married women insist on using the ‘Mrs’ form, as is their right. This backlash has created the current situation where woman who truly choose ‘Ms’ asnondesignating -of-marital status, get relegated to ‘not married’. By CENSORED’ inclusion of Mrs and Miss there is already a suggestion that the 1970s intention behind the use of ‘Ms’ is not working, and that CENSORED is aware of the problem.
I would like to reiterate, however, that I am not suggesting that you should rid yourself of the sexism, I am merely asking that a ‘no title’ option be included. Currently, your data input people are forced to enter something into the ‘required’ field and the form will not go through otherwise (I assume) and, I am suggesting that you ADD ‘no title’ as an option that can actively be selected. Or add a field where the preference can be entered, e.g. Fetsiboomsticks.
In the text below, supplied by yourself, there is some passing interest in deferring to what a woman would prefer to be called, I would add that it should not be the establishment, social norms, corporates, the patriarchy or other women who dictate what an individual should prefer.
I believe that in supporting individuals that try to raise consciousness, if only in principle, that all our minds are opened, no matter what we would choose. Thus I would fight to the death for another woman’s right to choose to be called ‘Mrs’, and also for a man’s right to be called ‘Mr’, as long as it is their stated preference and not an assumption on their behalf.
I have noted that you ticked the box labelled “Other” on your application form. Our data capturers have been instructed to use “Mr.” for men and “Ms.” for women who have ticked the “Other” option in the Title field. In some instances, our call centre staff are required to make phone calls to certain members to ascertain their gender – so that we might not address, for example, a “TonyBloggs” as “Mr.” when the member may in fact be female – and, of course, vice a versa . I hope you will accept that our choice to address members in this fashion was made solely out of respect for our members and at no time do we take our communication with members lightly … let alone purposely offend them by addressing them incorrectly. Please accept my sincere apologies if you were indeed offended by being addressed as “Ms.” … it was, and remains, our policy to do nothing that will offend our members.
I appreciate your efforts not to offend me, and they are well-noted, be assured of that. In fact, I would prefer to be called ‘Mr’, rather than be slated as ‘Ms’. Again, I realize that the quandary I put before you is unusual, but all activism and awareness starts with lone voices. I hope that you can understand my efforts on behalf of the consciousness of corporates, and women and men.
Your suggestion to use “Prof.”, “Dr.” or any title other than “Miss.”, “Mrs.” or “Ms.” can unfortunately not be used as it would as inappropriate as it would be factually incorrect and misleading. I will however discuss this matter internally with other management, and should it be deemed practical to change the entire database system to accommodate your request, we will attend to such changes without delay. Should you have any further queries in this regard, please don’t hesitate to communicate with me directly and I will make every effort to assist you with them.
I would just point out at this juncture, that ‘Ms’ can be considered not factual in some situations. Were I a person of many degrees, who chose to be called ‘Mrs’, would that constitute ‘factually incorrect’? I think you would not hunt down my degrees in the interest of fact. So, I have no objection to being ‘Mr’ as I am on many databases around our rainbow country, if you would prefer, and if you consider Professor or Doctor an EARNED title, as I do. Miss, Mrs and Ms are not earned but statements drawing attention to marital status. Mr has no such earned or marital status meanings and appeals to me the most. It does have a gender reference, as do some names, but that, I understand, is something to be tackled in the far future, perhaps by the next generation.
I trust that, if the above-mentioned (and the added ‘Note’ below in the text you attached) does not meet with your approval, that you will delete my name from your database altogether. Thank you for your keen interest in this issue and the comprehensive response you provided. Well noted – even if you do eventually decide to delete me.
Sincerely, and respectfully Froglet
Kind regards Ruplestilt
“
Ms. or Ms (pronounced /m_z/ or /m_z/) is a title used with the last name or full name of a woman. Unlike the more traditional titles Miss and Mrs., it does not bear any reference to the woman’s marital status, as Mr. does not for a man.
Its usage was championed as non-sexist language beginning in the 1970s, especially in business usage, by those who argue that a woman’s marital status is of no relevance in such a context. Starting in the 1970s, many women insisted on being called Ms. for political reasons, and a major feminist magazine is named Ms.
The Times (UK) states in its style guide that “Ms is nowadays fully acceptable NOTE when a woman wants to be called thus NOTE, or when it is not known for certain if she is Mrs or Miss.”
The Guardian (UK) states in its style guide that: “We use whichever the woman in question prefers: with most women in public life (Ms Booth, Mrs May, MissWiddecombe) that preference is well known; if you don’t know, try to find out; if that proves impossible, use Ms.”
Although some socially conservative women object to the use of Ms., the title is now standard, especially in business—and where one may not know or find relevant the marital status of the woman so addressed. The default use of Ms. is championed by a number of etiquette writers, including Judith Martin (Miss Manners).”
And this from the writings of Linda Elizabeth Alexander … a business writer specializing in web and sales copy.
“Biased language can alienate any potential reader. If you alienate your readers, you lose credibility. Without their faith in your words, you have lost your audience and cannot make your argument. Therefore, avoiding sexism in your writing benefits everyone.
Here are some tips for avoiding common mistakes regarding sexist language.
Ms./Miss/Mrs.
Miss refers to an unmarried woman. Mrs. Refers to a married woman. Ms. is a universally accepted form of addressing a woman regardless of her marital status. This should be adopted whenever possible.
However, there are women who indicate a preference for either Miss or Mrs., and that preference should be honored if known. When addressing general audiences, or if you are not sure of the woman’s marital status, always use Ms.”
Dear CENSORED
I would like to inform you that I hereby submit my email address for you to contact me with. It is not for sale to any company. This statement constitutes a binding contract.
I object to the use of the title Ms. On the form that I filled out I deliberately left that blank. I find the use of this title sexist in the extreme. If your computer programme will not allow you to leave off a title, please eeny-meeny and put in Professor, Doctor, or anything else, excluding Mrs, Ms, Miss.
My PO Box number has changed from 501 to 127.
If you don’t feel like addressing any of these issues, I expect an emailed note from a manager to inform me so, with individualised contact details of that manager so that I can verify the position of the manager.
Also, in the event that you will not respect the issues above, you may cancel my CENSORED card. Cancellation must please be accompanied by a managerial authorization to cancel it, and individualised contact details of that manager so that I can verify the position of the manager.
I look forward to observing the company policy in operation at CENSORED.
Tanya Pretorius
CENSORED
