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From: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Barry Gold)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.flame
Subject: Re: MS/Miss/Mrs.
Message-ID: <1680@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 17-Jan-85 23:01:07 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.1680
Posted: Thu Jan 17 23:01:07 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 22-Jan-85 04:37:55 EST
Reply-To: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Barry & Lee Gold)
Organization: System Development Corp. R+D, Santa Monica
Lines: 24
Xref: watmath net.women:4164 net.flame:7911
Summary: 

I've got no objection to women making their own choice of the various
honorifics (Miss, Mrs., or Ms.).  Usually I don't use any honorific at
all:  I just settle for being Lee Gold.  (Or sometimes even Lee Ann Gold.)
However, when I do use an honorific, I prefer to use Mrs.

I've got an acquaintance who makes a decided point of addressing me face-to-
face as "Ms. Gold."  He loudly proclaims that he is a feminist and will
never call any woman by her first name (that would be overly familiar) or
by any hoorific other than "Ms."  I've got another (expletive deleted)
acquaintance (a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism) who
insists on addressing all mail to me to "The Lady Lee Gold."

No, I don't expect anyone to come up with an answer that'll change the
behavior of either of these jerks.  But it feels good just to mention
the problem exists.  (Of course, either of these things is still preferable
to getting called "Mr. Lee Gold."  And I was once in an amateur press
association with one jerk who persisted in calling me *that* on the grounds
that he found my writing style somehow intrinsically masculine and refused
to believe I was female.

It would be very nice if we just got an all-purpose honorific, and could
dispense with this whole nonsense.

--Lee Gold