Episode 3 of Boy Vs. Girl, our podcast about gender and gender stereotypes, dropped today. Listen to Rachel and I discuss the problems with gender neutral bathroom, the need to change female salutations, and the real reasons why women wear form-fitting bathing suit bottoms and men do not.
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Charlie is actually currently Master Charlie Dicks until he gets to some arbitrary age around 18 when he can take on the moniker Mister.
No.
No because you are unwilling to accept it?
No because it is now a somewhat archaic usage?
The salutation Mister actually arose out of Master, and then Master was subjugated to refer to boys.
However, the bigger question is why even bother with the salutation. I tell my students they can refer to me as Charles. Is it really important that we distinguish a Mr. from a Ms. or Mrs. with a salutation? If you want to address my wife and not me, her name is Justine. Are doctors really so insecure that they need a special salutation to feel more important? Rather than just dropping the additional salutations for women, let’s just dispose of them all.
To your first point: Yes. Master is archaic and unnecessary and silly.
To your second point, I couldn’t agree more. I am the teacher who would love to have his students call him Matt, but I suspect that at least a few of my colleagues would be quite upset. I think the gender-based salutations are ridiculous and would be willing to eliminate them all.
And salutations like Dr. are like big, braggy signs, hanging around a person’s neck. I have a friend who grew up with a mother addicted to heroin in the worst circumstances possible. Shot in the face at an early age. Poverty. Danger. Raised herself and her sisters. Made it to college on a soccer scholarship. Excelled. Saved herself. Earned a Bachelor and Master’s degrees while working full time. She is now a vice principal of an incredibly impoverished school, trying to save kids. If anyone deserved a title, she does. And she would never want one.
We confer titles to people who go to school for a long time and become experts in their fields, but we relegate people who excel at life and rise above their horrific circumstances to gender-based salutations. Ridiculous.