What a day! It started yesterday at 4:00am when I had to get up and drive to Connecticut for an all day meeting with a new business partner, and then turn around and drive back at 5:00pm in NY traffic. On the way home, I found out I was accepted into Rider's MBA program! I drove straight to my youngest daughter's Senior Award night in High School where she received 6 awards and some nice scholarship money (just a proud pappa moment!). She is going to attend Rider next year - so yes we will be attending the same university in the fall - wow - is there a course on how to deal with that?
After the awards, we went to dinner and as most dinner conversations have been focused on lately, we discussed Gender issues (and yes I surrendered the head of the table to my daughter - after all it was her night). We talked about the seating, women's soccer and ended up on women's names and marriage. I was letting them know how unfair it is that society automatically assumes that they will take on their husband's name (and history). I tried to convice them that they should fight to keep their last name and if a man really loves them, he will take "my" - I mean "their" last name. Of course my daughters saw right through my self-serving message in a weak attempt to continue my lineage, since I have no sons. That got a good laugh at the table.
That led to a discussion on how women are still often defined by their marital status with a title of Miss or Mrs., even though Ms. has been around for quite some time. Another one of those inequalities, since men are always called Mr. whether or not they are married. I asked everyone at the table how I should address a female in the business world - is it always Ms.? Do I look for a ring and if I see one address her as Mrs.? I would appreciate if the women in this class would weigh in on this and offer their opinion.
When I asked my youngest daughter her opinion on what title she would want to be called by when she got married - her response - DR. - EUREKA!!!
Week # 6 Good bye for now....
14 years ago
Mario,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. I like my last name and it will always be apart of me. i assume when I get married I will change my last name. BUT I DO NOT want to be defined as "so & So's" wife or MRs. Whatever!! Tell your daughter I said Way To Go!! Congrats on getting into Rider's MBA!
Mario,
ReplyDeleteI think because of the ambiguous titles given for women(Ms, Mrs, ect) your almost in a no win situation. No matter which route you take some woman out there will be offended by not being called the right name. I use to work in daycare and one thing I liked about it is that all the children refer to their teachers as Miss and use their first name. In this situation marital status is irrelevant so you can never offend anyone. I use to work in the customer service field too(and will be returning shortly)and one problem I always had was with calling women ma'am. I thought it was respectful and helpful but I had a few women bite my head off for it. They felt ma'am is related to age and that I was insulting that. Go figure. I guess you really never can tell how to safely refer to another woman except maybe to use Miss. It's neutral, it's polite, and it gets the job done!
Dr! I love it! I think that you are more gender aware in your parenting than you give yourself credit for! PhD works too right!?
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