The Weaponised “Miss” in Academia

I recently had the frustrating experience of receiving an email which deliberately decided to address me as “Miss” - despite the fact that (1) I have a doctorate; (2) the correct form of address is clearly displayed in my email signature, to which this email was a reply; and (3) I am also married, in any case.

From time to time, a student email will begin with “Miss”; “Ms” etc. I usually take the time to carefully explain that this is incorrect and/or rude, and that it’s important to reflect on one’s own biases: would you fail to address a male academic by their proper title? A PhD or Professorial status is a hard-won achievement, and it’s not respectful to demote someone because you didn’t take the two seconds to check. A title based on gender and marital status is in any case not equivalent to an earned title from years of academic study used in a professional context. And, by the way, it’s grammatically incorrect: the OED says that “Miss” is the title for an unmarried woman or girl without higher or honorific professional title. Similarly, “Mrs” is the married version of the same. As the proud holder of several degrees, I’m definitely overqualified for either. “Ms”, used since the start of the 20th century to avoid having to pre-judge marital status, is at least less wrong, but not my preferred form of address. I haven’t personally seen much usage of the gender-neutral version, “Mx”, but I would feel similarly about it: what’s wrong with the similarly gender-neutral and professionally accurate “Dr”?

Students, once this is pointed out to them, tend to apologise for inadvertently being rude and never do it again. And, for the record, I have no problem whatsoever with being addressed simply by my first name - in another culture (for instance, Germany, where academia tends to be more hierarchical; or the USA where anybody teaching at a university tends to be referred to as “Professor'“) that might be considered rude, but since it is, in fact, my name, as long as it’s spelled correctly that’s no problem for me. And each to their own on this - some would object that this causes over familiarity, and that’s a reasonable view, too. There remains an institutional bias issue with first names: if students are more likely to call women academics by their first names and men by their last name and/or title (and anecdotally I would say that’s true) we might want to stick to the more formal modes of address.

But the email that prompted this post was not inadvertent nor familiar: it was very much a deliberate choice by the writer to try and flex their status and diminish mine. It was, of course, completely unnecessary - as that kind of behaviour almost always is. This person was making it clear that they did not respect me, recognise my achievements, nor think I had said anything worth saying.

I wouldn’t say this happens constantly to women in academia, but in my experience it does happen a lot. When starting out in university teaching, it’s not unusual to find that some students (you can guess the likely demographics) will decide you aren’t worth listening to because you’re not the white male professor whose name is on the textbook. Some will even argue with you and challenge your views - not on the basis of the spirit of discussion and dialogue we encourage in the classroom - but on the basis that “X said”, so you must be wrong. Senior academics can be far worse. I have attended conferences as an established academic, even ones I helped organise, and been asked '“what is your PhD project on?” or - in one particularly memorable instance that could easily have ended with violence on my part - why didn’t I have any kids, followed by financial and family planning advice. This from a person I had never met before, and which was clearly wildly inappropriate for any professional setting in any case.

It could definitely be worse: I’m pretty sure that if I was anything other than white I would be able to multiply the instances of rudeness, microaggression, and full on aggression by a large factor. And not everybody puts up with seeing it happen to other people: a few years ago when I was chairing a panel at a conference and a speaker was rude to me because he did not regard me as high enough in status to have anything to say, several other senior scholars in the room made it clear that his behaviour was unacceptable, there and then. The person who made the comments about my lack of children got a serious talking to by another colleague, who explicitly told him he was an idiot.

But dealing with this constant undermining generally isn’t easy, either. I can’t really reply to this email from a highly-regarded (not by me, not anymore) academic telling him that he sucks and he’s rude - although I’m pretty sure that one day I’ll reach a point of not caring where I will routinely do exactly that. My colleagues are known to roll their eyes when I give etiquette lessons to students on this theme - perhaps you rolled yours reading it above. But not doing anything means allowing other people to label you as less than you deserve to be. We work really very hard in academia, and the least we can do is respect each other for it. And the attitude lurking behind it might have real consequences: if you’re thought of as unworthy by influential people, no matter how wrong or idiotic they may be, it can have an impact on being invited to contribute to academic projects, references and applications for jobs and grants, and a less tangible but still important social impact on your standing within your field.

I don’t have any solutions or advice here, but I’m certainly going to continue calling this kind of behaviour out whenever I see it. The name of my rude emailer is going to come up a lot in conversations with colleagues as we head into conference season this summer, where I’ll be making sure others know what attempting to work with that person looks like. With networks like Selden’s Sister, we continue to build spaces that are inclusive and respectful, and the more we grow and take up that space, the less room there is for the old-fashioned, rude, exclusionary types. Maybe, in time, that will be enough.

This post was written by DrLorren Eldridge

If you would like to contribute to this blog and talk about your work or thoughts on the general theme of women in legal history or academia, please get in touch by emailing seldenssister@gmail.com