Mr, Miss or Mrs

On my driving licence, under the surname, it says 'Miss Elizabeth Jane.'

Yet if I were a man, no handle would be given.

This blatant and continuing form of discrimination was give a public airing recently when two female scientists complained to the DVLA that when their licences were renewed because of a change of address, their names were prefixed with titles, whereas their husbands' were not. They could not believe it, and checked round their friends only to find that this was the case, every time.

The response from the DVLA was that they needed to know whether the driver was male or female, but surely such differentiation denotes lingering prejudice against women drivers? The DVLA would not admit it, of course, but they did say that the current system could not be changed and that women would continue to have their titles on driving licences.

That's one thing, but in my view the whole system of titles, or handles, is outdated anyway and needs to be removed from present-day society. What does it matter whether I am a Miss, a Mrs, a Ms or even an MX? Do people really need to know, for most purposes, whether I am a Sir or a Madam?

For instance, when I buy anything online, I am given a choice of about eight titles to choose from and have to tick one before my purchase can continue, as it is a 'mandatory field.' Yet what difference does my gender or title make to the company in question? All they need to know is whether I can pay, surely.

In the old days, a woman's status was thought to be upgraded when she changed from a 'Miss' to a 'Mrs' and yet never, in the whole history of handles, has a man had to change his title on marriage. He remains a 'Mr' throughout life and traditionally, the only women who remained a Miss were famous actresses, as in 'Miss Joan Collins' – whatever her marital status at the time.

Then, when feminism took hold, the marital neutral title of 'Ms' was introduced. But even that now feels old-fashioned and my recommendation is that we should do away with titles altogether, as the whole thing has become ridiculous.

or Ms? Or even a Mx? Am I a Sir or a Madam? And does it matter anyway?

The recent suggestion by Tory MP Maria Miller, Chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, that gender-defining titles should be dropped from passports and driving licences, brought predictable howls of outrage from traditionalists and observers of 'correct' forms of address.

Hasn't she got more important things to worry about, they asked. Ms – or should it be 'Mrs' as the former Maria Lewis uses her husband's surname - was bending over backwards not to offend transgender people who are often confused about such matters. Dropping gender-specific handles from official forms would make their lives a lot easier, she said.

Dropping titles would make life easier for everybody. would make life easier for everybody. I have often wondered why banks and other such bodies make such a big show of asking you to tick your preferred title. On utility and other bills, I am variously addressed as Miss, Mrs or even Mr Liz Hodgkinson, but whatever prefix they give me, I am exactly the same person. And I'm not going to pay the bill any quicker just because energy companies have been careful not to refer to my marital status by calling me 'Ms'.

So I am going to make a suggestion that gender-revealing handles should be dropped entirely, not just for transgender people, but everybody, and allowed to fall from fashion. It is, after all, only the next step in the casualization in forms of address that have been going on for nearly two hundred years. We just need that final push to drop these outdated prefixes altogether.

On my Airbnb listing, for instance, I am simply known as 'Liz'. Nobody knows my marital status, or even my gender – although they can probably guess from my picture - and very often, I don't know whether my incoming guests are male or female until I open the door. If a Sam, Jo or Leslie books in, they could be either, and never has it caused any problems.

The vexed subject of gender-specificity on official forms was first raised by Brighton and Hove Council in 2012, when Councillor Phelim MacCafferty argued that putting Mr or Mrs on a form was 'utterly useless.' He asked: 'Why is there a 'Mr' on my debit card?' He was immediately shouted down by the more conservative (with small 'c') councillors and the matter apparently still hangs in limbo.

Just looking at the matter historically, in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the parents address each other as Mr and Mrs Bennet. We never even learn their first names. Only 30 years ago, it was considered correct to address a married woman as Mrs John Smith. Even Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was ridiculously labeled 'Mrs Denis Thatcher' on photographs in society magazines.

During my childhood, boys were always addressed as 'Master Jim Brown' and firms of solicitors, for instance, were prefixed by the term Messrs (short for 'Messieurs'). Older adult men were often dignified by the suffix Esquire, or Esq. But how often do you see these handles now? They have long disappeared from usage and rightly so.

When women were first elected high court judges, there seemed to be a problem of what to call them. Men, of course, were known as 'Mr Justice Somebody' but it was considered that you could not call a woman 'Miss Justice Somebody'. So they all became 'Mrs Justice', whatever their marital status. So why not just 'Justice'? If the law is to be dispensed fairly, who cares whether the judge is male or female?

Gender-specific titles are really a leftover from the days when it was a man's world and women were just adjuncts, referred to by their relationship to a man. In India to this day, married women are often known as 'wife of' or W/O, rather than being people in their own right.

It seems that only when a title is also a job description or rank, such as Dr, Rev or Major, does it not define the person's gender. So far as I know, these have never caused confusion, so let's call time on the whole annoying panoply of gender-related courtesy titles.

Ends