National Inclusion Week begins on 27th September. – A great opportunity for organisations to demonstrate their commitment to equality by removing titles from their systems and processes. Our recent coverage in the Daily Mail Online (27/08/21) detailed our recent contribution to BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour, headlining the ‘split opinion’ about the usage of marital […]
On 25th August 2021, our Founder Stella Sutcliffe was invited to speak on BBC Radio 4 during Women’s Hour. The Associate Producer inviting her explained that her team had been receiving a growing number of letters and comments about marital status titles and whether or not they were really necessary. Women were writing into the […]
What place do marital status titles have in a world striving for inclusive cultures? This week, I received a link to complete a compulsory ‘Unconcious Bias’ training programme. The slow end to lockdown has meant a bit of a diary crunch in all areas of life, but I told myself off for daring to think […]
It’s been over a year since we first explored the use of ‘Master’. Why is ‘Miss’ so widely used and accepted in the English speaking world, when ‘Master’ is not? Whilst the title of ‘Miss’ is used freely and officially to refer to females until she is married…or until she is deemed old enough (!) […]
There are several barriers to achieving a title-free world, and over the last two years, the Go Title Free team has learned to welcome all challenges to our campaign! Titles endure in only a few very specific places in society, and one of them is in the world of schools. Can we envisage a world […]
Almost two years from the start of the Go Title Free™ campaign, we have been reflecting on the research and media coverage which became the catalyst of our work to create a title free society. The story of the popularisation of the title ‘Ms’, less than sixty years ago, led to a rising feeling that […]
It’s been a torrid few months for us all during the Covid-19 pandemic began here. Since the UK crisis started, we have missed our friends, and families, as well as our every day leisure and interests like sport. Millions of sports fans have been teary eyed waiting for the time when they can once again […]
On this day in May 1939, Sheila Michaels was born. A female rights activist and oral historian, she started popularising the use of ‘Ms’ in 1961 as an alternative to ‘Mrs’ and ‘Miss’, and gave women everywhere the option to start demanding equality wherever their title was used in reference to them. She recognised that […]
Marital status titles are stated before our names on the most private of letters, and used on the most confidential of calls. Our first name is even often completely replaced with our title, conjoined with our surname. i.e. “Hello, is that Karen Sullivan?” “Yes. Speaking.” “Hello Mrs Sullivan, I’m calling from xxx” For many people, […]
Marital status titles reveal more information about women than about men. But why has the title of ‘Master’ declined in popularity, when the female counterpart of ‘Miss’ still exists? Robert Hickey, deputy director of the Protocol School of Washington stated that, “Use of Master [as] an honorific when addressing boys is considered old fashioned outside […]
