Adieu, Mademoiselle

Via The Satorialist

In elementary school, when we were taught letter writing, we were also taught the proper way to assign titles.  In a Southern third grade classroom circa early 90s these were the rules...

Mr.- For any and all men, naturally.

Mrs.- Reserved for a married woman who has taken her husbands name. 

Ms.- For a woman when you are unsure of her marital status, or God forbid, is divorced.

Miss- an unmarried woman. 

Fifteen years later, these rules are, as you can see by my blogging name, engrained in my head.  The first time I encountered a break in understanding was at the airport when my ticket read "Miss Lindsay Mc..." I had my ID checked more times then I can remember, and when I questioned the attendant upon boarding, he told me that Miss was used to identify travelers who were under the age of thirteen and that I was basically a weirdo.  "Well I never!" and indignantly as possible, snatched up my ticket and stormed into the jet bridge tripping over my carry ons.  

The next time the issue arose was when I was subbing at a Baltimore City high school.  Per usual I wrote my name "Miss McC..." in beautiful flowing cursive on the chalkboard.  For the students who could read cursive, I was asked what"Miss" meant.  They had never seen or heard it used before!  I took this to be a cultural difference, but have now discovered that Miss was becoming obsolete and used only for young girls or adolescents. 

Across the pond in February, the French have banned the use of one of their most iconic words, "Mademoiselle," on all official government documents.

 From the NY Times:

In a memo addressed to state administrators across France, Prime Minister François Fillon ordered the honorific — akin to “damsel” and the equivalent of “miss” — banished from official forms and registries. The use of “mademoiselle,” he wrote, made reference “without justification nor necessity” to a woman’s “matrimonial situation,” whereas “monsieur” has long signified simply “sir.”
The choice of mademoiselle, madame or monsieur appears most everywhere one gives one’s name in France: opening a bank account, shopping on the Internet or paying taxes, for instance.
Mr. Fillon’s order, signed on Tuesday, came after an advocacy campaign of several months by two French feminist organizations, “Osez le féminisme!” (“Dare to be feminist!”) and Les Chiennes de Garde (The Watchdogs). The government minister Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, whose portfolio includes questions of “social cohesion,” pleaded the groups’ case with Mr. Fillon.
“You’ve never wondered why we don’t call a single man ‘mondamoiseau,’ or even ‘young male virgin?’ ” the feminist groups ask on a joint Web site. “Not surprising: this sort of distinction is reserved for women.”

The term mademoiselle, stems from an old word, "oiselle" that roughly means "white goose" "silly" or "virgin."  I will agree that referring to a woman by this is archaic, at best.  But as time goes on, so does the meaning and understanding of terms.  Sure, there are lots of pseudo-theories I can buy into that justifies the banning of "Miss," whatever the language may be, but I find it has it's place, and is not pejorative.  Do men truly use the term with a deprecatory undertone?  Or is this all smoke and mirrors?  I say that if a man is going to objectify women he will whether or not you are Miss, Ms., or Mrs.  And I am going to be a kick-ass woman whether or not I a Miss or Ms.  I would propose that insisting that you are referred to as "Ms." suggests that you are letting language define who you are and what you let people get away with.

And doesn't "mademoiselle" just breezily role off the tongue along the banks of the Seine?  I would hate to see it go.

This definitely is a touchy subject with all sorts of view points that I certainly do not discount. What do you think?