As Regina Spektor sings, "Some days aren't yours at all." Yesterday, most decidedly, was not my day, in many ways. There is the still-unresolved datagate nightmare and a whole bunch of annoying little things occurred. More interestingly, however, was that the day seemed bizarrely hijacked by gender issues of one kind or another and it is these I wish to share with you. What, dear readers, are we to conclude from the following examples?
Exhibit A. - Dear Mrs. (Mr.?) McFadden
Unsurprisingly, datagate has involved communications with the company that made the offending product. The following correspondence resulted from me filling out a tech support request on their website (long passages of technical goobledegook and incriminating contact details have been omitted).
Dear Mrs. McFadden,
Thank you for contacting . My name is Tennyson. Since the hard drive was making clicking noise initially but it's no longer recognized on your computer, I would suggest that you try use a different cable for the connection between your hard drive and your computer. Also try connecting your hard drive to another windows computer if it would be recognized. Kindly get back to me with your findings, and I would advise on the next step to take in resolving the problem.
If you have any further questions, please reply to this email and we will be happy to assist you further.
Sincerely,
Tennyson
From: Becka McFadden [becka.mcfadden@gmail.com]
Sent: 9/24/2012 3:23 PM
Subject: Re: Device does not power up [ ref:_00DU0Jpn7._500U04lbwe:ref ]
Dear Tennyson,
First off, I am not Mrs.
Secondly, I have followed your advice and also taken the drive to be seen by a technician at the University of London, who was unable to extract any data using software-based recovery. [...]
I suggest that you forward this information to your superiors as there are clearly quality control issues in need of urgent resolution. While my device is under warranty, there is little chance I shall actually claim a replacement, given the appalling experience I have had with this one in only two months' ownership.
Regards,
Becka McFadden
Tennyson wrote:
Dear Tennyson,
Thank you for your reply and for passing on the report of the device's failure.
I am indeed female. I am not, however, a Mrs and was not sure why a communication about a failed hard drive had to include speculation as to my marital status when Ms will do just fine.
Best,
Becka
Sent from Samsung Mobile
Unsurprisingly, I have had no reply to this final missive. Perhaps I should cut my friend Tennyson a break - he may be working in an outsourced tech support center and English may not be his first language. Perhaps the unwarranted "Mrs." wouldn't have angered me so much if I wasn't in the midst of a data crisis. But even in the best of circumstances, is it really still socially acceptable to address half the population with titles that implicitly comment on the personal life of the woman in question? My fellow female doctoral candidates and I frequently talk about how we can't wait to be called "Dr." - how lovely to be able to effectively educate oneself out of gendered language. Perhaps all women should be awarded honorary PhDs forthwith. Or we could find a less Cold War-tastic equivalent to the gender-neutral "Comrade." Maybe championing "Ms." is enough - it's pretty hard to go wrong there. I imagine certain women will be ecstatic at adopting a Mrs. prefix and that's great, I'm happy for you. But do you really want your tech support guy to know you just got married? Isn't that a personal joy to be shared with family and friends? For the purposes of business communication with people we will never meet face-to-face, it seems quite clear to me that Ms. should be ubiquitous. Why it's not, I just don't know.
Exhibit B - @JumpythePlay
Last night, I attended a panel discussion at the Duke of York Theatre in connection with my work for Peasoup Magazine. Entitled "Has the Legacy of Feminism Been Betrayed", the panel was meant to reflect on issues raised by April DeAngelis's Jumpy, a Royal Court production now running in the West End. While I haven't seen the play myself, I'm reasonably familiar with the plot. Essentially, domesticated, ex-feminist mum has problem with her daughter's valorization of glamour models and celebrity culture, hence the panel title and consideration of multi-generational conflict. Discussing the issue before us were the playwright, dancer Immodesty Blaize, and two women whose names I didn't manage to write down - one tasked with the monumental responsibility of speaking for "the younger generation" and one an articulate professor and veteran of feminist protests in the 1980s. The whole thing was moderated by a woman of mind-boggling vapidity, who seemed to have been pre-programmed to insert tragic one-liners and defenses of the Daily Mail (why? how?) whenever the conversation dared to get interesting.
At the outset of the event, the moderating genius encouraged us to tweet throughout - thank heavens, really, as there was no other opportunity for audience engagement. I tweeted twice over the forty-five minute discussion.
The first was in response to the game of ideological hot potato that always ensues (again, why?) when you ask women if they consider themselves feminists, particularly in the UK. The second came later and was prompted by an observation from Immodesty (this is approximate, I wasn't transcribing) that previous generations of feminists have paved the way for her to run her career as she sees fit and to not feel as if she has to get married or have children to be a successful woman. For me, this question of social roles - women's ability to be self-determining, not determined by a set of expectations - is much more important than, say, suggesting (as occurred in the course of the discussion) that the beauty industry relies entirely on female insecurity (right...because any aesthetic choice clearly displays insecurity), or attempting to mediate one's feminism, by tacking "I am married" onto the end of a meaty consideration, a bizarre move by the otherwise fabulous DeAngelis that made me and my editor visibly flinch. Seriously?
Topics raised in the debate could be discussed for 15 more blog posts, but I shall not being doing that. Instead, I'll ask you which of my tweets the Duke of York Theatre felt compelled to share with its 700+ followers?
Yes, indeed, the one that would look most innocuous and least feminist (read icky) when taken out of context. And so ended a day which, on the whole and with little manipulation of the evidence by yours truly, seemed a pretty compelling confirmation that institutional misogyny is, alas, still with us.
Sent: 9/24/2012 3:23 PM
Subject: Re: Device does not power up [ ref:_00DU0Jpn7._500U04lbwe:ref ]
Dear Tennyson,
First off, I am not Mrs.
Secondly, I have followed your advice and also taken the drive to be seen by a technician at the University of London, who was unable to extract any data using software-based recovery. [...]
I suggest that you forward this information to your superiors as there are clearly quality control issues in need of urgent resolution. While my device is under warranty, there is little chance I shall actually claim a replacement, given the appalling experience I have had with this one in only two months' ownership.
Regards,
Becka McFadden
Tennyson wrote:
Dear Mr. McFadden,
Thanks for your reply. First, I'm sorry to have assumed based on your first name that I was addressing a female. I understand it's not a good experience to go through such stress , additional cost and inconveniences. We have not received reports of common issues of drive failure of this kind, but I would notify my superiors about the problem. If you would consider replacing your hard drive as it is still under warranty, you could either go to our website at and create an RMA or give us a call on , and we would create an RMA for your defective hard drive to be replaced.
.
Sincerely,
Tennyson
Ref#: 091812-5978349
Thanks for your reply. First, I'm sorry to have assumed based on your first name that I was addressing a female. I understand it's not a good experience to go through such stress , additional cost and inconveniences. We have not received reports of common issues of drive failure of this kind, but I would notify my superiors about the problem. If you would consider replacing your hard drive as it is still under warranty, you could either go to our website at and create an RMA or give us a call on , and we would create an RMA for your defective hard drive to be replaced.
.
Sincerely,
Tennyson
Ref#: 091812-5978349
Dear Tennyson,
Thank you for your reply and for passing on the report of the device's failure.
I am indeed female. I am not, however, a Mrs and was not sure why a communication about a failed hard drive had to include speculation as to my marital status when Ms will do just fine.
Best,
Becka
Sent from Samsung Mobile
Unsurprisingly, I have had no reply to this final missive. Perhaps I should cut my friend Tennyson a break - he may be working in an outsourced tech support center and English may not be his first language. Perhaps the unwarranted "Mrs." wouldn't have angered me so much if I wasn't in the midst of a data crisis. But even in the best of circumstances, is it really still socially acceptable to address half the population with titles that implicitly comment on the personal life of the woman in question? My fellow female doctoral candidates and I frequently talk about how we can't wait to be called "Dr." - how lovely to be able to effectively educate oneself out of gendered language. Perhaps all women should be awarded honorary PhDs forthwith. Or we could find a less Cold War-tastic equivalent to the gender-neutral "Comrade." Maybe championing "Ms." is enough - it's pretty hard to go wrong there. I imagine certain women will be ecstatic at adopting a Mrs. prefix and that's great, I'm happy for you. But do you really want your tech support guy to know you just got married? Isn't that a personal joy to be shared with family and friends? For the purposes of business communication with people we will never meet face-to-face, it seems quite clear to me that Ms. should be ubiquitous. Why it's not, I just don't know.
Exhibit B - @JumpythePlay
Last night, I attended a panel discussion at the Duke of York Theatre in connection with my work for Peasoup Magazine. Entitled "Has the Legacy of Feminism Been Betrayed", the panel was meant to reflect on issues raised by April DeAngelis's Jumpy, a Royal Court production now running in the West End. While I haven't seen the play myself, I'm reasonably familiar with the plot. Essentially, domesticated, ex-feminist mum has problem with her daughter's valorization of glamour models and celebrity culture, hence the panel title and consideration of multi-generational conflict. Discussing the issue before us were the playwright, dancer Immodesty Blaize, and two women whose names I didn't manage to write down - one tasked with the monumental responsibility of speaking for "the younger generation" and one an articulate professor and veteran of feminist protests in the 1980s. The whole thing was moderated by a woman of mind-boggling vapidity, who seemed to have been pre-programmed to insert tragic one-liners and defenses of the Daily Mail (why? how?) whenever the conversation dared to get interesting.
At the outset of the event, the moderating genius encouraged us to tweet throughout - thank heavens, really, as there was no other opportunity for audience engagement. I tweeted twice over the forty-five minute discussion.
Why is feminism such a hot potato? @jumpytheplay
The first was in response to the game of ideological hot potato that always ensues (again, why?) when you ask women if they consider themselves feminists, particularly in the UK. The second came later and was prompted by an observation from Immodesty (this is approximate, I wasn't transcribing) that previous generations of feminists have paved the way for her to run her career as she sees fit and to not feel as if she has to get married or have children to be a successful woman. For me, this question of social roles - women's ability to be self-determining, not determined by a set of expectations - is much more important than, say, suggesting (as occurred in the course of the discussion) that the beauty industry relies entirely on female insecurity (right...because any aesthetic choice clearly displays insecurity), or attempting to mediate one's feminism, by tacking "I am married" onto the end of a meaty consideration, a bizarre move by the otherwise fabulous DeAngelis that made me and my editor visibly flinch. Seriously?
Topics raised in the debate could be discussed for 15 more blog posts, but I shall not being doing that. Instead, I'll ask you which of my tweets the Duke of York Theatre felt compelled to share with its 700+ followers?
Immodesty Blaize is really quite fabulous. @jumpytheplay
Yes, indeed, the one that would look most innocuous and least feminist (read icky) when taken out of context. And so ended a day which, on the whole and with little manipulation of the evidence by yours truly, seemed a pretty compelling confirmation that institutional misogyny is, alas, still with us.
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