I never liked being called “Ms. Majerus.” My first year at Uni, one of my students was calling my teacher name down the crowded hallway in an effort to get my attention: “Ms. Majerus! Ms. Majerus!” I didn’t hear her. In desperation, she shouted, “Elizabeth!” and I immediately turned around. “Elizabeth” sounds like me to me. “Ms. Majerus” sounds like one of my aunts.
I never felt like Ms. Majerus, but over time I did come to terms with the name. Still, when I finished my PhD a couple years into my Uni career, I briefly considered changing my form of address from “Ms. Majerus” to “Dr. Majerus.” I had been working myself ragged writing my dissertation while teaching full time, and I had put seven years into earning my PhD. It felt like a momentous accomplishment, and the change in my chosen honorific[1]would reflect that. “Dr. Majerus” also just appealed to me more than “Ms. Majerus.” Ms. Majerus sounded mundane, adult but uninspired, while Dr. Majerus sounded more august and somewhat funny at the same time, an expert in her field who might also have some super-secret mad scientist identity.
At the time, however, there was another teacher in my department who already had a PhD, a veteran more than twenty years my senior, who went by Ms. Laughlin. It felt a little strange to insist upon my “doctor” when another teacher I worked closely with was satisfied with plain old “Ms.” So, even though there were other PhDs in the building who went by “Dr.,” I decided to stick with “Ms.”
Flash forward a few years, and somehow I’m one of the veteran teachers in our department. My younger colleague Mr. Ernstmeyer is on the verge of earning his PhD, and we’re gathered around the English office talking about whether he’ll change his honorific to Dr. Ernstmeyer. He admits that he’d like to but is undecided. Regretting my decision to stick with “Ms.” instead of going for the admittedly more pretentious but also, to me, more fun and less mundane “Dr.,” I encourage Mr. Ernstmeyer to go for it, telling him that I will start using “Dr.” as my honorific if he does so.
Since I made the change, I have come to like “Dr.” more and more. It feels more equitable that it’s not only the administrators at our school who are given the respect of the honorific that corresponds to their advanced degree, and I love the fact that “Dr.” is gender neutral. I still feel more like an “Elizabeth” or even a flat “Majerus” than a “Dr. Majerus.” But “Dr. Majerus” feels much more like me than “Ms. Majerus.” It’s sort of like the name version of the clothes I wear at school vs. the clothes I wear at home. Dr. Majerus feels like a set of clothes that are more formal and maybe a bit less comfortable than I’d choose to wear around the house, but still, clothes that I chose. Ms. Majerus felt like I was borrowing my aunt’s sweater. It was a perfectly nice sweater, and it kept me from getting chilly, but it wasn’t mine.
[1]Honorificis the English word for a title prefixing a person's name, e.g.: Ms., Mr., Sir, Dr., Lady, Lord, etc.
3 comments:
This is amazing! I love how you mentioned that "Dr." is indeed gender-neutral, and the metaphors at the end really resonated with me. I can't say I have gained an advanced degree to be able to use a significant honorific, but I do get called "Miss Grace" by the young students that I teach at my studio. Once, a little girl called me "Ms Sumitro" and I got really confused. Because my friends call my mother by that name, I took me a while before realizing that the dancer was, in fact, referring to me. It's funny how the last name can feel so distant from us, although it's as much a part of a name as the first name is - which reminds me of how you felt much more comfortable being called your first name on your first day at Uni.
But Dr. Majerus, DO you have a secret mad scientist identity?
I love the fact that you feel that the honorific "Dr." represent you more as a person compared to "Ms.". I personally don't like "Ms." either, I just hate the way it sounds honestly, it just doesn't sound nice. I feel like being called "Dr." is such a powerful thing and also the fact that you worked hard to earn that title, gives it all more of a reason to be called that instead of "Ms.".
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