[HPFGU-OTChatter] Confessions of a Stepford wife (was Names)

[ender_w]

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Pam Hugonnet 
  To: HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2001 12:45 AM
  Subject: Re: [HPFGU-OTChatter] Confessions of a Stepford wife (was Names)




  But as an African American woman, I have an interesting observation
  about titles that has been confirmed by other women of color, but my
  white friends look at me blankly when I speak about it.  I wear wedding
  rings.  They are not ostentatious, but readily visible.  While I flatter
  myself that I have a somewhat youthful appearence, nobody is gonna
  mistake me for a teenager or a twenty-something.  However, people insist
  on calling me "Miss."  It even seems to happen more frequently when I am
  with my children.  I have learned to draw myself up and say, "I am MRS.
  Hugonnet."  Often the perpetrator looks flustered and corrects
  him/herself, but sometimes it's glossed over or the person acts as
  though they have been offended.  But it is a subtle form of disrepect
  that I find offensive and puzzling.

  Interesting that I have had the opposite problem.  Perhaps it's because I'm a teacher and no matter how young a teacher is, kids see them as old and if you're old you must be married.  One time, after I explained that I couldn't participate in the blood drive because I was very squeamish and was afraid I would feel too faint to drive home, a student asked why my husband couldn't come pick me up.  He was very shocked to hear that I didn't have one.  Another time, my mom was telling a former student's mother that I had moved to Georgia to finish my degree and the woman asked "Did her husband go with her?"  My very amused mom called me later and wanted to know all about this secret husband. 


  (snip)
  The title they really need to do something about is Mom.  Give us
  another way of distinguishing ourselves.  Ever hear a kid say "Mommy" in
  a store  and see 30 women turn around.

  oneofacrowd
  mrsdrpamelabarrigherhugonnet

  I'm 30 years old and the only daughter who happens to work at the same school her mother does, yet I can be right behind my mom at school calling "Mom! Mom!" and she won't turn around.  I have to call her "Betty," before it registers that someone is trying to get her attention.  Though, one student, after hearing me call her by her first name, admonished me "You should call your mother 'mom'!"

  ender
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