Asklemmy

44115 readers

758 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

118

How should I change my polite behavior to be more accommodating? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 7 months ago by clay_pidgin to c/[email protected]

85 comments fedilink hide all child comments

My parents raised me to always say "yes sir" and "no ma'am", and I automatically say it to service workers and just about anyone with whom I'm not close that I interact with. I noticed recently that I had misgendered a cashier when saying something like "no thank you, ma'am" based on their appearing AFAB, but on a future visit to the store they had added their pronouns (they) to their name tag. I would feel bad if their interaction with me was something they will remember when feeling down. This particular person has a fairly androgynous haircut/look and wears a store uniform, so there's no gender clue there.

I am thinking I need to just stop saying "sir" and "ma'am" altogether, but I like the politeness and I don't know how I would replace it in a gender-neutral way. Is there anything better than just dropping it entirely?

For background I'm a millennial and more than happy to use people's correct pronouns if I know them!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[+] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] twice_twotimes 6 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I feel this way too. I know nearly who calls me ma’am is intending to be courteous and I don’t hold it against them. That said, knowing they are well intended doesn’t make me less uncomfortable.

Also the idea of sir being the term of respect for all men and even boys but ma’am being for “older” women adds some baked in unavoidable sexism, no matters how genuinely-not-actually-sexiest the speaker is. There are just necessary built in assumptions about the addressee when you have to choose between ma’am and miss (or similar). The implication is that societal value of women, and not men, is age-determined. The former often makes a woman feel undesirably old and the latter often makes her feel infantalized. It’s the same as the Mr./Mrs./Miss situation, where moving just to Mr. and Ms. alleviates that tension a bit. No clear answer for sir and ma’am honorifics though.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

ma’am being for “older” women

Where I grew up, that's not the case. Ma'am or madam is for any adult woman, and often for kids you are treating like adults.

I know it's different on the East Coast, but I still feel silly calling a grown woman "miss".

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I can see uncomfortable (same for me), but insulted?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

Some groups mostly use it as an insult. “You can’t handle being treated as an equal so I’m going to get overly formal and distant with you” I often use it with “with all due respect [none]”.

It’s basically “sir you’re making a scene” to some people