wilsongray.com

[Meredith Dixon]

On Wed, 8 Mar 2006 13:42:40 -0500, you wrote:

>My name is constantly misspelled as Paige and until I got to the point
>where I signed myself H. Page I got so much mail addressed to MS, MISS or
>MRS Paige Stephens that I finally added the initial before my name which
>women rarely use.

I'm female and 43, and until I was 30 everyone just assumed from my name that I
was male.  I got recruitment mail from the Armed Forces which said that I was just
the sort of young man they were looking for; I was given a male roommate at a
convention, and I'm pretty sure I got a summer job at a heating plant sight unseen
because they thought I was male; at all events my boss was extremely surprised
when I showed up for work.  He made the best of it, and fortunately there was a
women's restroom in the building, though it was inconveniently located.

For the past decade or so, now that my name has switched genders, I've had to
adapt to everyone's automatically assuming I'm female.  You wouldn't think this
would be a problem, since I *am*, but it has been a little difficult to get used
to, after all these years of expecting that everyone who hadn't seen me in person
would think I was male.

--

Meredith Dixon
dixonm at pobox.com

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org