Saratoga News

She may not be a lady, but she's no guy either

By Dale Bryant

Often when I'm in the office, I'll overhear someone explain to a caller, "The editor is a lady." Since lady implies a value judgment, I assume what they mean is, the editor isn't a guy.

The only reason it really matters to the caller, of course, is that he or she needs to know if I am a he or she, so he or she can address a correspondence to me and know whether to address it to Ms. or Mr. It doesn't really matter to me. I've been tossing out junk mail addressed to Mr. Dale Bryant as long as I can remember.

And it really doesn't insult me when a telephone solicitor calls and asks--in that friendly way that suggests he or she and Mr. Bryant are dear personal friends--for Mr. Dale Bryant. In fact, it causes my husband no end of amusement to announce to these callers that if they think Dale Bryant is a Mr., they probably don't have anything of importance to convey to "Mr." Bryant.

Some women rejoiced when the etiquette books finally acknowledged Ms. as a proper form of address. Not me. I mean, I was happy for the feminist coup, but I knew most of my mail would continue to be addressed to Mr. Bryant. Even when I attended a conference in Seattle wearing a name tag that said Ms. Dale Bryant shortly after Ms. gained respectability, people kept asking, "And what is your name?"

I was working at a daily newspaper when feminists began demanding that newspapers cease and desist their insulting habit of referring to women by their husband's first names.

In those days, I worked in the Society Department. And yes, many readers assumed there was a man at the paper writing about women's clubs and fashion shows. Not only was it insulting to have to refer to a married woman by her husband's first name, it was a colossal pain for the reporter who needed to establish a woman's marital status before writing a story that said, for instance, that Constance Merriweather was the chairwoman of the spring dance committee.

Our style guide in those days required that if married, she was Mrs. Clyde Merriweather; if widowed, it was Mrs. Constance Merriweather; if divorced, we could treat her as if her husband were dead--Mrs. Constance Merriweather (but still Mrs., of course). If single, she would have been Miss Constance Merriweather--which, depending on her age--might have suggested the still single after all these years Miss Constance Merriweather.

I rejoiced when newspapers finally dropped titles completely and began referring to women by their given names and by their last names on second reference. In my own case, of course, it didn't really matter. In print I still looked like a guy, but at least I didn't have to grill some poor woman about her love life simply because she had been propelled into the limelight by having volunteered to chair a dance.

Personally, I'd be happy if the business etiquette books would advise their readers to forget titles altogether. That would save me the brief moment of concern I experience when I get a letter that says Dear Mr. Bryant: It was a pleasure to finally meet you in person ..."

Come to think of it, I'd be happy if the social etiquette books would jump on the no-title bandwagon, too. That would have saved whoever addressed the invitation to my husband and me to a Valentine's Day dinner-dance from having to make the decision he or she finally made to address the letter to: Mr. Kenneth Bryant and Mr. Dale Bryant.

Although my masculine name has caused me some amount of inconvenience, including having been placed in Boys Home Room and Boys P.E. as a Los Gatos High School freshman, I've never considered changing my name.

To be sure, I've asked my mother why--just as Johnny Cash's boy named Sue demanded an explanation from his father. But the best she could come up with was that she wanted me to have a name that was "different."

She succeeded. In 12 years of school, four years of college and some time in graduate school, I never had a class with a person named Dale--male or female. Although in my adult life, I have encountered an occasional woman named Dale and a handful of men with my name, the only name that ever comes to anyone's mind when I'm first introduced is Dale Evans. "Dale? You mean like Dale Evans?" they ask.

It's not quite the same as a boy having to explain being named Sue, but I think you'd have to call it character-building that I've spent most of my life explaining that I wasn't named after a famous cowgirl. As a matter of fact, my mother never has given me a satisfactory explanation. "Yes," she admits. "Dale Evans was the only woman I'd ever heard of named Dale, but I didn't name you after her. I named you that because I liked her name."

I guess I've never thought of changing my name because I'm in that camp that thinks my name is part of who I am. Besides, it gives me no end of pleasure when a cheerful telephone solicitor calls at dinner time and chirps in my ear, "I'd like to talk to Mr. Dale Bryant." I take fiendish delight in saying, "He's not home."

Dale Bryant is editor of the the Saratoga News.

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