Love this post! Mainly because I actually frequently apologize to women when I accidentally call them Ma’am (“sorry I called you Ma’am”). And it’s because the word holds a good amount of social commentary. My favorite commentary the writer suggests is that we have many ways to designate a woman’s age / life stage and otherwise value as a human through the way we address her (Miss, Ma’am, Young lady, “Sweetie”, etc.) but very few for men (Sir or Mr.). Interest thought on the social context of language and a hilarious read that many of us can relate to…
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There is a single word in the English language that has the power to ruin my whole day. That word is Ma’am.
I could be having a perfectly fine day – a great day even – the kind of day where my car starts on the first try, my kids get off to school without a ton of screaming and, when I check myself in the mirror I actually think, “Hey, I don’t look half bad.”
Then I stop by the local coffee place and the hipster barista dude, the one who wears the gross earring gauges, hands me my non-fat latte and says, “Here you go, Ma’am.”
Ah, come on. Really? Did you have to?
Of course I politely say “Thank you,” back to the little whippersnapper, but in my head I’ve added a very irritated, “Don’t call me Ma’am, d#$%khead.”
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The Narcissistic (American) Anthropologist 