On the use of the title ‘ma’am’

I don’t quite understand why women, especially middle-aged and older, get all huffy and puffy when addressed as “ma’am.” Some are okay with it, others act as if you said “bitch kitchen frying pan” and handed over a recipe for grilled cheese. At last check, ‘ma’am’ does not mean that. At all.

We have a new employee at work – who is a female – and in the course of interacting with an older female student, addressed her as “ma’am,” and promptly received a vaginal punch. Why?

“Don’t call me ‘ma’am.’ Don’t ever call anyone ‘ma’am.’ You can call me missis, or miss. Yes. You can call me miss. Miss will do.” She rambled on and on about it, grieving, as if the new employee had stabbed knitting needles into her eyes.

For that reason, the title ‘ma’am’ was jettisoned from my lexicon long ago. I’ve heard enough lectures over the past ten years about how pejorative it is. I’m more likely to say “hey you” than I am “ma’am,” and if you ever hear me say it, I mean no disrespect. I just need to get your attention, and for unbeknownst reasons, ‘ma’am’ has been struck from the list of respectful attention-getters I can use in discoursing with female society.

What baffles me is why it is so offensive to some. ‘Missis’ and ‘miss’ are short for mistress, and I’m sure that those who prefer it wouldn’t be excited to be referred to as a concubine. On the contrary, ‘ma’am’ is short for ‘madam,’ and originates as a title of respect for a woman who is the head of a household, transliterated from Old French to Middle English. A more contemporary meaning of the word lends itself to prostitution, but has no less of a double meaning than ‘miss.’

After being told enough times to quit it, I started to ask them why. What was so offensive about it? Nothing ever came of the question. “Because it is,” I was told. But one woman filled my ignorance quota for the past decade: “It’s a negative term for black women from when they were slaves.”

Excuse me?

I immediately thought two things: that this was egregiously false, or that it was a common misperception that surrounds the word ‘ma’am.’ Since I’ve never heard of this poor excuse, I concluded that it was egregiously false. Though I don’t wish to become a scholar on its use, a cursory Google search didn’t reveal any racial undertones about it; it’s more common to hear in the Southeastern United States, and by no means references black women. It’s just a word, words have meaning, and the meaning is what you ascribe to it. That woman was simply and flat out wrong, and probably racist.

The only thing that I can think of is a perceived age gap between what a ‘miss’ is: young, unmarried, just starting out in life – and what a ‘ma’am’ is: older, wiser, head of the household. I would question whether the listener actually knows that, though. If she is able to differentiate between the finer points of the two terms, she would probably be less likely to dissent on either’s use. One strongly preferenced over the other would indicate that the actual meaning of the word is lost, and whatever meaning is left has been assigned.

Of course, it could just be a protest over the meaning of “wham, bam, thank you ma’am.”