 |
| New etiquette books were suddenly plentiful in the last dozen-or-so years of the 20th century, in preparation of the 21st century and to address all of the technological advances of the 1990’s. Judith Martin’s, “Guide for the Turn-of-the-Millennium” was one of the most popular. ————— “What’s the office etiquette when men and women work together? Judith Martin: The very simple rule that takes care of most problems is that gender is simply not relevant in the workplace. Once you realize that, then the questions of who goes through the door first and who pays for lunch are very easily settled. It should be settled just as if it were an all-male workplace— by rank and position.” |
Establishing Polite Parameters for the 1990’s
Dear Amy: Help! On second thought, make that: Help, please!
Ms. Vanderbilt, you must be turning over in your grave because of the problems that polite society is suffering as we enter the ‘90s.
I mean, as manners go, I’m not exactly a model of decorum. (I take special pleasure in cutting off Camaros on the freeway). But even I know there should be a better way of congratulating your second husband on the birth of his first child from his third marriage than just looking embarrassed and saying, “Gee, you told me you’d had a vasectomy!”
Or writing to all your friends in one fell swoop by using the recall button on the personal computer. Or telling a potential sexual partner to use a condom by strategically leaving a dozen boxes of Trojans next to the Champagne in the refrigerator. Or wrestling with the complexities of call-waiting by shouting “Hang on!” or murmuring “Sorry, this new caller is richer than you, Mr. Murdock.”
Just consider, for instance, the contretemps I found myself in just trying to write this story. I was chatting on the phone to New York etiquette arbiter Charlotte Ford when suddenly I heard a “beep” and Miss Manners (a.k.a. Judith Martin) was holding on call waiting from Washington.
“Uh, what do I do, Charlotte?” I asked in a panic.
“It’s easy,” she replied, soothingly. “I think that whoever’s on the phone first when call-waiting comes in takes precedence. Tell the other person you’ll call them back.”
Hmmm, logical enough. So I clicked back to Martin.
“Judith? I’ve got Charlotte Ford on the other line, and she says I should stay on the phone with her and call you back. Does that sound OK?”
Miss Manners paused a moment to consider.
“Absolutely,” Martin purred.
What I need, Amy, is a definitive guide to all this stuff. Something to keep right by the bedside to govern matters of a sexual, or nonsexual, nature. It’s no good to find out the proper way to act after the fact. By then my social life is going to degenerate into watching reruns of “Facts of Life.”
But wait, what are these packages on my desk? Could it be that America’s foremost etiquette experts have been working overtime to establish polite parameters for the ‘90s?
Some of these books are from the usual suspects: Judith Martin, Letitia Baldridge, and Charlotte Ford. But, suddenly there are new names making waves in the manners business. After all, who better than Sidney Biddle Barrows of Mayflower Madam fame to solve such bedroom dilemmas as: Do you make eye contact at an orgy? (No.) Do you use your lover’s toothbrush? (Yes.)
“My literary agent thought up the idea,” Barrows confides. “Most people think sex is inherently not very polite, and certainly not something one talks about unless one absolutely has to. But etiquette is a way of romancing between men and women. And now that we’re not jumping into bed with someone, we need something like this to drag out the courtship a little longer.”
All the authors attempt to create a new code of etiquette for a new time. Let’s see, Amy, how do I explain it? Men are sometimes women. A child can have four different mothers. Answering machines talk to one another.
As social arbiter Letitia Baldridge notes, “Manners comprise everything in our human relationships, all the things that we do all day long and the way we interrelate with people. And if any of these things change, then we want to change with them.”
That’s why Baldridge, the former chief of staff during Jackie Kennedy’s stint as First Lady, has written her “Complete Guide to the New Manners for the ‘90s.” (Remember her, Amy? In 1978, four years after your death, she updated your etiquette book. Then Tish decided she was a big enough name to go it alone.)
Baldridge, who cheerfully dispenses advice on what a pregnant bride should wear and whether it’s polite to send a dinner invitation through the fax machine, is convinced that manners are making a comeback in the ‘90s. “You bet. I see it in my mail, I see it in the people I lecture.”
But why? “We became very self-obsessed in the ‘80s when the philosophy was ‘succeed, make money and spend it.’ And I think it’s time to stand back and start spending as much energy thinking about other people.”
I thought, at 646 pages, Baldridge’s book would be le dernier cri . Yet, it’s beaten hands down in sheer heft and chutzpah by fellow Washingtonian Judith Martin’s latest opus, released in November and entitled grandly enough, “Miss Manners’ Guide for the Turn-of-the-Millennium.” The syndicated columnist takes 742 pages to impart her wit and wisdom on contemporary quandaries from the decline of the nuclear family to the rise in women in the workplace.
Are things really that bad to warrant so much space? “Certainly,” Martin sniffs. “We have such a long way to go to get to some place approaching civilization.”
It’s her view that American society is coming to the end of a generation-long experiment that started in the ‘60s when the baby-boomers decided just to chuck existing rules of behavior and be themselves.
“This is what I call the Jean Jacques Rousseau School of Etiquette,” Miss Manners relates. “The problem being that in our natural state we’re not all that livable.”
In addition, Martin sees our current social situation complicated by two main factors: technology— the fax machine and answering machines weren’t ubiquitous a decade ago— and sex. Not only are sexually transmitted diseases a topic that must be addressed these days, but so is sexual etiquette in the workplace.
“The very simple rule that takes care of most of these problems— that gender is simply not relevant in the workplace— is a very difficult concept to get across. Because once you realize that, then the questions of who goes through the door first and who pays for lunch are very easily settled by rank and position.”
Compare that to the Mayflower Madam. She was only too willing to be interviewed about this month’s “Mayflower Manners,” which describes itself as an “Etiquette for Consenting Adults.” Of course, Barrows is the very picture of politeness as she delves into such uncharted territory as: Is it rude to rip an exotic garment off a woman? (It depends on how much the thing costs.) Or when two people meet through personal ads, who is the host? (Whoever placed the ad.) Or even whether there are basic principles of etiquette that apply to the menage a trois. (No one should show favoritism.)
Barrows, of course, believes she’s providing a valuable public service. “I don’t think you’ll find anywhere in the other books the proper etiquette for treating a call girl or escort service. And I don’t think you’ll see too many pages on how to behave at an S & M party in a club or a private home.
“A lot of people think, ‘Ugh, an etiquette book’ and think of Letitia Baldridge and all that dry, ponderous stuff,” says Barrows, defending her lighter touch. “That’s what makes my book fun.”
But it wasn’t fun at all when a seemingly simple question about AIDS drew Barrows into a national controversy recently and one gay activist group in New York City claimed the Mayflower Madam had made a major faux pas.
The question was: “If a host invites a known carrier of AIDS to a dinner party, should he so inform his other guests?”
Barrows responded: “Yes. Most people will know that they cannot contract the disease by being seated at a dinner table with a carrier. But it is a courtesy to all to let them know ahead of time.”
As a result, Barrows was “disinvited” to the premiere of a movie, while her publisher, Doubleday, was asked to issue an apology.
Using language not printable in a family newspaper, Barrows fumed that she had been the victim of a setup by “a very radical gay group that’s always looking for media attention. How could I be disinvited to something when I was never invited in the first place? This whole thing is so personally upsetting to me I can’t tell you. It’s a real nightmare.”
As for what to do in the situation, Barrows still sticks by her advice. “I have a huge number of gay friends and every time I’ve ever been invited anywhere I was always told if there was somebody with AIDS who was going to be there. Not because these people were trying to warn me. But because they wanted other guests to have an extra level of sensitivity.”
On the other hand, both Baldridge and Martin didn’t see the necessity for telling anyone anything. “At most respectable dinner parties,” notes Miss Manners, “there wouldn’t be any activity where you would catch AIDS so I don’t see why you should have to tell people.”
But etiquette arbiter Charlotte Ford professed some confusion as to what to do. “Hmmm. Such a tough situation,” she murmured. “I think there are certain people who don’t care, and there are other people who would be just devastated if they were at a party with someone who had AIDS.”
Her solution, she decided, was simply not to invite the person with AIDS to dinner— which AIDS support groups say is also wrong.
So who’s right, Amy? I honestly don’t know. The only thing I’m certain of is that by next week, next month, next year, another social phenomenon will create another conundrum for etiquette experts.
And, Amy, you won’t be here to help us through it.
What’s the office etiquette when men and women work together?
JUDITH MARTIN: The very simple rule that takes care of most problems is that gender is simply not relevant in the workplace. Once you realize that, then the questions of who goes through the door first and who pays for lunch are very easily settled. It should be settled just as if it were an all-male workplace— by rank and position.
CHARLOTTE FORD: If I was a woman and invited to dinner by a male colleague, I would certainly say, “Let’s have lunch first.” I just wouldn’t be available for dinner.
How do you ask a man to wear a condom?
LETITIA BALDRIDGE: You can say to him, “I’m very sorry, but if you don’t use a condom, there’s just no way we can be together.” You can then give him some, or tell him where the nearest drugstore is, or tell him, “Let’s have dinner another night,” and send him away.
MARTIN: If you know the person well enough to make that necessary, you ought to be able to say anything. What amuses me is when people shift into prudery. If you are on intimate terms with somebody, surely you can ask them intimate questions.
FORD: I’d be a little bit embarrassed and a little bit shy and say, “Listen, I hope you’ve taken some sort of protection because I don’t want to contract any diseases, and I’m sure you don’t either.”
SYDNEY BIDDLE BARROWS: It is not seemly, nor necessary, to smile on the first date and say, “Love your dress. By the way, will you be giving me a fatal disease?” Instead, allow time to pass--that’s what these dates are for, after all. By the time sex seems a possibility, you will have necessarily both crossed that line beyond which these sensitive issues may be discussed.
If you’re giving a dinner party and invite someone who has AIDS, should you tell your other guests?
BALDRIDGE: I don’t think you tell anybody that the person has AIDS. Because frankly the guests are not catching AIDS from that person. It really isn’t relevant.
MARTIN: It depends on the activity of the dinner party. At most respectable dinner parties, there wouldn’t be any activity where you would catch AIDS, so I don’t see why should have to tell people. Would you tell your guests that one of them had cancer? But if you were giving an orgy, I think you should tell people.
FORD: I don’t know that I would invite somebody to dinner knowing they have AIDS, simply because I think it would make everybody very uncomfortable. But I think it all depends on the situation. If you are going to do that, I think you have to be very careful how you do it and whom you invite.
BARROWS: Yes. Most people will know that they cannot contract the disease by being seated at a dinner table with a carrier. But it is a courtesy to all to let them know ahead of time.
What is the proper way to use your answering machine?
BALDRIDGE: The best way is to record as short a message as possible, 15 seconds, and be very business-like and be very up.
MARTIN: The telephone is a very rude instrument. Monitoring calls on the answering machine is polite. People somehow put the onus of politeness mistakenly against people who do not accept all calls at any time. There is nothing wrong with picking and choosing.
Is it polite for a mother to breast-feed her baby in public?
BALDRIDGE: Definitely not. Anyone looking over, especially any man, immediately starts to conjecture about the size and shape of the breast.
MARTIN: No. In some countries people breast - feed on the street, but it is not done properly in the United States, and the argument that it is a natural thing bears no weight with me.
FORD: I’ve always said that whatever a mother wants to do is her business. The only thing is, I think you should do it in private. Go to an airport area not populated by people, go into another room in someone’s house.
If a child has several sets of parents because of divorces, how do you decide who should come to school on parents’ day?
BALDRIDGE: It’s up to the child to decide whom he or she wants. The child should ask that parent to come and then apologize to the others and explain why they weren’t asked.
FORD: It all depends on the relationship between the adults. Forget the children. It’s the adults that set the mood for whatever the function’s going to be. It’s very, very hard, but somebody’s got to bite the bullet.
MARTIN: That is incredibly complicated. I’d say parents, their mates and assorted other people who want to be involved. I was president of a school board where we didn’t realize for a long time that it was offensive to send out questionnaires where it gave only one line for “mother’s name” and “father’s name.” So we would put four lines under each for families to do what they liked. So those things have had to be adjusted.
What is the worst new breach of entertaining etiquette?
BALDRIDGE: Some people feel that they should turn on their TV sets even at dinner parties. I’ve seen guests leave the table to go and watch their favorite football game in the library.
MARTIN: The understood social contract whereby the host sets the terms of the contract and the guests can take it or leave it has broken down miserably. People now consider an invitation to be the opening of negotiations. You tell me what you’re serving for dinner, and then I tell you this is going to kill me, or you tell me who the other guests are and then I decide if I want to accept. And heaven forbid if you try to set a dress code.
FORD: Hosts who ask guests to take their shoes off. You have to respect your host’s wishes. But as somebody said, if their carpets are that good, why do they ever have any guests? — By Nikki Finke, Los Angeles Times, 1990
I mean, as manners go, I’m not exactly a model of decorum. (I take special pleasure in cutting off Camaros on the freeway). But even I know there should be a better way of congratulating your second husband on the birth of his first child from his third marriage than just looking embarrassed and saying, “Gee, you told me you’d had a vasectomy!”
Or writing to all your friends in one fell swoop by using the recall button on the personal computer. Or telling a potential sexual partner to use a condom by strategically leaving a dozen boxes of Trojans next to the Champagne in the refrigerator. Or wrestling with the complexities of call-waiting by shouting “Hang on!” or murmuring “Sorry, this new caller is richer than you, Mr. Murdock.”
Just consider, for instance, the contretemps I found myself in just trying to write this story. I was chatting on the phone to New York etiquette arbiter Charlotte Ford when suddenly I heard a “beep” and Miss Manners (a.k.a. Judith Martin) was holding on call waiting from Washington.
“Uh, what do I do, Charlotte?” I asked in a panic.
“It’s easy,” she replied, soothingly. “I think that whoever’s on the phone first when call-waiting comes in takes precedence. Tell the other person you’ll call them back.”
Hmmm, logical enough. So I clicked back to Martin.
“Judith? I’ve got Charlotte Ford on the other line, and she says I should stay on the phone with her and call you back. Does that sound OK?”
Miss Manners paused a moment to consider.
“Absolutely,” Martin purred.
What I need, Amy, is a definitive guide to all this stuff. Something to keep right by the bedside to govern matters of a sexual, or nonsexual, nature. It’s no good to find out the proper way to act after the fact. By then my social life is going to degenerate into watching reruns of “Facts of Life.”
But wait, what are these packages on my desk? Could it be that America’s foremost etiquette experts have been working overtime to establish polite parameters for the ‘90s?
Some of these books are from the usual suspects: Judith Martin, Letitia Baldridge, and Charlotte Ford. But, suddenly there are new names making waves in the manners business. After all, who better than Sidney Biddle Barrows of Mayflower Madam fame to solve such bedroom dilemmas as: Do you make eye contact at an orgy? (No.) Do you use your lover’s toothbrush? (Yes.)
“My literary agent thought up the idea,” Barrows confides. “Most people think sex is inherently not very polite, and certainly not something one talks about unless one absolutely has to. But etiquette is a way of romancing between men and women. And now that we’re not jumping into bed with someone, we need something like this to drag out the courtship a little longer.”
All the authors attempt to create a new code of etiquette for a new time. Let’s see, Amy, how do I explain it? Men are sometimes women. A child can have four different mothers. Answering machines talk to one another.
As social arbiter Letitia Baldridge notes, “Manners comprise everything in our human relationships, all the things that we do all day long and the way we interrelate with people. And if any of these things change, then we want to change with them.”
That’s why Baldridge, the former chief of staff during Jackie Kennedy’s stint as First Lady, has written her “Complete Guide to the New Manners for the ‘90s.” (Remember her, Amy? In 1978, four years after your death, she updated your etiquette book. Then Tish decided she was a big enough name to go it alone.)
Baldridge, who cheerfully dispenses advice on what a pregnant bride should wear and whether it’s polite to send a dinner invitation through the fax machine, is convinced that manners are making a comeback in the ‘90s. “You bet. I see it in my mail, I see it in the people I lecture.”
But why? “We became very self-obsessed in the ‘80s when the philosophy was ‘succeed, make money and spend it.’ And I think it’s time to stand back and start spending as much energy thinking about other people.”
I thought, at 646 pages, Baldridge’s book would be le dernier cri . Yet, it’s beaten hands down in sheer heft and chutzpah by fellow Washingtonian Judith Martin’s latest opus, released in November and entitled grandly enough, “Miss Manners’ Guide for the Turn-of-the-Millennium.” The syndicated columnist takes 742 pages to impart her wit and wisdom on contemporary quandaries from the decline of the nuclear family to the rise in women in the workplace.
Are things really that bad to warrant so much space? “Certainly,” Martin sniffs. “We have such a long way to go to get to some place approaching civilization.”
It’s her view that American society is coming to the end of a generation-long experiment that started in the ‘60s when the baby-boomers decided just to chuck existing rules of behavior and be themselves.
“This is what I call the Jean Jacques Rousseau School of Etiquette,” Miss Manners relates. “The problem being that in our natural state we’re not all that livable.”
In addition, Martin sees our current social situation complicated by two main factors: technology— the fax machine and answering machines weren’t ubiquitous a decade ago— and sex. Not only are sexually transmitted diseases a topic that must be addressed these days, but so is sexual etiquette in the workplace.
“The very simple rule that takes care of most of these problems— that gender is simply not relevant in the workplace— is a very difficult concept to get across. Because once you realize that, then the questions of who goes through the door first and who pays for lunch are very easily settled by rank and position.”
Compare that to the Mayflower Madam. She was only too willing to be interviewed about this month’s “Mayflower Manners,” which describes itself as an “Etiquette for Consenting Adults.” Of course, Barrows is the very picture of politeness as she delves into such uncharted territory as: Is it rude to rip an exotic garment off a woman? (It depends on how much the thing costs.) Or when two people meet through personal ads, who is the host? (Whoever placed the ad.) Or even whether there are basic principles of etiquette that apply to the menage a trois. (No one should show favoritism.)
Barrows, of course, believes she’s providing a valuable public service. “I don’t think you’ll find anywhere in the other books the proper etiquette for treating a call girl or escort service. And I don’t think you’ll see too many pages on how to behave at an S & M party in a club or a private home.
“A lot of people think, ‘Ugh, an etiquette book’ and think of Letitia Baldridge and all that dry, ponderous stuff,” says Barrows, defending her lighter touch. “That’s what makes my book fun.”
But it wasn’t fun at all when a seemingly simple question about AIDS drew Barrows into a national controversy recently and one gay activist group in New York City claimed the Mayflower Madam had made a major faux pas.
The question was: “If a host invites a known carrier of AIDS to a dinner party, should he so inform his other guests?”
Barrows responded: “Yes. Most people will know that they cannot contract the disease by being seated at a dinner table with a carrier. But it is a courtesy to all to let them know ahead of time.”
As a result, Barrows was “disinvited” to the premiere of a movie, while her publisher, Doubleday, was asked to issue an apology.
Using language not printable in a family newspaper, Barrows fumed that she had been the victim of a setup by “a very radical gay group that’s always looking for media attention. How could I be disinvited to something when I was never invited in the first place? This whole thing is so personally upsetting to me I can’t tell you. It’s a real nightmare.”
As for what to do in the situation, Barrows still sticks by her advice. “I have a huge number of gay friends and every time I’ve ever been invited anywhere I was always told if there was somebody with AIDS who was going to be there. Not because these people were trying to warn me. But because they wanted other guests to have an extra level of sensitivity.”
On the other hand, both Baldridge and Martin didn’t see the necessity for telling anyone anything. “At most respectable dinner parties,” notes Miss Manners, “there wouldn’t be any activity where you would catch AIDS so I don’t see why you should have to tell people.”
But etiquette arbiter Charlotte Ford professed some confusion as to what to do. “Hmmm. Such a tough situation,” she murmured. “I think there are certain people who don’t care, and there are other people who would be just devastated if they were at a party with someone who had AIDS.”
Her solution, she decided, was simply not to invite the person with AIDS to dinner— which AIDS support groups say is also wrong.
So who’s right, Amy? I honestly don’t know. The only thing I’m certain of is that by next week, next month, next year, another social phenomenon will create another conundrum for etiquette experts.
And, Amy, you won’t be here to help us through it.
What’s the office etiquette when men and women work together?
JUDITH MARTIN: The very simple rule that takes care of most problems is that gender is simply not relevant in the workplace. Once you realize that, then the questions of who goes through the door first and who pays for lunch are very easily settled. It should be settled just as if it were an all-male workplace— by rank and position.
CHARLOTTE FORD: If I was a woman and invited to dinner by a male colleague, I would certainly say, “Let’s have lunch first.” I just wouldn’t be available for dinner.
How do you ask a man to wear a condom?
LETITIA BALDRIDGE: You can say to him, “I’m very sorry, but if you don’t use a condom, there’s just no way we can be together.” You can then give him some, or tell him where the nearest drugstore is, or tell him, “Let’s have dinner another night,” and send him away.
MARTIN: If you know the person well enough to make that necessary, you ought to be able to say anything. What amuses me is when people shift into prudery. If you are on intimate terms with somebody, surely you can ask them intimate questions.
FORD: I’d be a little bit embarrassed and a little bit shy and say, “Listen, I hope you’ve taken some sort of protection because I don’t want to contract any diseases, and I’m sure you don’t either.”
SYDNEY BIDDLE BARROWS: It is not seemly, nor necessary, to smile on the first date and say, “Love your dress. By the way, will you be giving me a fatal disease?” Instead, allow time to pass--that’s what these dates are for, after all. By the time sex seems a possibility, you will have necessarily both crossed that line beyond which these sensitive issues may be discussed.
If you’re giving a dinner party and invite someone who has AIDS, should you tell your other guests?
BALDRIDGE: I don’t think you tell anybody that the person has AIDS. Because frankly the guests are not catching AIDS from that person. It really isn’t relevant.
MARTIN: It depends on the activity of the dinner party. At most respectable dinner parties, there wouldn’t be any activity where you would catch AIDS, so I don’t see why should have to tell people. Would you tell your guests that one of them had cancer? But if you were giving an orgy, I think you should tell people.
FORD: I don’t know that I would invite somebody to dinner knowing they have AIDS, simply because I think it would make everybody very uncomfortable. But I think it all depends on the situation. If you are going to do that, I think you have to be very careful how you do it and whom you invite.
BARROWS: Yes. Most people will know that they cannot contract the disease by being seated at a dinner table with a carrier. But it is a courtesy to all to let them know ahead of time.
What is the proper way to use your answering machine?
BALDRIDGE: The best way is to record as short a message as possible, 15 seconds, and be very business-like and be very up.
MARTIN: The telephone is a very rude instrument. Monitoring calls on the answering machine is polite. People somehow put the onus of politeness mistakenly against people who do not accept all calls at any time. There is nothing wrong with picking and choosing.
Is it polite for a mother to breast-feed her baby in public?
BALDRIDGE: Definitely not. Anyone looking over, especially any man, immediately starts to conjecture about the size and shape of the breast.
MARTIN: No. In some countries people breast - feed on the street, but it is not done properly in the United States, and the argument that it is a natural thing bears no weight with me.
FORD: I’ve always said that whatever a mother wants to do is her business. The only thing is, I think you should do it in private. Go to an airport area not populated by people, go into another room in someone’s house.
If a child has several sets of parents because of divorces, how do you decide who should come to school on parents’ day?
BALDRIDGE: It’s up to the child to decide whom he or she wants. The child should ask that parent to come and then apologize to the others and explain why they weren’t asked.
FORD: It all depends on the relationship between the adults. Forget the children. It’s the adults that set the mood for whatever the function’s going to be. It’s very, very hard, but somebody’s got to bite the bullet.
MARTIN: That is incredibly complicated. I’d say parents, their mates and assorted other people who want to be involved. I was president of a school board where we didn’t realize for a long time that it was offensive to send out questionnaires where it gave only one line for “mother’s name” and “father’s name.” So we would put four lines under each for families to do what they liked. So those things have had to be adjusted.
What is the worst new breach of entertaining etiquette?
BALDRIDGE: Some people feel that they should turn on their TV sets even at dinner parties. I’ve seen guests leave the table to go and watch their favorite football game in the library.
MARTIN: The understood social contract whereby the host sets the terms of the contract and the guests can take it or leave it has broken down miserably. People now consider an invitation to be the opening of negotiations. You tell me what you’re serving for dinner, and then I tell you this is going to kill me, or you tell me who the other guests are and then I decide if I want to accept. And heaven forbid if you try to set a dress code.
FORD: Hosts who ask guests to take their shoes off. You have to respect your host’s wishes. But as somebody said, if their carpets are that good, why do they ever have any guests? — By Nikki Finke, Los Angeles Times, 1990
Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia
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