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Okay, let’s all take a deep breath and have a look at what’s going on in this Qantas academic news story.

Dr Siobhan O’Dwyer, an Australian academic currently working in the UK was on a plane – no I don’t know which one or to where – but it was Qantas – that much I know – when a flight attendant looked at her ticket which had her name plus the title ‘Doctor’ on it, and then looked at her and called her ‘Miss’. Dr O’Dwyer felt this was insulting and took to Twitter to call out the airline for its employee’s ‘sexist’ behaviour. And as we all know, airing your dirty laundry on Twitter is the best way to come to a quick and clean resolution – especially one as cut and dry as this (Sarcasm).

The post quickly received nearly 8000 likes and a predictable Twitter storm ensued. People who don’t even know O’Dwyer began fighting for and against her and also fighting each other. You know those old Wild West movies with cowboys fighting in bars, accidentally punching the wrong person in the face and then having a chair broken over their backs by someone else again? Imagine that, but on Twitter.

So what happened in this Qantas Doctor slash Miss story?

Here’s word for word what O’Dwyer wrote on Friday:

‘Hey Qantas, my name is Dr O’Dwyer. My ticket says Dr O’Dwyer. Do not look at my ticket, look at me, look back at my ticket, decide it’s a typo and call me Miss O’Dwyer. I did not spend 8 years at university to be called Miss,’

Dr Mel Thomson tweeted her support with, ‘You have all of the solidarity on this issue.’

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Dr O’Dwyer, who has a PhD in Philosophy, replied, ‘I’m first gen to finish high school (let alone get several degrees) in my family … I’ll be damned is some trolley dolly gets to decide what honorific I get called, FFS.’

Oh wait – oh no, she didn’t!

Yes she did. In her fight to defeat sexism worldwide she referred to the flight attendant as a Trolley Dolly, because well – only women with PhDs are entitled to be referred to by their correct title.

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Naturally, a Qantas flight attendant replied:

‘Please don’t refer to us as trolley dollies. We may not have completed a PhD however we are required by law 2 maintain quals that enable us to evacuate an aircraft in 90 secs, keep u alive in-flight, prevent hijacking, put out fires etc,’

But who was in the right here?

This is only my personal opinion, but I assume, the inflight attendant didn’t mean it as an insult. I imagine, while trying to board passengers on the plane quickly and safety, she glanced not at the name, but at the seat number. She (or he) then looked at her face, and not wanting to assume she was married or (heaven forbid) over-forty, used Miss.

While officially, the female equivalent of Mr is Ms – many cultures don’t have a neutral female title so using Miss, Madam and Ma’am has become the norm depending where you are.

Basically, there was no harm intended – let it go.