Casual sexism - being an MD

I'm not only a manager but also in the tech sector with an engineering degree.

Quite frankly, I'd consider 'Dear Sir' an upgrade at this point. I get several emails and even letters addressing me as 'Mr Bitch' a week.

My first name is Madeleine and it's part of my email address in full!

OP, YANBU!

We worked with a company recently. First 2 letters Dear Sir, fine I have a unisex name. A bit emm that it’s assumed the ‘boss’ is male but ok.

Then had to speak to them, and mentioned that I was a Ms and asked them to correct their data. The letters are by their nature personalised.

So sorry, I’ll sort that straight away.

Thought no more of it; next letter still Sir, mildly irked. Had another call about something else, mentioned it again, so sorry, will sort it now (em that’s what you said the last time...)

Then got a call from them asking to speak to Mr. Damn. Said it’s actually Ms.Damn, oh can I speak to the boss....😡😡😡

Yes we are a small business, and my DP is involved (I employ him) we do not share a surname. Nicely pointed out that Mr Damn my father is dead and the only other male they may have had contact is my employee.

Moved my business that day. If they can’t get who the decision makers name right why would I trust them???

That’s from a business point of view, but from a feminist point of view To me it’s equal to the broken windows effect, if you don’t address the small things, (being the boss does not equal male, if in doubt check or address both) people push and suddenly it’s a big thing.

She is a managing director

Assuming MD is medical doctor, surely the most stupid thing here is they could just refer to you as DrRights and you wouldn't have known they thought only men were doctors. If you are a managing director then yes they need to sort out the people entering data and get them to use their brains a bit more.

@hiddley I'm the CEO so it's not dictated to me, just sent as a template.

I'd have gotten a serious bollockin' for changing anything dictated to me!

I was hiring for a position recently. My name is obviously female and yet the number of covering letters addressed to 'Dear Sir' was pretty depressing. Helped weed the field though I guess.

Missymoo - I think most people don't care.

Well the gender fluids can delete as applicable and if they use erasable ink can even ring their changes from day to day.

I have to send an annual letter to our auditors which is pre-drafted for us. The firm is made up of male and female employees but the letter is always addressed to "Dear Sirs" so every year I change it to Dear Sirs and Mesdames". It might be a mildly ridiculous form of address but it's the only one I could find which fits multiple addressees of both sexes.

Thought about this recently, will dear sir/madam now be offensive as it isn't inclusive of the gender fluid ?

formal legal secretarial training*, that should read.

Legal industry have some strange notions. For e.g., no punctuation after the Dear sirs or the Yours faithfully
I once got a telling off from a barrister for using 'didn't' instead of 'did not'. According to the toff, the legal industry does not use abbreviations in formal correspondence.

I never had any formal legal secretarial experience, but that was certainly my experience (4 years I worked there).

Well done OP. I think it's a good thing to challenge this archaic shit.

RagingFeminist. It is, rightly or wrongly, a standard address in the legal profession in particular. I have never worked for an accountancy firm so can't comment on them.

I suspect that these letters are automated so they don’t have a system to detect if the name that follows is femal or male (even if obvious).

Someone has just assumed that the person atbtope would be a man in most cases...

A letter like this might make them think a bit though. Esp if they receive a few of them....

Oh and I have worked as a secretary in several industries and the legal industry was the only one who used Dear sirs. Everywhere else used Dear sir/madam when a name was unknown.
Rule was Dear sir/madam if name unknown, followed by Yours faithfully.
If name was known it was Dear Title Name followed by Yours sincerely.

Plain lazy not to write dear Ms XYZ.
But yes I think dear sirs should be outdated.

It's probably an outdated thing that has hung around in legal circles for some reasons.

Now that I think about it more, it was when we writing to a company that it was Dear sirs. If writing to a client, it was Dear Whateveryournameis.

During the recession we were one of the few people in our area doing some building work. Our planning permission was in the names of Mary and John Bred.

We got 35 unsolicited requests from builders to quote for the work. Every single one of them was addressed to ‘John Bred’

As I was the person looking after the build (DH had very little interest), I shredded them all.

Used to work for a solicitors and it was always Dear sirs. Unless a name was known (and even then, I think it was still Dear sirs). All correspondence we received was Dear sirs also. Seems to be just a legal thing.

Dear Managing Director
Dear Company Secretary

Well perhaps put it alphabetically.

Dear Madam/Sir

Yours faithfully

But if they know you are female, with an obvious female name, then Dear [name]

Yours sincerely

Yanbu.