Declining to put my preferred pronouns in my email signature

This one?

Nope.

That poster is also ignoring the many times it's been mentioned on this and other threads that not revealing or bringing attention to the fact that you are female does protect you from stereotype threat in the workplace. I've seen various people say that they use their first initial only in order that they won't be subjected to bias.

(To be clear, I'm not going to use the boak inducing phrase 'hiding your womanhood').

I’m trying to find the meme that shows exactly what the whole pronouns nonsense leads to which is essentially if you start she/her ing men you’re opening up the door to their demands to access every woman’s single sex space

I don't know what to advise, but I sympathise. My instinct is to resist such empty virtue-signalling. If trans or intersex people want to make their pronoun preferences clear I believe this should be respected, but for the rest of us - ie the vast majority - it's just silly.

I'm also sick of being asked for my ethnicity, gender, sexual preference (seriously! ffs!) and whether I have a disability on application forms. None of this should be relevant to whether or not I can do whatever it is - job, competition, uni application... I've even seen it on even feedback forms from tech support companies, in which case it's just blatant data mining. The last time this happened I wrote to the organisation in question and politely told them I found their questions deeply invasive and disrespectful. Predictably I suppose, there was no response.

Good luck. I hope you get this silliness resolved.

Felix will explain all this (the one in pink) https://talk.tv/news/12128/no-im-not-going-to-tell-you-my-preferred-pronouns

But as previous PPs have said, research has shown that there is still unconscious bias against women in the workplace (emails from men get prompter, less patronising replies etc). So drawing everyone's attention to that by labelling yourself female is not going to help.

So, no, I don't think it's petty.

Also, in emails, why do you need to know if a person is a man or a woman? Will that change how you respond to them?

Translation: "I'm a Good People who chants the Good Mantras."

Agree. It's such a weird word. What the hell is a womanhood?

I don't want an answer.

Does this make any sense to anyone?

You will be glad, yes.

That will certainly show them. Glad we have you fighting for our rights.

Did you read the study I posted?

The point is that repeatedly drawing attention to sex is linked to poorer performance and discrimination.

Actually I do use T. Pratchett fairly frequently in correspondence. My email has Terry Pratchett but I'm not repeatedly mentioning my sex. I'm also older and have a dodgy accent, which I know, and so does anyone talking to me. But I don't say "Terry Pratchett, female, old and common" before every conversation. It would affect performance.

But mostly, why should I?

Anyone who talks about 'womanhood' gets a hard stare from me. These days it's increasingly a way of talking about people's gender identity belief system without admitting it.

There have been several of those studies which send resumes to various employers/people with hiring authority with all the other items in them unchanged except for the first name of the applicant so that some are sent as coming from the generic 'Jane' and some from the generic 'John' (similar studies also research racial and gender biases in hiring).

These show that female-seeming applicants are less likely to be rated higher, less likely to be recommended for employment, and more likely to be recommended a lower initial salary offer. The same has appeared in studies looking at applications for graduate education, say, and both male and female evaluators tend to show bias against female names in both types of cases.

I also work with people with aphasia (language impairment post stroke or other brain injury). If they ask me for support in stating their preferred pronouns, that's a goal I will happily set for them (obviously it's never yet happened but I'm open to the idea that it will). I'm not going to add to their cognitive load by requesting they use any part of language for MY benefit.

One, you just made our point that it's unnecessary.

What makes you think that I think it’s necessary?

Why do you think hiding your womanhood in an email is going to protect you in the workplace?

Have you changed your name to something gender natural? Do you pretend to be a man at work?

I think at this stage of the game we should all just be honest.

"are you asking me if i have a transgender identity?" might be a good answer.

Might be because the OP doesn't agree with unnecessary performative virtue signalling.

Have I missed your point?

Because, to be honest, with this ^^ post, you’re playing right into the hands of those saying we should all declare pronouns. So as to avoid other people deciding/assuming - and getting it wrong.

If you (generic) don’t want people to assume and get it wrong, it probably behoves you to tell people your pronouns.

Personally, I couldn’t get less what people refer to me as when I’m not around, and wouldn’t be so mortally offended if I was mis-gendered, so I will not be telling people what pronouns to use when referring to me.

Oh please do. Please please please be that person. I'll join you.

Two things:

One, you just made our point that it's unnecessary.

Two, there is evidence that drawing one's own attention to one's own sex makes us worse at some tasks. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103198913737 That's how strong sexism is, the whips are in our own heads. So if women's attention is repeatedly brought to our sex before a difficult maths task, we are worse at it. That's before you add other people's prejudice, that's just our own internalised sexism.

I'm not ashamed to be a woman. I love being a woman. My favourite 'wrong pronoun' conversation was this with a twat client:

Him: I'm unhappy and want to talk to your supervisor

Me: Sorry that's not possible today
Him: Well I want to talk to him
Me: 'Her', it's women all the way up in this organisation
Him: <crickets>

Made me so happy.

And I second every word of @Brefugee post. Too feckin right.

The problem is, as others have stated here, that by requiring someone to have preferred pronouns that person is required to believe in the concept of an abstract gender identity not just for other people, but for herself/himself.

Because the concept of an abstract gender identity is an unfalsifiable belief (like believing in the existence of angels) it should not be something secular societies demand others to pretend to believe.

I got the email.
I messaged back saying I had no interest in this as never, in my 55 years had I been mis gendered and thought that people could discern my gender easily from my name, title, and indeed photo should they at any point be confused.

This was followed by some rubbish about "standing with lbgtqa plus"
My response was that I felt insulted at the insinuation that I did not support/tolerate such colleagues and would they like a meeting to discuss my hurt feelings.
Heard nowt more.

I'm not likely to encounter this in my workplace, thankfully - but if hell did freeze over, I like to think that my inviting them to tell me, with the obvious potential consequence of deeply wounding my psyche and reporting them to HR if they get it wrong would make it go away.

After all, how exactly do you decide the pronouns of somebody who

Wears men's shoes
Wears trousers
Wears shirts
Wears a pullover or blazer
Doesn't wear an engagement ring
Has short, unpolished nails and doesn't wear makeup
Has significant facial and neck hair
Has used a non specific diminutive of their given name for their entire working life?

Choose carefully. If you decide it's clearly she/her, you could be misgendering an enby or he/him outside the workplace. If you decide it's he/him, you're potentially picking on somebody with a long term health condition (as per the sensible shoes that fit orthotics and the facial hair) or a she/her who is dreadfully hurt by the accusation of being he/him for not confirming to gender stereotypes or the erasure of their non disclosed sexuality. And if you decide it's they/them - WTF? You're saying you can't tell? Are you shaming me for not wearing makeup and heels? And aren't you suggesting that I can't possibly be he/him? You think I'm a TERF - how very dare you, you can't make that assumption based upon my age and what you think should be my gender identity and pronouns.