How best to answer 'What are your preferred pronouns?' in an intervew

Difficult/arsehole should cover it.

Many of these companies are not intentionally “woke”. They’ve been institutionally captured. Especially if public sector organisations or large capitalist companies. There’s a connection.

It’s likely the person who signed off the email he/him/whatever did so without giving their brain too much thought as to what it represents. They’re following protocol, for some, they think they’re keeping ahead with the times, scared of being perceived as being left behind.

It’s pathetic really. I doubt you’ll be asked this question in real life.

I’d be tempted to go to town with it if you did get asked! They/them/ze/zir depending on the day of the week, elaborate at length on how it varies each day of the week.

Do people remember preferred pronouns? I have enough problems with names and even faces! Throw pronouns into the mix and I’m doomed.

Well, no, it's a useful descriptor.

If someone has a name that gives no information or cultural clues and it's in an email/written form then you have no idea whether Alex is male or female, unless Alex lists pronouns in their signature. You'd be mad that Alex wanted people to know that she was female, instead of people assuming they were talking to Alex a man? Why?

OP said she is 'clearly female' so yes I'd say she identifies that way. I am a female, I identify as female, I'm never upset at confirming I would like to be called a female, even if the question feels a bit redundant.

It's a job interview, if it's important to you to say your piece have at it, but we both know they won't hire you afterwards because they will worry you would be problematic with their workforce and it will seem like you are out of touch with social norms/ expectations.

I left my last job because my boss was a narcissistic bullying tyrant, but when they ask me at interview I'll smile sweetly and say I was interested in new opportunities because that is the social script for an interview question.

Oh come on, they're not going to ask that. What is the point of getting worked up about something that has not happened (and is unlikely to ever happen)?

Strawman arguments weaken the actual argument.

Well if you want a potential employer to think you've potentially got a confrontational or arsey attitude, feel free to go along with some of these suggestions.

Otherwise say she/her, no further comment required.

Are you George Harrison?

That's fine, but you can't just decide you don't agree with parts of grammar on an ideological basis. Grammar is fact. It's like deciding you're ideologically against gravity or the number 7.

🙄

As @ditalini saud

“Oh come on - of course you understand. The English language operates on the basis that people use mutually understandable shortcuts to get across an idea.
You're perfectly aware that the op understands that I and me are pronouns and that isn't what's being asked for when one is asked to perform the pronoun game.
In case you genuinely have missed it all - the purpose is to pretend that someone's physical appearance can never be used to make assumptions about the gender (because in this game, sex is irrelevant) of the person being asked the question.
It's dressed up as a simple courtesy, but in fact it's one of the statements of faith of the gender movement and indicates compliance with that”

If they are just a basic element of grammar, given that English has been functioning broadly the same way for hundreds of years, why is it only recently that suddenly people need to be asked?

Is it perhaps that there's something new going on beyond that "basic element of grammar"?

Look puzzled: 'I'm sitting right here, you can address me directly.'

Polite fuck off: 'If you're asking how to refer to me in the third person, then I ask, do you have a problem with gossip in the workplace? I expect all conversations about me to be addressed directly to me.'

About to walk out: 'Sex-based, like my oppression' — and leave.
^ Love this one!

Thanks for that, I've been wondering for a while.

It's awkward to pronounce isn't it? Mux Smith. It sound's like McSmith.
I wonder how many teachers are claiming to be non-binary and requesting this?

If someone is referring to me by my pronouns, they're not talking to me directly, so I genuinely couldn't care less how they refer to me.

Out of interest Dad, what are your pronouns? I sometimes need to refer to you when referring to your posts and I'd hate to get them wrong.

I'd give them my pronouns.

Pronouns are a basic element of grammar, so if you aren't a "follower of that ideology," (the English language, and in fact every language?) it may be best to look for a job that doesn't require language. Maybe grunting at people would work.

It isn't though. It's assuming that the OP subscribes to this batshit gender ideology. She's female. OP says it's fairly obvious she is. No need for anything else really.

I’ve encountered this as the opening to an interview. I had to say “Sorry, I’d rather not. I’m not into all that.” It wasn’t a job interview as such and it felt uncomfortable, but I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d gone along with it.

It was fine though. My position was perfectly clear and there was no rancour. The interviewer was probably just working to a script anyway.

That’s all very well in theory, but in practice most people don’t have hundreds of options available for jobs in the right area they are qualified for which match their skill set and pay a reasonable salary and are within a sensible commute, so can’t afford to perfectly match their ideology with their employer’s. Specially given that some fields, which might happen to be the thing you have trained for and love and are brilliant at, are Stonewalled across the board.

That's it! Your pronoun can just be your name, unless you prefer to be referred to as the cat's mother.

beans wants this, beans said that, beans asked me to put it there, beans said it looks better like that.

I'm just going to say my preferred pronoun is my name from now on.

Does that work?

being sensitive to those transitioning or who don't want to be labelled by their sex ir gender

The problem is that as soon as you accept that a man can be a "she", you unavoidably redefine all women in the world from people with female bodies (a simple and unoffensive truth) to people with some sort of mental "womannyness" (a contested belief which many including me find breathtakingly offensively sexist) and falsely rewrite the history of what happened to female people because they were female into a history where these things might also have happened to male peple because they were "womanny".

So what happens if I as a female bodied person don't agree with those redefinitions being imposed on me? If I have no conflict about my sex but simply don't recognise this "womanhood of the mind" these genderists claim I must have Do I have to rename myself a they/them to free up she/her for the men who want to use it? It might be "sensitive" to them and their identity, but how exactly is it sensitive to me and mine? Why, in short, do we assume men's definition of womanhood takes precedence over women's?

I’d casually say ‘female pronouns are fine’ as if I’d never given the matter any thought. Non-committal but non-cultish. I would never say ‘She/her’.

This lines up with my argument that some people use the whole trans malarkey as a way of exerting power over others. By chopping and changing they can make you dance to their tune and complain to HR if you don't.

I'd probably just say 'whichever ones you think are best' and then take it from there. I just couldn't bring myself to engage with the she/her claptrap.

Remember, an interview is a two-way process!

Bollocks.
Asking someone what their preferred pronouns are is checking whether you’re a useful idiot or likely to cause trouble.
All my colleagues use them, on closer inspection most are doing so out of fear or because they haven’t thought about it.
OP I doubt they’ll ask, you have to work out whether you’d be prepared to work somewhere you can’t fly under the radar.