Pronouns at work/being gender critical at work etc

[Leafstamp]

If you are a woman and have your pronouns in your email signature at work, can I ask why?

If you haven't given it much thought, are you open to being persuaded that, albeit in a small way, this practice of declaring pronouns is contributing to a movement that harms women, children and LGB people?

Equally, if you are already clued up on this and consider yourself a sex realist/gender critical are you able to be open about this at work and challenge instances were gender identity ideology is being unduly promoted? Do you find that others agree with you?

I work in a small company where none of this goes on, so I am curious.

The exception does not disprove the rule. Some humans are born with one leg or no legs, yet humans are still a bipedal species.

Even in cases where gonads are mix-and-match, the child can be medically determined to be one sex or the other.

Take this boy: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s002770050543

From the full article:

"Apart from the incorrectly located gonad in the left groin, the surgical exploration showed normally imposing internal male genitalia. Nevertheless, a prostatic utricle grade III, also called prostatic vagina, was detected. Physiologically, the prostatic utricle is a blind sac and the caudal rest of the müllerian duct. In case of the female differentiation of an embryo, the uterus, the uterine tubes, and parts of the vagina arise from the müllerian duct. In case of the male differentiation of an embryo, the müllerian duct degenerates due to the influence of the development of the testes."

Too much science, didn't read: The Wolffian duct developed into a penis and vas deferens. The Mullerian duct mostly atrophied but a little bit was left over, causing a "dead end" bit of extra pipework where the urethra goes through the prostate. This combination of Wolffian duct development and Mullerian duct atrophy makes the child a boy.

"he/him" = "Hey, don't forget to give me that sweet male privilege."

What are showing “support” for? Misogyny?

Well done 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 🙄

I work in a very male dominated industry. I’m a white woman who has had a lot of privilege. I don’t put pronouns on my signature. I have a very female name. Some women haven’t had my privilege and have names that aren’t obviously female. They’re proud of their achievements and the added difficulty of being female and all that entails. They put their pronouns on because they want people to know they are female and proud. They’re not stupid, the opposite. Just let people do what they want to do on their own signature, it s really none of your business.

My point isn't that we need email pronouns, but that honorifics wouldn't work as a substitute if we did.

Yes!!

This seems to have been completely forgotten nowadays.**

We are asked to state our pronouns. I've resisted but put (Ms) after my name to indicate that I am female. So far, no one's called me out on it.
It irks me.

Years ago I was in charge of an office directory and started adding Mr/Ms to names to indicate sex as we were a large multicultural organization and it's not always easy to tell sex from unfamiliar names. I got some initial pushback from people who didn't like the prefix but stood firm as it's nobody's business whether a woman is married or not any more than whether a man is.
Then a person I used to be friends with went on a little journey from male to female and halfway back, decided they were non-binary, and started getting upset that Mx wasn't in common use.
20 years later it's hard to find any form without a billion genders on it and it's rare to see questions about sex!!

I've considered going for 'he/him' just to see if I can get a hold of some of that sweet male privilege...😆

Still don’t get it. Maybe because I work in all female environment (exempted for men applying due to work that we do), but you've still only reduced your options of who Sam is by 50% average. If everyone had to put their hair or eye colour on their email sig wouldn’t that be equally as helpful? And if you saw Sam and they weren’t as you expected, you’d quickly adapt your tone/response accordingly (although imo you shouldn’t have to if you’re genuinely ‘inclusive’ )

It's not that deep. Someone just asked why i would want to know someone's sex
I sometimes wonder if these people actually have any interest in their colleagues.

I don't have mine and I am not GC, I would be looking to take action if someone started a conversation with me about gc in the workplace.

I also don't treat anybody differently across email (which it would need to be to not know) because they're male or female and I don't think the vast majority of people do.

I do. There’s no compulsion to where I work. Some do, some don’t. It honestly doesn’t feel like a big deal to me. There’s women on the board, our last CEO was a woman, there’s lots of networks for women where I work, lots of flexibility and work patterns so it doesn’t feel like a bad place to be a woman. Representation is taken seriously where I work. So maybe context is everything. It does not keep me awake at night. There’s more to worry about.

I don’t think terms like handmaiden and drones are very useful in this conversation. Honestly, it feels like in-fighting to me when I see things like that.

I haven’t seen any men put their pronouns but I would also consider them to be twats of the highest order .

Nice.

You're spot on, and I find it fascinating GC people and those who hate pronouns are all for not harming women and girls. ...until you do something they don't like whne you are a mra and a hand maiden and what ever else they can think of to bully you into doing things your way.
I don't inflict my views on other people, like you I get on with my work and my life. I genuinely think people who have time to write this much bile - it was likened to racism further up thread- about what people write in emails really need to figure out what good or difference they think they are making, because for the vast majority of us it just makes us tune out.
And incidentally I don't put pronouns in my signature!

Certainly some people will treat you differently in their emails depending on whether they think you're a man or a woman.

www.newsweek.com/male-and-female-coworkers-switched-email-signatures-faced-sexism-566507

I stopped addressing emails and letters as Mr X /Ms X and just started putting " Dear [first name] " or " Dear [First Name Surname]".

It's actually very rare to need to refer to someone's pronouns at work

In my case it was more because I was often writing to professionals I didn't know and many had names where I couldn't guess their sex from the names. One of my colleagues had a name like that and she never minded people getting it wrong but equally I just realised that if you compose emails carefully your never need to try and guess someone's sex

I'm talking about my lived experience, because it's mine. We could spend years finding examples of things to further our cause.

The kind of interest in my colleagues where their type of genitals would matter is proscribed by the "Relationships at work" policy.

I’m really happy to be shown a different point of view and have a discussion. And to live and let live. I did not like the comment that if you do you’re a drone, a handmaiden or something else, sorry, can’t be bothered to look back. Honestly, like @UnicornWorld said, to me it’s not that deep. I could not tell you without looking who does or doesn’t and I don’t look.

A lot of you would hate where I work. When we present in online meetings, like a training session, we’re encouraged to describe in very basic terms how we look. Again, no compulsion. But you know what, my visually-impaired colleagues appreciate it. So I don’t mind. It doesn’t feel like it costs me anything.

are all for not harming women and girls. ...until you do something they don't like whne you are a mra and a hand maiden

How does commenting on a poster's observed behaviour patterns harm them?

Do you think your colleagues should put their race in their email as well? If not, why not, and why does that reason not apply to sex?

What exactly is it that is going to change for you in your professional relationship with them based on what sex ... oh I'm sorry, what inner head-gender, because pronouns don't necessarily align to sex do they, that is the point of all this isn't it ... they are?

wasn’t even being that deep back, just wondering why knowing someone’s sex is useful to know in context of how they’re doing their job, any more than eye or hair colour would. I’m interested in my colleagues, in a professional sense, whether they are men or women, brunette or blonde.

Doesn't bother me at all. I'll use whatever pronouns they put in their signature. They're adults, they're making decisions about their life, I don't personally think it costs me anything to acknowledge that (others may disagree, and that's up to them).

I don't have pronouns in my email signature because I quite like that my name is somewhat neutral and it means no snap judgements are made. I don't agree with companies compelling everyone to include their pronouns - it's an empty DEI box ticking gesture and many trans people don't like the practice either.