To say something about an email addressed "Dear Ladies"?

[SilverBirchWithout]

I've just received an internal email (from someone I have not met) addressed to myself and a colleague. It opens with "Dear Ladies", I personally find the general term "Ladies", unless used in a light-hearted way, quite sexist.

I'm now being really judgy about the person who sent it, I assume they are male, but they have an unusual first name, so it's not clear.

1. Would you be as irritated as I am?
2. Does it make any difference if they are another woman or a man?
3. Would you say anything? If so what?
4. Should I bother to actually respond to their request for info, as it is readily available on the organisation's intranet?

Or am I just hot and grumpy?

I work for enlightened organisation, which amongst other activities, campaigns on improving women's rights in the UK and overseas.

It wouldn't bother me, but then I am not a feminist or easily offended.
Honestly people really do look for offensive elements I everything now. It's getting past a bleeding joke. The world has well and truly cracked its' face

No to all points

Unless someone refers to me as cunt/fuckface (in a professional setting of course) I ignore the salutation. I am interested in the actual body of the email and have no time to bother whether I am a lady, girl, boy, gentleman or my name is spelled correctly.

In fact there are many times I don't even get a hello and the comment/request is actually is in the subject because we are all so busy and I respond readily enough without berating the sender for not giving me my correct title and gravitas according to my position (there is none of that BTW as I have no gravitas)

I want to do my job and GTF out of dodge

Ilive - I'm really interested to know what you mean when you say you 'are not a feminist'?

I don't think it a coincidence that the people at work who use 'ladies' or 'gents' are also condescending to women. I get this every so often and it's always from older male colleagues who struggle with women in authority.
Dear all, every time for me.

Ok, I work in a heavily male dominated discipline within a heavily male dominated industry. I am one of only two women in my team.

I am extremely serious about my work.

I am well known at not only my current workplace but everywhere I have worked for being strongly feminist and for being outspoken with regards to any sexism.

I have no problem with 'ladies'

I regularly start emails 'Gentlemen' (no 'dear' in our organisation)

I regularly text/email my groups of friends with 'ladies'.

I have objected in the past to being referred to a 'girl', 'female', and 'minion' (this was 15 years ago looong before the cute yellow buddies).

Get over it!

1. I'd find it annoying, yes.
2. I don't think it makes a difference whether the sender is a woman or a man.
3. I might say something
4. I'd respond to the email but I'd tell them where to find the info, not do it for them.

"Dear all" is fine. Otherwise perhaps "To all team members" or whatever the group's purpose is, or use people's names.

Oh god, 'dear ladies' is offensive? I send and receive emails with this on. Not offensive and not sexist. Merely descriptive.

Depends. How do you start emails to a group of men? A mixed group?

I think the OP has articulated her concerns and the context admirably.

Why don't you move this to the feminist boards where you will get lots of ladies telling you that this is another example of how women are oppressed and belittled in the workplace. Personally I can't be arsed.

If you can't be arsed, why answer at all?

And I don't think you'll find many ladies on the feminist boards. Plenty of women though.

Unless you are male then no I don't think that's offensive or sexist.

"Oi woman" or "dear females" probably would be, in my book, but then maybe I always thought 'ladies'/lady was a polite term.

I don't think you'll find many ladies on the feminist boards.
Really?
Personally, I see myself as a feminist and a lady. But each to their own.

Nothing wrong with that, if you like it. But a lot don't, and theres nothing wrong with them saying so.
What we have here is a lot of women belittling and trying to silence other women. Which seems pretty fucking pointless when there are real problems facing all of us...women, ladies, girls, and cuntychops alike.

Why don't you move this to the feminist boards

Most AIBUs could be moved to other boards. The OP chose to post it in this section and is receiving a variety of opinions in response, so clearly wasn't just looking to hide from anyone who disagrees.

Hear hear, absolutely hate 'dear ladies' and would be as annoyed as you are. Would always use 'dear all', 'hi all', 'hi x and y' or at a push 'hi both'.

Also dislike people addressing one another as 'mrs', 'missus' etc on Facebook. Anyone else seen this? May be a Scottish thing but seem to see it a lot!

I think in trying to silence the OP some posters are proving her point.

I strongly dislike being addresses as 'Ladies' by a man. Not as bad as Girls, obviously, and I did have words with the last person that did that. The words that we use reinforce how we think about people - it is othering as a pp said.

There's a guy at work who always holds the door for women. Even when it's a heavy door that opens away from him so it would be much more sensible for the other person to hold it for him, and it means that he has to stretch into the doorway and the other person has to sidle past. I find this really patronising, even though he's a generally nice guy, and I will have a childish stand off with him if he tries it.

I hate "Dear Ladies". I have also received one too many mails addressed to "Gents" recently, and am asking HR what is happening with them rolling out diversity and unconscious bias training to the rest of the staff - they did exec levels last year, but it's everyone else who makes how the office culture feels, with subconscious exclusionary words and so on. It shouldn't be beyond anyone to start a mail with words that are totally gender neutral. "Hi all" or "Hi everyone" would do it.

I'd be a hell of a lot more offended to be addressed as 'Hi Guys' TBH

Me too. I am not a guy.

I did think about putting this on the feminist boards, but was interested to understand whether my irritation (certainly not offence) was a widely held view, so went for AIBU.

I genuinely wanted to know how others felt, men (who I don't know well) using terms like girls or ladies (FGS I'm in my late 50s) has always irked me.

It's interesting to hear that for many organisations its OK whilst in others it would be seen as unprofessional. In my pretty worthy organisation we are very PC about language in all we do, so it struck me as a very odd term to use, but as this person is probably fairly new to their post I wondered whether he (or she) came from somewhere where it would not be seen as so odd.

I do suspect that sometimes people use Ladies, in the (IMO) mistaken belief that it is a lighter more informal touch than saying Dear Jane & Susan. In this case the I believe that there was no ill intention, but I will be curious to met the sender sometime, and will no doubt be a bit wary of them at first.

Language can be fascinating and this thread, perhaps, illustrates how the use of just one word out of place can create an unforeseen reaction in the recipient.

Thanks for everyone who took the time to respond, although I was a bit astonished at some of the vitriol.

Indigo addressing a adult woman as 'Missus' is common parlance in Scotland. Not formal speech obviously but for example I wouldn't be surprised if a delivery driver said 'right Missus where do you want this box?' - perfectly polite.

I have several friends who y say'Hello Missus' to me as a greeting too.

It's informal, but not impolite. I wouldn't personally use it much too naice

I would not use it . I would have just said dear x and y. It doesn't offend me however.

I have used "Gentlemen " (no prefix) where it is a mass email from me to a group who are all male. For a large mixed group "All or "dear All"

Hmmmm. I appear to be massively unprofessional.
To 1 unknown gender: "Good Morning/afternoon"
To anyone whose name I know, less than 3 people optional "dear" and their name.
To 3 or more, "gents" to all men, "ladies" to all women, "ladies and gents" to mixed group (or "gents and Sophie" or "ladies and Bob".
No one has ever commented in any way, shape or form. But then, I didn't comment when I received an email addressed "dear sir" and went on throughout the email referring to me as "Mr Lussti"
As a pp mentioned, as long as the email is not addressed to "Oi fuckface" I really struggle to care....

Dependent on context I personally wouldn't mind being addressed like this, but I think YANBU feel differently - people just have different preferences for words and see different connotations and interpretations - there's no "right way" to feel about language. If you don't like "ladies" that's perfectly reasonable.

You could try letting the sender know how you'd prefer to be addressed (best done in private and very politely and kindly to avoid them taking it personally). Or if you don't want to do that you'd have to just suck it up. If you talk with them, there's a good chance they'll be happy to oblige and address you how you've asked to be addressed in the future.