Dear Sirs

[Suzanne12]

Is this an acceptable way to start an email that will be received by either a man or a woman? Would you say something if a colleague used this term to send an email to a generic inbox?

Yabu - it's fine
Yanbu - it's not acceptable anymore

How did I guess this would be a law firm

I was once told to use "Dear Sirs" in correspondence because it marked out the sender as a "real firm of solicitors" and not a "fluffy charity group." Apparently the headed paper wasn't enough to do that on its own

"It’s professional to use this term"

What, it's professional to be sexist?!Where the fuck do you work, 1953?

This.

Honestly, I can't get worked up about it, but Dear Sir or Madam is much better.

Words are VERY important. The problem with this, and all other male-default language, is that the language we use literally wires our brains differently. They have found that in countries with gender-neutral language (like the UK - not having masculine and feminine nouns) people are less sexist overall. Default male language causes default male thinking through literal rewiring of your brain, which is why noone thinks they are being sexist when they are - they're doing it subconsciously, not because they hate women, but because they just don't think about or consider them, because their brain thinks 'man' is the default, universal thing and 'woman' is the niche, other.

That was the form of address I was taught to use on my secretarial course in the mid ‘70s. I’m surprised it’s still in use now though. I remember thinking how archaic and sexist it sounded even then.

It's not really something I could be bothered getting worked up about.

Dear @returnofthecat

Thank you very much.

Yours sincerely

St V (Ms)

@Gwynfluff - I've had that at work too. Addressed to "Dear Sirs" when every one of the recipients happened to be female. I presumed at the time it was because I was working on a stereotypically masculine subject (business - not, like, testicle studies). In the delete folder pronto.

It's especially maddening/hilarious when it's people asking you for something. Piss. Off.

I worked in law until about ten years ago and Dear Sirs was still very widely used then. I'm surprised to hear it still is although it never occurred to me to be offended by it. I worked for a number of firms and funnily enough the larger and more corporate the firm, the more likely they were to address a letter to an individual rather than a blanket Dear Sirs and use plain English in the body of the letter. Tiny family conveyancing firms sending deeds to the other side's solicitors always used Dear Sirs and were more archaic.

I now work in financial services and everything is done by email. Up until recently people would have used Ladies and Gentlemen to open an email to a mixed group, or Gentlemen or Ladies if it was to an all male or all female group, but this now seems to be frowned upon for not being inclusive. Nowadays we just tend to use "All" or "Dear All".

Default male language causes default male thinking through literal rewiring of your brain, which is why noone thinks they are being sexist when they are - they're doing it subconsciously, not because they hate women, but because they just don't think about or consider them, because their brain thinks 'man' is the default, universal thing and 'woman' is the niche, other.

I don't accept that there is anything wrong with this.

You don't think there's anything wrong with the patriarchy @SmallCheese?

@SmallCheese you don't think there is anything wrong with ingrained thinking that men are the default and women are the other? Seriously?

How can it be “gender neutral” though Regina? Is “dear ladies” gender neutral as well?

In the same way it is in other languages, the ones that have gender agreement routinely use the masculine plural for a mixed plural, even if it is only 1 man.

Language is a funny thing, in French all teachers are 'le professeur'

To me 'Dear Sirs' would mean you were writing to a company not to an individual.

I used to receive emails addressed to:
"Chaps and Chapesses"
What the fuck is a Chapesse???
I ignored them even though they were from my boss until one day I snapped and replied "Dear Dinosaur"
Luckily he saw the funny side error of his ways and began with "Dear Team" after that.

@Clymene
@nakedavengerreturns

That's right.

Anyway, it's clear that if I engaged in this discussion I was going to annoy people and get annoyed myself, because my views are now fairly atypical, so I'm going to sign out. All the best.

Talk about missing the point… Geddit?

More tosh and this time patronising. le sigh

Yabu its standard use when writing to generic emails
Where is it standard use. I've nevet come across it either when I was working or in private emails.
It's archaic, incorrect and unnecessary.

I’m an accountant. We write dear sirs frequently. Have never heard anyone raise it as an issue and doesn’t bother me at all to receive letters addressed in the same way. But I realise I’m in the minority here.

We use Dear Sirs when writing to other parties in the correspondence at our law firm... which is owned by a woman in her 30s. I honestly think that is appropriate as you are writing to the entity (hence Sirs not Sir) rather than a person.. I don’t think a more appropriate phrase is used yet for that type of correspondence. I can appreciate it sounds old fashioned though. But let’s be honest, if you are writing to a law firm or a Company the majority of the partners or directors are likely to be men still.

Having said that, in my correspondence, which is normally to a government department, I always use Dear Sir or Madam.

Everyone needs to read Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez. She shows how the use of the male default in every sector of society, starting with language, has serious and sometimes life threatening ramifications for females that goes way beyond professional pleasantries.

@Pukkatea that's really interesting. I'd like to put that little nugget in my armoury, so would love to have a link to the studies, if you have one!

That's fine @smallcheese. Just remember that as a woman any freedoms you have: to vote, to work, to have maternity pay and a
Million other rights has been because some of us have fought and believe that women aren't the other to the default male. So yes. Of course you are wrong.

I really couldn't care less if I get a work email addressed to my office email address and it starts "Dear Sirs".

Heck, I even send them like that. It's just a generic plural when addressing a business rather than an individual. Most email I send to are fairly formal and contain official documents though.

Aha, maybe it's in Invisible Women - I've just ordered it.

@deanetta why is a company or firm inherently male in its nomenclature?