Email sent by colleagues addressed to 'Gents'

[funkymonkey55]

AIBU to be annoyed by a male colleague starting an email chain to other male colleagues where he addresses them as "Gents" and then he loops me in a few days later - when the actions around the original email topic (gathering information together) need to be picked up (by me of course!)?

It annoys me because I feel 1) I should have been cc'd in the first instance, 2) Isn't starting an email chain where you know females will have to be cc'd in / included with the phrase Gents a little rude?

I don't know if I am being a bit overly sensitive.

The use of the word "gents" isn't here nor there. This is how the teachers at an all male grammar school would address the older classes. I think it's charming.

What is not so charming is the fact that you were not invited to input on the issue but as you are expected to execute the work, you are a stakeholder. I would email the person who wrote the original email and ask why you weren't included in the original email.

I don't think OP is annoyed that she was 'called a Gent'.

I think she's annoyed that the sender of the email has used that term and created a sort of croneyism between the 'Gents' in the workplace.

It's divisive and unnecessary - just use 'Hi everyone' or 'Hi all'. There's no need to state people's gender and create an offshoot of 'The Gents'.

So he emails a number of colleagues, all of whom are male. He starts the email addressing them as "gents". Later on you get copied in to this email. At that point he does not readdress everyone as gents, but you are upset that he initially emailed a group of men and decided to call them "gents"?

I'm sure there are many things for you to reasonably feel aggrieved about as a woman in the workplace but this is not one of them.

couldnt pay me enough to care
do they otherwise act inclusive of the women?

Difficult to say without knowing what the email was about.

It's very sexist and completely unacceptable in the 21st century

But all the recipients of the initial email were men.

It sounds like something from the 1950s, when the "Ladies" were at home dusting and baking cakes.
Not really what you want in the 2020s.

What about when "The Gents" start to feel like a little group, and decide to start going on little socials together which exclude women, and then it just so happens that they start talking shop? And, oh look, now they've started talking promotions? Because they can talk about the "Gents" things when the women aren't around.

Language might seem like nothing, but it is powerful, and this is divisive.

"Hi everyone" is not difficult. There's really no need to state whether the people you are addressing are male or female.

Because op was deliberately left off...

Yes, but the point is, why did the sender of the email feel the need to acknowledge this?

I work in a group of only women but regularly correspondence is sent to us as "Dear Sirs..." - all the time.

I'm guessing the people who haven't seen emails addressed gents or ladies in the last 20 odd years work in the public sector, where its a little more enlightened. The old engineering company I worked for would circulate everything addressed "gentlemen", and then cc one of the "girls" for the facilitation (staff were either gentlemen or girls! 🤮).
Addressing an email to male colleagues as "gents" seems harmless, but it perpetuates the old old boy's club mentality and makes it a little more hostile for women. I'm 50 now, but in my early working life, business jollies would end up in strip clubs, women in management were seen as over promoted secretaries. Secretaries and admin were employed by their looks, with the most attractive on reception. Addressing an email to the gentlemen seems to harp back to the 90s somehow.

Your new manager has now turned your workplace into "boys club".

I'd watch your back with this colleague who has not only left you out of communication that concerned you and needed action by you, but has acted like a snake.

my lot do a lot of "guys" so i go ... since you're unable to remember its guys and gals i suggest we go with the gender neutral and merge them ... we are henceforth "Gays"... that stopped em.

Dear God.

Your response is worse again. Utterly cringeworthy.

That is a different matter entirely (diversity in the workplace).

Addressing a group consisting entirely of men as "gents" is perfectly reasonable. Complaining about it devalues the real complaints women still have in the workplace.

Gents, ladies, guys... none of these words are appropriate in the modern workplace. Same for 'manning' as in running, e.g. 'are you manning the exhibition stand'. It's gendered language and as small as it seems, it makes it more difficult for people other than men to be seen as equals to men.

Times change, we evolve language as we learn more and we should be open to doing so. Workplaces should feel inclusive, and we know gender is a really important characteristic to protect because of the stark pay gap.

Responses that suggest otherwise in this thread are from people that don't work in a corporate environment, people that worked a long time ago or people that work in a very outdated company with outdated leadership. Or you're just outdated yourself.

Everyday sexism, absolutely not ok, it's 2023 fgs.

Sorry you are having to deal with this nonsense OP.

I work in a technical field which is male dominated. Even the "good" bosses and colleagues I've had, have publically and privately made sexist comments and assumptions which have absolutely no place in the workplace. It is ridiculous.

Solidarity.

Please tell me how an email that was sent in the past, that got sent to a group that was all males, and was addressed with the word "Gents" is an annoyance.

At the time that the email was sent, it was addressed in an acceptable manner to the (then) intended recipients. You have been CC'd into it afterwards... it was not originally addressed to you.

You can't complain about something that happened in the past, that you weren't originally involved or included in, and so wasn't addressed to incorporate you at the time🙄

it was addressed in an acceptable manner to the (then) intended recipients.

Using 'gents' in a professional work place is not acceptable.

The underlying point OP is making is it was exclusionary to start with, which the choice of term 'gents' confirms.

Using 'colleagues' or [names] ensures appropriate inclusivity, in a standard way. Regardless of who you are addressing, and what their sex, or position, they are addressed the same way.

Spot on. It's not acceptable.

And I've had a conversation with a male colleague before about the use of the term.

I play it as safe as I can when I am emailing a group and use "Dear All". It is wholly inclusive, whatever the recipients gender.

I completely disagree and think this is a bit bonkers. I also don't think 'old fashioned' automatically means wrong or problematic.

Referring to a group of men as 'Gents' or 'Gentleman', or similar is just a nice, polite plural noun where I'm from, like "Ladies" not a "Tally ho, rah rah, let's form a London club on the Mall and keep out the wimmin!"

I'm probably biased by the fact I can't bear infantilising, cutesy inclusives like "Folks", but I accept that that is my personal preference and don't feel the need to "pull people up" on it because it doesn't conform to my idea of the ideal.

What I thought you were going to say is that if by the time of sending the email the sender realised he'd only included men (so could say 'Gents'), that should have tipped him off that he hadn't copied the OP and probably needed to. Which I'd probably agree with and have much more sympathy for as a position!

But then we're back to simply the issue being that OP should have been included from the start. Which only warrants a "Hi colleague, I'd appreciate being copied on these emails from the beginning, please, as its easier for me to keep track of what's needed. Thanks, OP", in the first instance.

This is reminding me of the time some colleagues and I were working on a project related to breast cancer. My boss, wanting us all to come with her to a meeting, stood up and went “Come on them Team Breast!”. We just so happened to all be women (and quite booby for the most part). None of us really noticed and we were quite surprised when colleagues near us who didn’t know about the project were shocked to their very cores.

(this doesn’t help the OP unless the project she was excluded from was Male Toilet of the Year though)

Depending on how many 'gents' were in the original email, it's not that strange to collectively identify them as such.

In my department in a school, we have a a small leadership team of four different roles, all occupied by women and it's normal for us all to address the different combinations of two or all three others involved in different topics as ladies, but we wouldn't do this in the mixed wider team.