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.

Btw I also hate “folks” etc so I go with “Hi all” “Hello” or “Good morning” etc

This made me laugh!

Or go with "Folx" which appears designed to be even more(!) gender neutral than "Folks" 😅

No. Highlighting it is directly relevant to the 'real complaints women still have in the workplace'.

Croneyism between men is very much alive and kicking in many so-called 'modern' workplaces. If you don't call out the small things, you will never fix the big issues.

Of course you're not being over-sensitive!

I once sat in a training course where the trainer repeatedly referred to "Guys" and "Gents". Everyone else there was male and the trainer was a friend of our new director.
That director then had a reorganisation and renamed every woman's job title in authoritiy to "Supervisor" and every man's to "Manager". It was blatant. Subsequent responsibilities and associated pay rises were affected.

If more people were prepared to call this out more often, we'd have less sexism, and less discrimination and less of a pay gap because of it.

Think there is logic in this, between the other female colleagues pay issue not being acknowledged for 5 days, this and other things I have witnessed I have started to keep a log - incase required.

From responses - I think the 'Gents' addressee point in isolation may not be perceived as much of a big deal, but this coupled with the fact that Mr Gents knows that I have steered / led this task in the two previous instances and not bothered to include me in the email in the outset leads me to think -

1. maybe just forgot in the outset and decided to include me afterwards (which leads me to think he doesn't have great EQ / sensitivity or awareness)
2. thinks this type of behavior is more acceptable in the new regime
3. is a bit chauvinist

If I bring it up he will plead 1 but I wonder if 2/3 are underlying factors also... in any event I doubt I will get a straight answer.

This, in spades.

If I got an email that started 'Dear Ladies', I'd think the sender had completely lost their head.

That should go down as well as sending a Happy Holiday card to avoide offending anybody🤪

I think it depends on your role in relation to the email.

My department (school) is all women and in most our emails we will say ‘ladies’.
Even if it’s been CC’d with another male who is slightly out of our department but still involved as the email is to use but just letting him know.

In the rare occasions that we have a male colleague, we’ll often put ladies and Ben.

No one has ever had an issue with it or felt we were being sexist but obviously there are other issues going on in your work which is why this is a bigger deal to you.

Forget about the email and focus on the other things that may need addressing.

in my first leadership role 15 years ago, I sent an email to my team addressed "Guys". I was very quickly pulled up on this by a couple of women who pointed out that 1- they are not make, 2 - "Guys" is not inclusive, and makes them feel overlooked 3- that's just casual, lazy sexism.

Oh no really!
I always say guys as a gender neutral saying.

I can’t even saying ladies and gentlemen or boys and girls anymore as someone will pipe up that they’re non-binary.

Doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Hi guys is a pretty usual start to emails at our place. Some women have an issue with it but I generally think of them as being over sensitive and trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Agree

I can’t even saying ladies and gentlemen or boys and girls anymore as someone will pipe up that they’re non-binary.

Surely you never said 'boys & girls', ever, in a workplace, unless you work in a primary school?

I think it's different if it's in a company where the other gender tends to be junior and inferior. In our society, Ben isn't likely to feel marginalised in the same way. If the OP works in a male dominated industry it can be challenging to always feel live an outcast who is not good enough because of gender. Context matters

Is he expecting you to do the work now he’s pretended to lead on it?

I’d primarily focus on trying to take over your work and delegate it back to you. Id reply with Hi cockwomble, I see you’ve kicked off my annual x project. Thanks for cc’ing me in and letting me know.

also add in the dear gents thing.

Do you want to do this project? Will it materially affect your position? I’d be quite willing to shred his work to pieces to senior management when they come to you to get it checked before release (unless they don’t).

It is such a sexist term, it’s so easy to start an email “Dear All”. It’s deliberately exclusionary and making a not very subtle point that the men are the important ones and the women are irrelevant to the matter at hand, what a twat.

I used to have a colleague that was a great one for using “Gents” as his intro. Apparently we were over sensitive and it doesn’t mean anything, so my only other female colleague started opening her email with “Lady and Gents”. Made the point admirably and he stopped very quickly.

So he sent an email to all men, addressing them as Gents. And then further down the line you got copied in..... But you're annoyed that his previous emails to only men referred to them as only men?

Overly sensitive.

Unless once you were cc'd in he continued to send further emails to 'Dear Gents'.

It was a double exclusion. First by not including OP in the email (even though she has led this project in previous years) and then reinforcing the exclusion in the language.
OP when you address this with him you can publicly treat it as an error or accident but never lose sight of the fact that he is undermining you. Don't let him.

He included you as an afterthought several days later because he thinks that, since you're only a woman, you are only responsible for the menial part of the task rather than the important bit he was discussing with the 'Gents'.

Ruddy cheek.

No wonder you are pissed off. I would be too.

I’ve worked in the City for over 20 years and I can’t think of a single person who would address an email to Gents. I tend to use “Dear All” or just “Good Morning/Afternoon” on group emails. I know some managers that might use “Hi Team”.
Everyone avoids exclusionary language because it is well…exclusionary.

Like other posters my immediate reaction was sounds like a boy’s club is gradually coalescing and the OP is outside it. A lot of management training deals now with these informal cliques that can easily start to shut people out. eg beers after work may exclude people of either sex who don’t drink for religious reasons. “Gents” excludes women (and anyone else who doesn’t apply that term to themselves).

OP, keep a record, and make sure that you get credit for any contributions you make. Put ever bit of input in writing and make sure you are the one reporting your contribution not Mr Gents.

Re' the first point yes he is expecting me to do the work now in compiling the submission which takes me back to the point I shouldn't have been excluded from the email chain in the first instance - I honestly don't know what he was trying to achieve by not including me in the first instance as the later 'cc' and me seeing the gents thing is pretty stupid as others have pointed out.

The issue re' senior management /escalation is our boss, his boss and the boss above him all started 20 years ago on the same grad scheme and were drinking buddies😫

@ChazsBrilliantAttitude its good that there is training around this now - I'm generally not shy about reminding people re' importance of inclusivity and diversity of thought though I was previously backed by a boss that would support me in doing so..

Does the trade award have things like inclusivity as a criteria or an expectation? If so, you can frame your comments along the lines that “we need to be able to demonstrate x behaviours”
Then get HR to run some sessions to hammer the message home that they need to be seen to be doing the right thing etc. In other words, they are doing it to protect the company ever if they don’t care about it really.

Its a good idea but unfortunately there isn't (and funnily enough I have pulled the trade board itself up previously for not being diverse) I work in an incredibly male dominated industry, of the c20 people nationally in my division at my grade I am the only woman... it is a tough gig at times 😫

But originally it was all gents... and you can't edit old emails. You're being strange.

Not quite the point, but of course you can!

If he'd wished to, before cc'ing in OP, he could have edited the 'gents' part. But that's not the core issue really.