Right… pronouns

[Pronounsworkemail]

NC for this. Well, my friend has no issues with people putting pronouns on their emails. But my friend has joined a new work place and was sent a suggested email signature which includes pronoun.

Friend has no issues others doing so on their email, there is inclusivity and all, but are people being forced to put pronouns on their work email signature. What does the law say on this? Friend is stuck and has not set up the signature yet. Where is choice in all this?

I’d say it can’t be compulsory because they can’t make you appear to be compelling anyone else’s speech or thoughts.

women spent decades de-sexing emails in order to avoid misogyny. It is outrageous to suggest women now have to include them.

I’d rather be considered old than an attention seeking twat.

Some companies aren’t respectful and you increasingly find more unisex toilets than women only ones. Yes I do have a problem with this!

I don’t use pronouns as I think the whole thing is nonsense.

They do still adhere to this. My school does it. It makes me laugh when I get an email from “Steve smith he/him.” It is a trend that will die out.

my suggestion is start putting your own beliefs under your name eg. Ann Jones, member of the Jedi religion, Ann I am.

This is not only about being “ pc” though - there are so many neutral / non gendered names - Kim, Nic, Alex, Robin, Jamie etc etc that having pronouns if you deal with outside agencies / unfamiliar depts is really useful. Additionally, if you work with overseas depts sometimes names we consider 100% female will be the opposite ( and vice versa) . I don’t know of anywhere where it’s compulsory, so yes, you can delete it - but why not make life easier for everyone?

I have a unisex name. I've been referred to as 'he' more times than I remember over email. I read it and move on. It doesn't make my life more difficult if someone I've never met or spoken to thinks I'm male. It makes absolutely no difference to me, or them presumably (because I've never bothered to correct anyone).

@lanthanum I'd prefer a policy that everyone does, and then people are not labelled as woke/not-woke.

You see, if everyone did it, I would assume they were all woke.

Well unless you have a very bass voice I presume it would/ could bother them when they speak to you on the phone and may be embarrassed- additionally why would you be happy that someone is assuming you are male ?? ( unless you are actively choosing to identify as such).

I'm a Sam/Alex/Jo. People who've never met me tend to default to 'he'. Other than the inherent sexism, i don't mind. If people call me he to other people, no doubt people who have met me correct them. I'm not there, so I don't know, or mind. When they meet me, they know I'm a woman. This has been the case my whole working life. Never been a problem.

For years my business cards were Title-Initial-Surname in a male dominated sector.

If someone were embarrassed about assuming I was male then perhaps it might give them cause to think exactly why they had assumed "male" from a business card which had no sex markers.

I have no interest in saving the blushes of people who make sexist assumptions about me.

In reality most who had made assumptions had the good grace to acknowledge it with a degree of self deprecation or simply corrected politely and carried on. Those who didn't gave me a useful early warning about dealing with them.

Obviously if they speak to me or see me they know instantly I'm female. I don't see why it would be embarrassing. It's not like they're trying to insinuate I'm masculine 😂
I don't care if someone sends me an email assuming I'm male because why would I? It's no big deal, I comfortable in my femaleness and it makes no difference to how I do my job.

Also, there's nothing wrong with being male you know, it's not an insult.

The same applied to Swedish - so they invented a third, gender neutral pronoun “hen” (the two gendered pronouns are “hon” and “han”).

Gender woo.. I wouldn’t play, no argument just delete.

I'm confused. If Charlotte signs her emails off as, Charlotte (she/her), how do we know if she is a cis woman or a trans woman?

I wouldn’t put mine. No employer can insist upon it. I think they are on dodgy ground if they apply any pressure at all to do this. Mine is a legally protected belief understanding of science, so I will not be partaking in any gender woo if / when invited. Absolutely nothing an employer can legally do about it.

Because, as previous posters have pointed out, women are frequently treated worse.

I have a unisex name and am fairly senior in my company. When I turn up for meetings with externals, they often assume I'm the assistant and ask for drinks etc.

It's actually very helpful in negotiations when I point out I am in fact the decision maker they're there to meet with, and their subsequent embarrassment (all born of their own sexist assumptions), is quite useful in getting better deals for my company. And also tells me something about the people who behave like that which is useful to know for future dealings.

Sometimes you can’t. ‘I had an email from Sam in which Sam set out Sam’s ideas’.

Well said. This thirst for attention is getting worse.

I'm sure your friend can delete the pronouns on her email. If someone emails me with pronouns then I wouldn't reply. I looked into a new hairdresser recently - they all had pronouns so I definitely wouldn't use them! It just tells the world that they believe in the subjective, made up gender rubbish that is regressive and anti-women.

Here's one very good reason a woman might be happy to be mistaken for a man. Work becomes much easier: https://www.elle.com.au/culture/news/male-and-female-email-signature-sexism-experiment-8328/

‘I had an email from Sam with ideas about [topic]’.

I am female ans yes if someone was speaking about mw she/her would be appropriate but I managed to get to make 10/20 years ago without ever needing to pick a pronoun so why should I be made to now, as in online form where it doesnt give a choice

Why do I have the right not to identify aa a pronoun, it shoulf be optional, it is all nonsense but if people want to identify as a word that is up to them but leave me alone

"I've just received Sam's email outlining some ideas for Project Poodles."

Neither this sentence, nor the one suggested by @BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn , actually state that the ideas are Sam’s. It could be Sam repeating someone else’s ideas. You have sacrificed some accuracy in getting rid of the pronoun. You might say it doesn’t matter much and in a casual email it’s obvious and who cares, and maybe using one example doesn’t really work because you can often think of a workaround for that short sentence, but I stand by my point that eventually you’re going to need a pronoun. We can’t just remove them from the language.

I’m not making an ideological point about the situation in the OP by the way, I just think it was factually wrong of a pp to state you can always just use names. Personally I would just use their as much as possible, and I wouldn’t feel the need to demand to know someone’s pronouns, and I also agree that would be a retrograde step for women generally.

"I had an email from Sam setting out some ideas"
"I had an email from Sam setting out her/his ideas"