Casual sexism - being an MD

[rightsofwomen]

The email I have just sent to an accountancy firm.

To whom it may concern,

I have recently set up my own Limited company. As a result I have been
inundated with letters from banks and accountancy firms, like yours.
While I appreciate this is a good way for you to find new clients, I
am afraid you lost any interest from me after the second word of your
letter, which is "Sir" ie Dear Sir....

I am astonished that you default to assuming an MD is male.

It is quite clear from my name ([obvious female name) that I am female.

Please correct this.

Best wishes,

[obvious female name]

I think that's a ridiculous email to send.

But I'm sure there will be many who applaud you

I'm a feller. I think your letter is entirely reasonable.

I'm a lawyer by trade, and it occurs to me that the default form of address for formal correspondence in litigation and the like is 'dear sirs[plural]...yours faitfhfully'. Ridiculously, it's never struck me before how gendered this is. But what are the alternatives? 'Sirs/mesdames' is obviously ridiculous.

Why Valderal?

If you arent sure of a persons sex, the correct form of address is 'Dear Sir or Madam''. Its not correct to speak to someone who is obviously a woman as 'Sir'.
So yanbu.

Yep

I dont think your email is unreasonable either

Basic homework for the firm concerned

Email is entirely reasonable, women not wanting to look 'ridiculous' is part of the problem and why these things persist I think.

That's just dumb. Fair enough if they don't want to assume or unsure, but that's why Dear Sir/Madam is perfectly acceptable. Why is the default male?

I remember once as a sales assistant I was given the talk of helping sort through CVs with the assistant manager (a gay man if it matters - not sure if it does.)

One was addressed to “Dear Sirs”

The manager was a woman.

The CV went in the bin.

I loathe it. It’s lazy. Sir or madam if you aren’t sure.

Well perhaps put it alphabetically.

Dear Madam/Sir

Yours faithfully

But if they know you are female, with an obvious female name, then Dear [name]

Yours sincerely

Yanbu.

Dear Managing Director
Dear Company Secretary

Used to work for a solicitors and it was always Dear sirs. Unless a name was known (and even then, I think it was still Dear sirs). All correspondence we received was Dear sirs also. Seems to be just a legal thing.

During the recession we were one of the few people in our area doing some building work. Our planning permission was in the names of Mary and John Bred.

We got 35 unsolicited requests from builders to quote for the work. Every single one of them was addressed to ‘John Bred’

As I was the person looking after the build (DH had very little interest), I shredded them all.

Now that I think about it more, it was when we writing to a company that it was Dear sirs. If writing to a client, it was Dear Whateveryournameis.

It's probably an outdated thing that has hung around in legal circles for some reasons.

Plain lazy not to write dear Ms XYZ.
But yes I think dear sirs should be outdated.

Oh and I have worked as a secretary in several industries and the legal industry was the only one who used Dear sirs. Everywhere else used Dear sir/madam when a name was unknown.
Rule was Dear sir/madam if name unknown, followed by Yours faithfully.
If name was known it was Dear Title Name followed by Yours sincerely.

I suspect that these letters are automated so they don’t have a system to detect if the name that follows is femal or male (even if obvious).

Someone has just assumed that the person atbtope would be a man in most cases...

A letter like this might make them think a bit though. Esp if they receive a few of them....

RagingFeminist. It is, rightly or wrongly, a standard address in the legal profession in particular. I have never worked for an accountancy firm so can't comment on them.

Well done OP. I think it's a good thing to challenge this archaic shit.

Legal industry have some strange notions. For e.g., no punctuation after the Dear sirs or the Yours faithfully
I once got a telling off from a barrister for using 'didn't' instead of 'did not'. According to the toff, the legal industry does not use abbreviations in formal correspondence.

I never had any formal legal secretarial experience, but that was certainly my experience (4 years I worked there).

formal legal secretarial training*, that should read.

Thought about this recently, will dear sir/madam now be offensive as it isn't inclusive of the gender fluid ?

I have to send an annual letter to our auditors which is pre-drafted for us. The firm is made up of male and female employees but the letter is always addressed to "Dear Sirs" so every year I change it to Dear Sirs and Mesdames". It might be a mildly ridiculous form of address but it's the only one I could find which fits multiple addressees of both sexes.

Well the gender fluids can delete as applicable and if they use erasable ink can even ring their changes from day to day.

Missymoo - I think most people don't care.