Pronouns in email signature

[thirdfiddle]

I'm sure this has been discussed before but couldn't find a thread. People are talking about getting everyone at work to put their pronouns in their email signature. I really don't like the idea. Why do they want us to do this, and can anyone suggest a good neutral way to answer if asked why I don't?

Hopefully won't come up as immediate colleagues are very cynical and liable to silently roll eyes at any such initiative that gets off the ground rather than enforce it.

I see it on Twitter a lot too - pronouns in the bio. It’s such a surprise when I see a profile picture of a man followed by he/him, and a woman followed by she/her.Thank youfor pointing out the bleeding obvious, but have a cookie for showing everyone what a fabulous ally you are

The best one I saw lately was a female presenting woman clearly in a relationship with a male presenting man with a Twitter bio like 'queer pansexual femme my pronouns: she/her'

So woman marries man and uses female pronouns. Right on.

I think of myself as 'I' or 'me' and my pronouns are mine!

That's my thinking origami. It's surely bloody obvious that if my email says that my name is Jane Green that I'm a 'she'. Do people really need me to put 'she/her/hers' in my signature? Load of nonsense.

But surely only someone whose pronouns don't align with their sex would need to do this?

You would think that, wouldn't you? But no. Everyone that I have seen do this at work is obviously female, and stating that their pronouns are she / her. As has been said above, it's performative wokeness.

People like that Lola just can't come to terms that they're living the most conventional life possible!

Same with Miley Cyrus. She an attractive straight white woman who married a handsome straight white man but apparently a big part of her identity is being queer.

I would say “what for?” And then again “what for?” When they blunder over “so everyone knows what your pronouns are”, “what for?” “Why does anyone need to know that?”

Think I might try 'your Majesty' (which at least has the merit of being gender neutral).

I have to contact colleagues all over the world and half the time, I have no idea if they're male or female. It's not usually relevant - what is relevant is their ability to go and check something in a datacentre thousands of miles away from me.

The last mail I sent where I had been saying, "he said that..." I changed to names, because on rereading before I sent it, I realised there were too many people to whom "he" could have applied, and it wasn't clear enough.

I imagine if they tried this at work, half the first language English speakers would first need to have the term "pronoun" explained, let alone why they are expected to tell people about them. I would probably make some point about women in STEM already experiencing quite enough sex-based challenges without having to insist on people saying "she, her, hers." Though I do point out stuff like I am not "sir" and "Dear Gents" on an email is unconscious exclusion..

As has been said above, it's performative wokeness.

If it's coming from that insidious place then, if the policy came into force I would put:

Pronouns: aligned with my sex

The cynic in me wonders whether, for those that perform this wokeness, it's a means of creating new projects for themselves and ensuring that the endless make-work that consumes so much time and resource in universities continues.

Many happy hours to be spent auditing take up, numbers, making a rainbow coloured pie chart, creating a power chart presentation...

can anyone suggest a good neutral way to answer if asked why I don't?

I don't like to be prescriptive, it's very controlling.

People like that Lola just can't come to terms that they're living the most conventional life possible!

I saw a very apt term for people like this, which someone on Twitter was using: “the under-deprived”.

I’d ask whether everyone should add other personal information to their signature, like whether there is a history of insanity in their family, or if they have ever suffered from erectile dysfunction.

Always

Or turn it into one of those NM ticker tapes that everyone takes the piss out of on here.

I had a little chuckle when I saw this on someone's Twitter bio.

Pronouns: get/tae/fxxk

Most of this pronoun bullshit is half arsed anyway.

If you really want to stand out from the crowd insist that speakers comply with the idiosyncratic grammar appropriate to your pronouns.

‘Xe has gone to the photocopier’ is just a simple substitution of ‘Xe’ for ‘he’ or ‘she’ but why not insist on tortuous grammar so that the subject comes at the middle of a sentence as it would in some languages, eg ‘The photocopier, Xe has gone to’? Make sure they do it in a Yoda voice.

Or insist that when somebody addresses you in public they distinguish between an inclusive ‘you’ (eg it includes the other people in the room) or an exclusive ‘you’ that refers to you alone. (We do this in Liverpool where we often use ‘yous’ for inclusivity.)

I've received emails from people whose done this. It's a very high expectation to assume i will recall everyone's individual preferences.

A few folk in my work do this. I'm tempted to put

Pronouns - as expected.

Though I like "sex based, like my oppression"

GCAcademic the bloody rainbow lanyards! Worn by all the 'allies' people desperate to get promoted.

I think I might be a ‘thou’.

My pronouns are "I/me"

My favourite one from a twitter feminist was:
Pronouns- Your/Mum.

JackyHoleoak has it.

GCAcademic the bloody rainbow lanyards! Worn by all the 'allies' people desperate to get promoted.

Yep. I have a significant % of gay colleagues in my department, and they are spectacularly disinterested in Pride, rainbow flags, etc. They just want to come to work without their sexuality being made an issue of, and I’m pretty sure they would be pissed off if I was to use their sexuality to score woke points by wearing a fucking lanyard.

It's a very high expectation to assume i will recall everyone's individual preferences.

Yes, how the hell am I supposed to remember the preferred pronouns of 150 students? It’s ludicrous, and putting me in a position where I’m bound to cause offence. But I guess that’s the whole point. With claimed offence comes power . . .