He/Him

[Tibtom]

First time I have had someone reply with this after their name. I know the whole pronouns business so perhaps it is a surprise it has taken until now. But the thing that struck me is it is not a neutral statement; it comes across as a stamp of authority/control. We live in a sexist society where is it acknowledged additional supports need to be in place for women. Yet here we are in a situation where men proclaim their status in their emails. "I am male, I am from the oppressor class, I am your lord and master"

Is this just me?

It's a bit like every time you meet someone at the (very male) industry events, everyone you meet says hello! I'm a man. My name is Dave. And you say hello! I'm a woman. My name is sue.

When you're at something like Oktoberfest in London where there's lots of women in durndels with blonde plaits serving steins to mostly men who are a bit pissed. And you have long blonde hair and are clearly female and so get treated by many of the men as they treat the women in durndels.... Which by the way is not good, the understanding is the men are there to be entertained and the attractive women are there to be looked at etc...

How does pointing out to every man I meet that I'm a woman and him saying yes and I'm a man help?

Yeah it's all a bit odd.

Not least the dynamic of a lot of these corporate events.

@EndoplasmicReticulum

If you're a teacher your pronoun will be "miss". Male equivalent "sir".

Always annoyed me.

I would tell them it’s up to them to decide depending on how they perceive you. (That’s what’s we’ve been doing for many centuries after all). We look at someone and refer to them how we find them. - looks like a man? Refer with male pronouns, looks like a women ? Then refer with female pronouns. Genuinely can’t tell? Whisper desperately to someone who might know - “woman or man ?”, before addressing them. If I was still working in a school I’d honestly find it funny if any of the children then decided to call me Mr or use he/him pronouns in front of other staff, which is quite likely if you say they can decide according to how they see you because being kids being kids would find it rather amusing and devilish to purposely select the opposite for you. It would certainly make other staff wake up and realise how bonkers this all is - they would naturally want to tell the pupils to call you by your real title (Miss/Mrs) but would realise they can’t because you have ‘declared’ your pronouns to be as they always have been - FREE TO CHOOSE ACCORDING TO WHAT WE SEE/THINK/PERCEIVE.

Sorry endoplasmicreticulum I didn’t mean to quote you. I meant to respond to poster who talked about being school staff and what to do if asked to declare pronouns.

@BlackAlys

A colleague at my school has suggested that we all do it.

Not me, thanks very much.

I've also been told of a group of Year 7's who are asking all their teachers what their pronouns are. I teach one of the children so am waiting for the question.

Any ideas how to answer them without flagging myself up as the anti Christ?

I haven’t had anyone ask me yet but I’m planning to go with “whatever you’ve been using so far about me because I haven’t had a problem with it yet”