The look at me of pronouns

[Ritascornershop]

Recently I’ve had two interactions that have startled me. One was with legal aid (I’m in Canada) where the young lawyer rang me and said “Hello this is Thomas from xx, my practice is x and my pronouns are he/him.” Just in case I thought someone with a male voice and whose name was Thomas might like me, when speaking to him, to refer to him in the third person as she/her. I laughed and pointed out that as I was speaking directly to him, his pronouns wouldn’t be relevant.

The other interaction was after I’d written my member of parliament’s office asking for an answer on something I couldn’t get a Ministry to answer me on. 3 months later I finally got a reply suggesting I contact that Ministry 🙄 and signing off “Benjamin Lastname, he/him, Useless Twat, Your MP’s office”.

I replied telling him it was useless information that should not have taken 3 months to cough up, and I didn’t care what his pronouns were and I wasn’t going to proffer mine as doing so for women tended to increase sexism in professional interactions.

Is this as rampant in the UK? It just seems so unprofessional and so “look at me!” I’ve no interest in how they hope people refer to them when they’re not there, I just want answers to my questions that they are qualified to provide.

If someone does this to me I will try to reply only using pronouns to highlight the irrelevance.

"Hello him, please could he please review this drawing? Thanks, Bob"

@EarthSight
To be honest I was so busy trying to respond to questions about terminology and the nature of sex and gender that I’d forgotten we were supposed to be discussing pronouns in email signatures!

I am not trying to persuade anyone here to use pronouns, I just wanted to explain why I do it, and why I think it’s wrong to jump to negative assumptions about those who do it.

And that is a brilliant clip

I also live in Canada. Attended online class last week and everyone was required to say something about themselves, particularly their "preferred pronouns". The prof identifies as not having any. I wanted to ask what that meant but didn't dare.

surely for much of the history of the word ‘woman’ it has been inexorably bound up with generally accepted (though obviously false) beliefs about the differences between men and women - in terms of capabilities, intelligence, personality and social roles. While I 100% agree that we should all fight to continue to break down those associations, I also think it’s naive to believe that the majority of people are using the words woman and man in a purely biological sense, free from that immense history of other meanings.

You could say the same about other stereotypes, but nobody suggests this is something to be endorsed.

Well that’s not quite true - but we generally recognise it as offensive.

I'm glad we agree on that at least @Helen8220

@merrymelody That either means that prof wants to be referred using onky's prof's name......or, they don't have an ideological pronouns and that's their way of saying that this new pronoun system is not right for them.

I’ve not been asked yet... I’m looking forward to it (one of the benefits of age - you’ve wrangled your kids, you have lived through times when women really were treated like crap in professions, and you really don’t give a shiny 💩 anymore)...

That is one definition, which works in many contexts, but I don’t think it captures all of the ways in which people actually use and mean the word ‘woman’.

Yes, it does. It's not just "one definition". A woman is literally an adult human female. A male is not a woman. No one is really using the same concept they have for woman to mean a male. Not genuinely. It's posturing. If they were, they would be able to explain why. But they never can, beyond circular definitions which presuppose that "identity" is all that matters, and completely ignore the inconvenient fact that the concept of woman is biologically based.

That is one definition, which works in many contexts, but I don’t think it captures all of the ways in which people actually use and mean the word ‘woman’.

People use the words 'woman' and 'girl' in lots of ways, including to insult men e.g. "stop being such an old woman", "stop being such a girl". However, that doesn't mean that its primary meaning shouldn't be adult human female.

See also 'bitch' for female dog.

Again, I can't think of any reason why anyone wouldn't be happy with this except sexism.

Some TRAs argue that pronouns do not have to refer to gender if this is not important to you or you can choose unique pronouns that reflect something important to you about your character or values or identity. I think fae/fai pronouns are used by people who identify with Celtic cultures of the British Isles. So by all means a star sign could be used as a pronoun eg Aqea/Aquaer.
I find the level of individualism, self absorption verging on narcissism of these new ideologies quite frightening. I am no philosopher, but these ideas seem to be a retreat from the rational, material underpinnings of the late c20 mainstream thought. I do think that in future historians will see this as one of the early signs of the end of several hundred years of Western civilisation.

I assumed fae/fai were lord of the rings. I’m a Kelpie/yabass myself...

It's obvious that everyone specifiying weird pronouns would be unworkable. These people believe in being given special treatment.

Some TRAs argue that pronouns do not have to refer to gender if this is not important to you or you can choose unique pronouns that reflect something important to you about your character or values or identity. I think fae/fai pronouns are used by people who identify with Celtic cultures of the British Isles. So by all means a star sign could be used as a pronoun eg Aqea/Aquaer.

Which is fine, but probably not helpful to the people it was envisaged the GRC would help, who (whatever I think about stereotypes) have made their pronoun choice obvious by changing their name and ‘living as’ the opposite sex. I can’t think of anything designed to make them more uncomfortable than ostentatiously inviting them to declare pronouns.

It's obvious that everyone specifiying weird pronouns would be unworkable. These people believe in being given special treatment.

Yes, this is key. There have to be dull "cis" people or it doesn't work and isn't nearly as appealing.

I can’t think of anything designed to make them more uncomfortable than ostentatiously inviting them to declare pronouns.
Some would get off on it. Some would be deeply uncomfortable. As always, we focus on the ones who enjoy it and to hell with everyone else.

Changing your pronouns to something that suggests that you like celtic things, or whatever, is surely something that even the most woke of workplaces won't encourage or, hopefully, accept? I might as well require everyone to make the sign of the cross before they mention my name, or whatever.

@Sunndown

Changing your pronouns to something that suggests that you like celtic things, or whatever, is surely something that even the most woke of workplaces won't encourage or, hopefully, accept? I might as well require everyone to make the sign of the cross before they mention my name, or whatever.

No they won't if they're sensible.......because it's cultural appropriation, I kid you not.

@Sunndown

Changing your pronouns to something that suggests that you like celtic things, or whatever, is surely something that even the most woke of workplaces won't encourage or, hopefully, accept? I might as well require everyone to make the sign of the cross before they mention my name, or whatever.

Well, I have thought of a way to make pronouns more special. Instead of uttering words, people should bless themselves, or/and genuflect, as my preferred pronoun.

My pronouns are action I identify as an activist (Act 1: make the sign of the cross/ Act 2: genuflect). Instead of boring old she/sho/shi/shum.

It is no more indulgent that anything going on at the moment.

To reiterate, no words. Mime the actions.

@TheWatersofMarch @merrymouse

Some TRAs argue that pronouns do not have to refer to gender if this is not important to you or you can choose unique pronouns that reflect something important to you about your character or values or identity. I think fae/fai pronouns are used by people who identify with Celtic cultures of the British Isles. So by all means a star sign could be used as a pronoun eg Aqea/Aquaer.

Which is fine, but probably not helpful to the people it was envisaged the GRC would help, who (whatever I think about stereotypes) have made their pronoun choice obvious by changing their name and ‘living as’ the opposite sex. I can’t think of anything designed to make them more uncomfortable than ostentatiously inviting them to declare pronouns.

I do agree that there is a limit to what people can reasonably be expected to remember and incorporate into their everyday speech. I will make every effort to remember to refer to a person as she, he or they, in accordance with their preference, and if another gender neutral pronoun emerges as a common option (like zie/zer) I would do my best to use that for people who want it, but I don’t think it would be workable or sensible for individuals to ask others to remember a long list of bespoke pronouns.

@cailleach1 I'll do you one better - emoticon pronouns lgbta.wikia.org/wiki/Emojiself_Pronouns

Text based but often with a word to symbolise the emoji - a strawberry is one of the examples given.

The more and more I hear about this, the navel gazing just becomes astounding.

but I don’t think it would be workable or sensible for individuals to ask others to remember a long list of bespoke pronouns.

And how does that work, when you're already acknowledging other people's pronouns. You're othering the neopronoun people, aren't you?

Neopronoun? Well that’s a new one. Who is it important for every person to have their own tailor made range of pronouns that describe their personality?