MS are handing out pronoun badges to their staff

[PostingForTheFirstTime]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10173649/M-S-diversity-managers-staff-pronoun-badges-customers-know-address-them.html

I will be emailing the appropriate departments advising them that gender ideology is still a hot political topic; its decision to allow men to use women's changing rooms made me so uncomfortable that I will not shop for clothes in their stores any more, but its decision to push a political stance with which I fundamentally disagree means I won't be using them at all from now on.

So sad, because I love their trousers and their Christmas party foods.

jobs.marksandspencer.com/stonewall-workplace-equality-index

See encouragement is the wrong word to use, encouragement sounds like they are trying to persuade people to have them rather than neutrality having them available.
I totally understand the issues with pronouns etc but i find it encouraging that these ate available and the uptake is not high at my dps store witg 200 odd staff as far as he knows not a single person has one.

@Ohmygodyesthatsit

See encouragement is the wrong word to use, encouragement sounds like they are trying to persuade people to have them rather than neutrality having them available. I totally understand the issues with pronouns etc but i find it encouraging that these ate available and the uptake is not high at my dps store witg 200 odd staff as far as he knows not a single person has one.

Why would you make badges available for an ideology that most people disagree with and is directly harmful to women and children?

@SuperDup3r

I work for M&S

Would you like a badge?

No thanks.

OK

That's how the conversations are going so I really wouldn't get too excited about this. It's not compulsory and most people just have 'Sarah, Manager' (or whatever) on a small grey oblong badge

Can you speak on behalf of all their branches? What if their person asking has bought into this and frames it in “an offer you can’t refuse” way?

@SuperDup3r

If you WANT a badge proclaiming you're woke and must be referred to as 'they/them' then you can have one. Will you be offered one? No

Earlier you told us how the “conversations are going” with someone offering a badge

I know it's "only" a shop, but I still feel a little disheartened that Stonewall still has this influence, in spite of my recent hopes that the wheels were coming off their bus....

@ArtemesiaK the wheels are coming off, as i said above i think it is really encouraging that the shop floor staff are clearly not buying into it.
At dps store over 200 staff as far as he is aware not a single person is wearing a pronoun badge.
And i think the reason i have objected is not because i agree with pronoun badges not because i dont see the issues but because its always M&S and loads of retail places are doing this and i would like to know if they are pushing the badges unlike M&S, but we are stuck shouting about only M&S again.

There are, obviously, quite a number of people who are pushing this ideology for a variety of reasons.

But there are equally, a fair number of people who are sleepwalking into it, despite having the pitfalls pointed out to them.

On this very thread, we have someone, who appears to be pushing the ideology calling people transphobic if they don't specifically adhere to it. Avoiding it, isn't good enough.

We also have people who say that objecting to a companywide policy which supports the ideology, is frothing, rude and silly. And that the person who needs to be supported in this scenario is a male who might well want to let all the customers know that he's, eg, pansexual.

And despite all that, the reason we mustn't object, is it's unlikely to even much happen anyway.

Whereas, to my mind, it's a sort of real life prequel to precisely where we are now, and it shows us exactly how we arrived.

I agree people are sleepwalking in to it unaware of the implications. However, I suspect the reality is people on either side who feel really really strongly the majority in the middle who have no strong feelings. But if pushed they will almost certainly come down on the side of you cant change your sex, if you are male bodied you are male bodied.
And they will just quietly not wear the badges, not buy in to it.
And the tide is turning the shouting from both sides is loud enough that the middle are beginning to hear and as i say I think coming down on one side.

I kept meaning to email them over their website and the way it uses sex and gender interchangeably in the kids clothing section of the site. plus I would never use the changing rooms there as they are unisex, my attitude is its their own damn fault if they have to process extra returns because clothing doesnt fit.

but now I think I just wont bother shopping with them anymore I only use them for kids clothing and food anyway, not been waitrose in years so I will use them instead and theres plenty of places to buy clothing from.

What is the fucking point? I mean really!!

Pronouns are used in the absence of the individual. So why, why do we need them to be attached to the individual?

If I'm talking to a retail assistant with a name badge, if required then, I will use THEIR ACTUAL NAME.

Woke nonsense. Disappointed in M&S!

@VelvetChairGirl this is my point google waitrose just as bad as m&s by constantly focusing just on m&s people feel they have done their bit by boycotting.

good observation Datun.

How about we change perception of women, rather than be triggered by someone showing their pronouns into absolutely inappropriate behaviour?

Oh you silly women, why on earth don’t you just stop being discriminated against? All this fuss over nothing!

Asda and sainsbury's both offer preferred pronoun badges to staff and argos going by an earlier post. This is from a really quick google.

As a customer, I don’t want to see any staff with pronouns on their badges, any more than I want to see info on their badges about which political party they vote for, whether they voted Brexit or Remain, where they stand on Israel/Palestine, etc etc.

This is not a neutral act of “inclusion”. This is a highly partisan political statement on a hotly contested topic that has no place in a setting where people’s political views should be their own private business and absolutely NOTHING to do with the customers they are serving. Or indeed their colleagues (unless obviously as part of a friendship with a colleague that extends beyond the world place).

This act of staff being able to nail their political colours to the mast in a public capacity has the effect of excluding people who (with good reason) feel threatened and silenced by this ideology. It is the opposite of inclusion, just like allowing male people into the women’s changing rooms is exclusionary to many of the women they were originally purposed for.

It's a distinction without a difference, in my opinion. Can I get a badge that says I'm anti-abortion? Or pro Brexit?

Missed this before, Datun - great minds - and succinctly put!

@TalkingtoLangClegintheDark, absolutely.

@TalkingtoLangClegintheDark

It's a distinction without a difference, in my opinion. Can I get a badge that says I'm anti-abortion? Or pro Brexit?

Missed this before, Datun - great minds - and succinctly put!

It's so blind.

Of course I can't get those badges, because people would say but that's a political statement that lots of people disagree with.

Well dur.

As a customer, I don’t want to see any staff with pronouns on their badges,

Me neither. I would feel utterly uncomfortable, particularly in a place where there are changing rooms.

Which might be why Ohmygodyesthatsit post that Aldi, Sainsbury's and Argos are also doing doesn't have quite the same visceral reaction. Even though, obviously, I completely disagree with it.

Women and girls take their clothes off in Marks & Spencer's, they don't do that in Argos (although I'm guessing they do in Sainsbury's?)

We have Marks & Spencer underwear reviews from men saying how they get their genitals in there, and others saying how they ejaculate on them and put them back on the rails. Or ejaculate on the floor and delight in knowing that we are stepping in it.

It's an extra, massive layer of violation.

How about we change perception of women, rather than be triggered by someone showing their pronouns into absolutely inappropriate behaviour?

Great idea. We could stop promoting sexist perceptions of how a man and woman should behave i.e. gender expectations.

The point of declaring pronouns is literally to ask people to treat you (and by implication everyone else) as a gender.

By the way, I don’t think anyone has suggested anything more inappropriate than politely emailing M&S.

The men spunking everywhere is grim but tbf they have always done that for years.
And its asda not aldi i think they have changing rooms.
My point is give people the opportunity to feel they are doing something like boycotting M&S and they are doing their bit. While asda sainsbury's etc blithely go about doing the same its not actually helping or changing anything it needs to be all retailers that do this not just m&s that are boycotted written to etc.

Gender is constricting perceptions of male and female.

Welcome to the Gender Critical club Catherine!

The men spunking everywhere is grim but tbf they have always done that for years.

What are you talking about? It’s only in recent years that shops have started opening up their women’s changing rooms to men. Before that they would not have been waved through as they are now.

They spunked in the male changing rooms as many of the assistants were female in the male area.
Trust me I worked in retail for years men are grim.