Pronouns in an email display name has made me...

[Chilver]

..irrationally angry. I have just received an email from someone in HR and the email in my inbox shows as 'surname (he/him), first name (department)'. Their accompanying photo (only seen by internal people) is visibly male.

It has made me irrationally angry but I'm not entirely sure why. I feel that the display name saying '(he/him)' is just forcing male oppression onto me; that its telling me to 'be kind'; that's its telling me to 'know my place; and that place is behind men in all circumstances'; I'm just.... angry.

I've tried to think how I would feel if it was 'she/her' was displayed and whether that would change my feelings - it probably would I think but again, not sure why.

Any clever Mumsnetters who can help me understand my own feelings about why I feel so angry about this?

I am in a position where I can, gently, comment on this at the right time to another senior member of HR but I feel I need my feelings in check and my reasonings clear.

Hmmmm. I'm on the fence. My Dh has pronouns in his signature - he knows what I think. But he just sees it as being more supportive. He work for a large company on the Stonewall index and has attended 'ally' training or whatever it is. He just can't get worked up about it the way I do, doesn't see why it would be an issue and thinks it's good way of demonstrating that he - as a middle aged straight white male - considers LGBT issues to be important. He has no skin in the game, like most men. So it's the path of least resistance for him 🤷‍♀️

@LarryUnderwood

I think the most effective approach* is to explain that while the explicit motivation may be to show acceptance of trans identities, implicitly it also signals a belief that men and women have different types of mind, which is something he may not realise or intend.

Unfortunately for those of us who would like to find a compromise but also believe deeply in the mental equality of the sexes, it simply isn't possible to reconcile a belief that men and women don't think differently with a belief in trans identities as the genderists construct it, because belief in trans identities is a belief that men and women are different because of something in their minds rather than in their body.

• assuming you want to get into it with him again of course!

Larry please explain to you your husband that it’s a far from neutral act. He’s asserting and claiming male privilege and by doing so is putting down all the women around him. Perhaps it’s not such a selfless no harm done act after all?

This thread could be of interest: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4389215-anti-pronouns-letter-to-companies

I think if we can work on the people we know we’ll not to bow to this nonsense we are making small incremental changes.

DH stated that he was against pronouns in his email signature and made the case that it could expose people who weren’t ready to come out yet. Someone suggested informal conversations but DH stood his ground and argued that it really could make people uncomfortable if they still considered their gender identity.

DH thinks this whole thing is absolute rubbish. He would probably not have taken the fight if it had any potential for any downside. However, he thoroughly enjoyed claiming to be super woke and pretending to worry about outing gender questioning people .

Ehm….. I may have helped him formulating his position on this

Thanks all for the comments and insight.

I think what really made me react to it was the use in the display name, not just their email signature, which I would have had to open the email to see- having it in the display name so it shows in my Inbox summary feels unnecessarily forceful.

To those that asked, the email came from someone in my parent company; I sit in a sub division where we have had the conversation at senior level about why adding pronouns to signatures is not the quick inclusive win some people think. We therefore took the decision to not mandate or publicly comment even on signatures in emails - if people want to, they can (but no-one in my division has done that I've seen). However, the parent company has issued communications about this so it may be that its mandated. But I still feel that having it in the email display name is a step further 'shouting' it out.

My DD and I have agreed she'll stay away from the kids with the pronoun badges. At best they want to police other people's speech and you're bound to accidentally 'misgender' them at some point and cause yourself a whole load of bother. Much easier to steer clear.

I think that goes for you too OP.

I’d be angry because it is very clearly connected to gender ideology, and I have no belief in that. I’d no sooner state my pronouns on an email or in any other way than I would my religion or lack of. In the years I’ve been orbiting round the sun I’ve never once been mistaken for the opposite sex and if I was it would easily be corrected with ‘actually I’m female’. At best it’s utterly superfluous and a worst an insideous attempt to embed an ideology that I don’t believe in into more and more facets of everyday life.

@AssassinatedBeauty

I was simply pointing out if you do receive an email from a man with (he/him) the reason could be the same as me, his boss told him to do it.

Yes. This is not news to women, especially those posting here. What we are saying is that this kind of knee jerk, unthinking action is not good enough and is damaging to women.

I do actually agree there is a clear argument of the damage. My seminar today had a female student who refers (they /them) and from previous chats with her, she has a female name, she identifies as queer non-binary.

The change at University at least here- seems in part to a very vocal young movement who reject gender or sexual orientation classification, -

The parallel here are white allies to the BLM movement, white people pay lip service and say no to racism, but they not only have no real understanding of the dynamics of white supremacy and privilege, they make no active contribution to dismantling it. -literally no skin in the game.

We’ve been asked to, it’s now included in our template email signature.

So it could just mean that he is compliant / unthinking.

It takes more effort to delete than include, and I had to make a conscious choice to delete it from mine.

We have a very 'woke' team member. He's our Teams EDI representative. He puts his pronouns on his signature along with a hyperlink "why am I putting my pronouns here?" Which takes you to a page explaining how important it is to show solidarity with Trans colleagues by stating your pronouns.

One senior member of staff in our organisation has "I use the pronouns she/her and the title Mrs" in her signature which makes me laugh. Although she is being serious

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

Because you know that being male means privilege so he’s flaunting his privilege. It’s an act of dominance. If it was a woman putting she/her they would be signalling submission so of course you would react differently.

For a man to put pronouns in the workplace they either need to not know about the evidence that constantly reinforces both discrimination and stereotype threat, or they need to know but not care.

Really?

I would think a man or a woman doing this were virtue signalling prats and I'd be very circumspect in my dealings with both of them.

@Bambooshoot

Dick swinging - comes across as him telling you very loudly, even though you didn’t ask, that he is male, man, top of the pile and don’t you forget it. No wonder you feel angry. I don’t think your response is irrational at all.

Really?

I'd be just as annoyed by a woman doing this- both equally unnecessary - both virtue signalling- caution required round both of them.

People are being pressured to put their pronouns by virtue-signalling HR people who either think this is 'inclusive' (showing they haven't given 10 seconds' thought to the issue) or simply toe the genderist line.

Unfortunately, you can't tell if a man is obeying just to stay out of trouble, or is signalling dominance (if male) or submission (if female), or is a genderist believer.

Actually, none of those are good, are they? I'd have more respect for someone if they didn't put pronouns. Then it would be a 1 in 3 chance that they either just hadn't bothered to, or had never heard of the idea, or that they had refused on principle.

Ooops, I should have said "you can't tell if a person ...".

Pressing Post message without bothering to Preview message never saves time. I must remember that!

The thing is, you don't use third person pronouns about yourself, do you? You want to make other people use them, so why not say that?

"I use the title Mrs and I expect other people to use the pronouns she/her/hers when referring to me." That would be honest: pompous and entitled, but honest.

If I say I usethe pronouns she/her/hers, it sounds as if I call everybody I meet she whenever I mention them. All this palaver is going to need copious footnotes in the history books.

Unfortunately, you can't tell if a man is obeying just to stay out of trouble, or is signalling dominance (if male) or submission (if female), or is a genderist believer

How is it "signalling dominance" or "submission"?

That seems to me absolutely absurd conclusions.

How about

'Mind/yer beeswax'

Mine would be I/me/mine or just I/don't/care.

What I don't understand is how they are supposed to help the tiny minority of people who are trans anyway?

How about being truly inclusive and using (we/us)?

As in Gollum (we/us)

I agree, I had an email from another solicitor's firm. The sender had an obviously male name but then had he/him pronouns.

There is no need for pronouns, I can address him by name. I literally will never need to use he/him.

It just came over a bit willy waving and mansplainy. Made me feel as though he was trying to use his maleness.

It's mug virtue signalling which really doesn't cost a man anything&.

And your rage is not irrational - he's mansplaining you.

How is it "signalling dominance" or "submission"?

I corrected the comment to say you can't tell if a person is obeying just to stay out of trouble, or is signalling dominance (if male) or submission (if female), or is a genderist believer.

Commenters have noted that colleagues they haven't met in person treat them differently depending whether they think they're emailing a man or a woman.

That's another very good reason not to use them! All company emails should go initial, surname @ company name, I think. Then let everyone's pronouns be they/them and nobody knows what sex anyone is, so there's no sexism. 🤷🏼‍♀️