These email pronouns at work

[TheOGCCL]

Reading round the trans topic one thing I think we can say is it’s incredibly contested.

Do people who use email pronouns at work realise this? Have they done their research and then consciously decided to come down on one side and want to publicly announce this? And why this particular topic, you wouldn’t put Black Lives Matter in your email signature.

Personally I don’t think work is a place for getting involved in this debate at all, I have no interest in what gender any of my colleagues are/were/want to be and it has no bearing on how I’d treat them, so why do so many think this is a good idea?

I find it more misogynistic to have to declare whether I am married or not. Also, a lot of people sign off with full name and so wouldn't naturally include the Mr, Mrs, Ms. Also, in my work a lot of people's title is Dr so that doesn't actually help with knowing their gender. Also, those titles don't cover they / them pronouns. I guess the equivalent would be Mx, but it's kind of weird and not everyone knows what it means.

I personally don't have pronouns because I simply don't care, I'm a woman and have a standard woman's name. But I don't think that it's inappropriate to choose to share them. It 's not a religion. It might be an ideology on a very loose interpretation of "ideology" but so what? Are you offended by people who sign off God Bless or say inshallah?

I do a lot of work with a domestic violence charity and I'm pretty sure amongst the many logos in their email signatures is a Black Lives Matters one! Some sectors have become incredibly political.
That being said, there is a stark contrast between the staff specifically supporting ethnic minority victims and those who work across the board choosing to put pronouns in their signatures or not. I'll let you guess which way round it goes.

Gender isn't actually real.

To me, my gender has nothing to do with my work and I like people to use my name, and know that I'm human.I can't see how any of that is unkind.

And to me, I don't have a gender, so it's completely irrelevant.

I know it isn't but I was trying to explain to the quoted poster that the pronouns were nothing to do with sex so there was no need to use them to show others she was a female. Her explanation for using them was based on false reasoning.

I’ve just stated a new job, quite a few people have pronouns in their signature, I’d say 90%+ of them are female, I imagine being kind. No one has asked me to add mine, or told me how, but I would decline if asked. Interestingly I haven’t seen anyone with pronouns from our other European offices.

My previous firm had started to add them, but you were only allowed to choose from he/she/they (or a combo eg he/they). Wonder what they’ll do when the neo pronoun crew come knocking?

Ah, but it does make a difference. Men have an authority advantage. People will always listen more to their points, take the, more seriously, allow them to interrupt. Etc etc
plenty of evidence and studies show this
in turn that leads to pay gap along with all the other unconscious bias stuff women at work deal with- how are performance management reviews are more likely to contain personal critism in guise of feedback than mens (too agressive, calm down, show less frustration etc etc ). Agian numerous blind studies have shown this

interestingly I’ve been dealing with a number of government bodies and private companies on a legal issue relating to my property. It’s all in writing. I always sign my name by just initials and surname. I’m taken quite seriously - but am always addressed as Mr buildersteamaker . I don’t correct them .

im not going to make life more difficult by announcing to the world I’m a women if I don’t need to. So the pronoun stuff matters- it really does. Becuase it just reinforces gender stereotyping.

im old enough to remember when the general consensus was the whole gender notion was a bad thing - gender was simply a stereotype perception of females and males and we need to dump those stereotypes. Trans activist just don’t seem to get this very point - ..no one is benefitting by gender stereotyping. Their own lives would be easier without it -as a famous women said, wear what you want, live your best lives…but stop pigeonholing people into stereotypes.

Even if people do put pronouns on their emails, if you've never met them you don't know that their prononuns match their chosen gender, so it's pointless anyway.
It's a useful marker to know who's minds are so open that their brains have fallen out though.

I always wonder why just pronouns.

There's a lady in my office whose voice is astonishingly high pitched.

Maybe she should put "highly strung" in her signature to avoid astonishment?

Actually I should let everyone know the things I find surprising about them the first time I meet them, so they can add all of those things to help people understand them better.

"Sound blacker than I look, don't eat pork"
"Posh voice but didn't go to private school"
"Catholic, 13 kids"
"Homosexual, just adopted a teenager"
"Work from home, elderly parent care"

It'll be rather helpful to get all the alarm bells, sorry, I mean prejudices, no, not those, err helpful hints, going before conversation begins.

At some point it may be suggested that I do it at work, it is getting slightly more common in the NHS, but I've no plans to do anything except ignore it. I'm certainly not going to draw attention to myself by coming up with a 'funny' response, nor will I discriminate against people who choose to do it.

Not my first rodeo. These fads happen and they go away again. If by some unknown chance something about it turns out to be useful rather than a forceful attempt to change the culture, I suppose it will stick around.

I'm going to say 'no'.

If pressed? 'Because I don't want to'.

In meetings, 'that's not a practice I follow'.

No debate.

I have quietly refused to put my pronouns in my email signature. I just haven’t done it. I was recently asked to state my name, job title and pronouns in a meeting recently and I omitted them. It’s perfectly obvious what sex and gender I am. I raised the point after the training that making people state their pronouns is unfair on those that don’t know or haven’t decided or just feel like they’re stating the obvious.

Are you offended by people who sign off God Bless or say inshallah?

I wouldn't be 'offended', but I'd think either of those was unprofessional and inappropriate in a work context (unless you work in a religious organisation of some sort).

In my experience at my workplace it's as a pp said. Nice people have been told it's the nice thing to do. And so they do it. They don't connect it with more egregious elements of gender ideology.

The thing with something like God Bless it most of the time it is something like a sign off statement which requires nothing from the other person. It's not really different than someone saying "best wishes".

Pronoun announcements, at least notionally, are telling others they need to do something.

I like it. I have a male name and people have been confused meeting me if we've never met in person. I honestly don't see how knowing if someone is a man or woman when you can't see them to work it out is causing problems for you.

35 years of (predominently male) workplace sexism and discrimination will help you see it from a different pov. I've spent approximately that amount of time carefully expressing myself in written communications, signing off as Initial + Surname and not referring to my sex unless it is absolutely necessary. And it isn't 100% foolproof (at the latest if we speak or meet in person) but it has provided a buffer and screened me from instant "argh, a woman, no how can this be? i must ignore all she says in favour of listening to a less well qualified or incompetent man"

HTH

(but: some people are compelled to use pronouns in email sigs and for that reason alone i just ignore it as any kind of indicator of levels of capturedness. Unless i get several from an organisation and only one has pronouns. Then i know.)

What other characteristics should we add?

Best wishes,
Stella Andcrow (She/her, Black British, 25, Catholic, Unmarried)

Why not just put "I am female" in your email signature then?

Good point. I might add 'cat person', 'fully vaccinated' and 'unapologetic carnivore' to mine.

Why not just put "I am female" in your email signature then?

a lot of the Chinese people i used to work with had (Mrs) or (Mr) after their name in their sigs, just to save any "embarassment" over misgendering. Nothing to do with modern issues, just politeness back then (blimey, 20 years ago now)

The place I volunteer at has told(not suggested) us to put pronouns in our signature.

I am a volunteer. I haven't complied. I've been there over 20 years. There has been no need to identify my sex in writing. It doesn't help do the job.

It will be interesting to see how far they take this. It is definitely a hill I'm prepared to die on.

My dog has an ambiguous name. Unfortunately the vet continues to refer to her as 'he'. The dog is yet to be offended however It makes me slightly worried given she's currently got a UTI (the dog not the vet)

It's the only circumstance I can think of where pronouns might be important. Not whether John in accounts thinks 'Susan' might actually be a man after all.

I actually had to use "they" for someone the other day. I was writing about them but as I only know them by name, didn't know whether to write "he did" or "she did". Couldn't bloody find out, could I do "they" they were!

I'd worry about a vet that can't tell the difference between a dog and a bitch, it's usually obvious.