Anyone else seeing fewer pronouns in the workplace?

[Pedestrian0]

I work in a large Stonewalled organisation. A couple of years ago everyone was fully 'she/her/hers' on Teams and in emails but I've noticed a real drop off recently and I'm so pleased. I think/hope people are getting a bit tired of the silly business. Now the pronoun-staters are very definitely in a minority.

I can also confidently say that pronouns on Teams or email have NEVER enhanced any interaction I've had at the company over the past five years. I've seen one they/them and frankly everyone referred to the obvious male as 'he' if we have reason to refer to him when he isn't around. It's not malicious, it's just the obvious pronoun to use for an obvious male. Everyone else just has sex-based pronouns. But - if you can't tell by the beard and obviously male features you can tell by the name 'John'. No need for the he/hims. It's really just virtue signalling and makes me eyeroll a lot.

I like that it's dropping away because the fewer people who do it, the more it'll drop out of fashion. But is it just my work or is anyone else seeing this?

I agree with this. I've worked with Indians and Chinese/HK remote partners.
The Chinese in particular choose a western name just to be polite to us and make things easier for us. Sometimes those names can very odd choices by western standards . I think it's to do with them choosing a Western name that sound close to an auspicious word in their own language which is a very cultural thing. e.g. certain number is their own language are good numbers because they sound like other words which are good 2, 5, and 8 I think. There's also numbers they hate because it sounds like their word(s) for death 4, 14, 28.
Anyway we used to deal with a lovely lady from China who's western name she had chosen was Gerald. It had nothing to do with trans anything, she just liked the sound of the name I guess. No one told her it was a man's name.
Given they are being incredibly polite in trying to make it easier for us, I have no issues with pronouns in those bios because any rational westerner would assume Gerald was a man's name so they are dealing with a man.

My 12 year old DC and their cousin were talking about this at the weekend - they are firmly in the GC camp and one declared that they identify as a pizza with the pronouns cheesy and pepperoni

That is good. It baffles me though that passports can be held that recognise an acquired gender identity. I would have thought that immigration documents had to be scientific. Probably a whole other conversation!

@Pedestrian0 googling names is exactly what I, and all sensible people do. And is indeed recommended by our HR department. A lot of people don't do it though - not just other employees, but customers, contractors, suppliers etc. Unfortunately some of the worst offenders are often older people (well, men) in very senior positions.

It shouldn't be necessary of course - but it works for them.

@lechiffre55 the "Western name" thing was very much an HK thing I think. Mainlanders, or at least the younger ones, don't do it. I work with lots of Yuxis and Zihans - not so many Marys and Bettys like in the old days!

Anyway we used to deal with a lovely lady from China who's western name she had chosen was Gerald. It had nothing to do with trans anything, she just liked the sound of the name I guess. No one told her it was a man's name.

I love the fact that she chose Gerald, and I love the fact that no one told her. How very British.

I do have a problem with some Chinese names, because traditionally the patronymic comes first, followed by the given name, but some Chinese people swap them around to make it easier for Westerners to understand. But then you don't know if they've swapped or not, increasing the risk of getting it wrong.

Going completely off topic, but I used to work in tertiary education. We had a huge number of students from overseas including many Chinese and Taiwanese. The lovely names they had chosen to use as their 'Western' names were a constant source of delight. It makes the baby names section on here look boring!

As you were!

Is it really that big a deal for the Japanese and Chinese workers? Surely after they've corrected a few people, or corrected a person a few times, everybody in the organisation knows. We used to deal with this kind of thing by putting (Ms) [or (Mrs) if you wanted to] for women and (Mr) for men after your name. Optional. Not political.

Edited for grammar.

I have a unisex name so I have my pronouns on my email from about 5 years ago. People still get it wrong though

Ps my name is not Apollo 🤣

I remember a joke by a comedian a long time ago. He thought the expense and ego of personalised number plates were stupid, but he was grateful in that it highlighted who to avoid. I like pronouns in bios for the same reason, it lets me know who to avoid

This came up in a YouGov survey last week. If you could easily afford it, would you have a personalised number plate. Overwhelming majority was No!

@Snowypeaks to you or I it would generally be seen as acceptable to correct a colleague, even a senior one, on something like this, and both parties would laugh it off. Many Japanese and Chinese people would not do this as they would see it as confrontational and potentially embarrassing for both parties. The pronouns thing is something they've just adopted to avoid the embarrassment of having to correct someone. I don't know how effective it is, as I still see it happen, but maybe less so then if there were no pronouns.

Thank you. I see, more of a cultural issue.

When asked for mine, I say Mrs.

You can add photos to outlook though

The Chinese do not just choose a western name to make it easier for us.

In China now middle class families give their child a western name from birth as they will learn English from nursery age. It’s not really possible to use Chinese names when speaking English as the name is never used alone without a signifier of some type to denote status. Eg, a child will always be called ‘little x’ or similar.

Modern Chinese business uses Western names even when speaking Chinese as it’s very difficult in a large organisation to know the relative status of every person. You need to know status when you use a person’s Chinese name.

We don't use Outlook. If you wanted to see someone's photo you would have to go to the staff directory system, and the photo would only be there if they had uploaded it (it's voluntary), and of course many upload an avatar or bitmoji rather than a real photo of themselves. In any case the kind of people who can't be bothered to google whether 'Yuki' is a male or female name aren't going to bother to do that, and customers and suppliers wouldn't have access anyway. However, if you set your pronouns in the staff directory (it's completely voluntary) then this automatically gets inserted into your email signature and your slack (chat) bio so more likely to be taken heed of.

I don't know whether we are really a one off, but we are a 250k employee company and it's noticeable how many people with Chinese and Japanese names use pronouns. It seems to have been adopted in particular by those two nationalities, less so by others with names that might be equally ambiguous to Westerners - possibly because they are culturally less concerned with causing embarrassment by correcting someone.

I’ve just commented a few times on the Martin Lewis page on fb on his post. Mostly NO! There is one man posting on everyone’s comments calling them ignorant.
Ive added my 2p anyway

The only people in my organisation that do still do have pronouns have names that are not obviously/ traditionally male or female Western names, and it clearly matters to the people to be identified in a certain way.

My own name can be either too, but I decided a long time ago* not to draw attention to the fact that I’m female due to inherent sexism and misogyny in my industry.

*in ye olde days, the default was assumed to be male and if you were female with an ambiguous name you’d put (Ms) or (Mrs) after your name in your signature. I had a particularly bolshie impressive boss with a PhD who put (Dr) after hers as she had no truck with such nonsense. It was when I started working for her that I realised I didn’t care if the people I dealt with thought I was a man, if it meant they took my emails more seriously.

I'm so tickled that Martin Lewis has done this today. And so heartened by the majority votes. Feel like common sense is creeping back in. It's been so damn hard because people have felt utterly bullied and trapped into this nonsense for fear of being ostracised and labelled as something they're not. I know we are a long way from reversing this harmful nonsense but I'm enjoying the quiet revolution for now.

I work with one LA and their referral forms (for children) ask for their pronouns. It's ridiculous as some of these children are under 5, autistic and non verbal.

Thanks for that little nugget of information.

@Denou ok, I'm surprised by this - in fact I just searched for 'Wang' in our company directory and the vast majority of hits had Chinese given names rather than Western ones. I was always under the impression that the Western name thing was very much an HK thing rather than mainland and it was seen as a bit passé and un-patriotic now?

Am a post grad/PhD student (a feminist thesis on crime fiction) and just been on to check all the staff who’ve emailed me. Surprised to find only my actual supervisors ‘have pronouns’ - and as I know one is a raving feminist and terribly supportive of my GC perspective/issues with my DD and the other is a bloke, I’m surprised to see they’ve not updated their automated signatures yet.

I am in an Arts & Creative department, so doubly surprised tbh.