How best to answer 'What are your preferred pronouns?' in an intervew

[NancyDrawed]

I have been out of the workforce for a very long time but finally have an in-person interview later this week.

The confirmation email is signed by a name followed by (he/him/his). I need to get a job. But I am trying to get my head around what I would say if I was directly asked what my preferred pronouns are.

On principle I would like to say 'I'm not a follower of that ideology so use whichever you see fit' or something along those lines, but is that likely to mean I have no chance of getting the job?

I am clearly female, so a small part of me would want to say he/him/his just to see the reaction!

It might not even come up at all, but I'd like to be prepared.

You would honestly ask someone who asked you whether you are a man or a woman, what definition of woman they are using? I mean, how do you even function?

I'm sure they function fine.

Your question would be stranger if asked than their response

You would honestly ask someone who asked you whether you are a man or a woman, what definition of woman they are using? I mean, how do you even function?

@DadJoke Have you stopped to consider that, 20 years, ago this thread and the lengthy reflections on it wouldn't have been necessary? I think its very existence is fairly damning evidence that women have lost the very language we need to describe ourselves. Words that we used to know were accurate signifiers - words that reflected a collective understanding of who we feel ourselves to be, and thereby offered clarity, certainty, and even protection against meaningful physical risk in the contexts of, for example, healthcare and single-sex spaces - have been taken from us. And this thread clearly shows the challenges that that is presenting us, and the distress that it can cause us.

I know you have a deep conviction that it's important for individuals to have words to describe how they perceive themselves, words that enable them to function more easily and safely in society - that you truly believe that forcing language on people in a way that causes them distress is deeply immoral.

Why, then, such resistance even to acknowledging our concerns, which match those of transpeople in this respect? We all want the same thing - language of our own!

To describe our concern as "bizarre" in such a dismissive tone, even as you show such empathy for precisely the same concern when expressed by a different demographic, is inconsistent at the least, and smacks of bad faith engagement.

Women here are arguing why they feel they have the greater right to this language (language which, until the last decade or so, was theirs for millennia and taken without their agreement, which I personally think, incidentally, is a pretty strong argument in its own right...)

Why are you not at the very, very least, attempting to listen to these arguments and counter them in a way that engages meaningfully with these quite obvious parallels? Is our desire for the very same thing as those you defend wish for worth, in stark contrast to their perceptions of need, only a dismissive one-liner in the women's case? If so, why? What's the difference? Explain your reasoning.

@FlirtsWithRhinos

I apologise for "how do you function?" You were engaging in good faith.

The "Are you a man or a woman" question was to see how far your beliefs took you, and you were absolutely consistent in my view. In my head I was thinking of some poor functionary filling in a form, but it could easily have been a pull down on a website. So, when you asked for a definition of a woman, they just want an answer, so "Would you describe yourself as a woman?" seems like a reasonable follow up.

If a gender critical person asked me if I were a man or a woman, I'd say man, because I am one. I also fit in the same category of man you use, so that would work just fine. If I were transgender, we might have a disagreement, because you might chose to treat me differently. Which would not be the case if I were asking you. I don't mind that you don't think you have a gender identity.

When I asked "Would you describe yourself as a woman?" there was an unspoken "as opposed to a man."

It looks like you've used the forbidden c-word in your answer. I am not sure what you mean in this context. You've included trans women and women who are not transgender. What is this third class of women?

A trans-friendly way of discussing reproductive rights is to use the term AFAB or AMAB. I know of no term which is acceptable to both gender critical people and transgender people. Gender critical people object to reproductive rights by reference to anatomy or using "people" to include, generally, trans men, so it becomes tricky.

There’s no one way to be non-binary, @InWithThePlums - a non-binary person’s gender identity may be that they don’t identify as only male, or only female, or that they identify as both, or that they identify as neither.

I don’t really understand the assumption that that is in some way sexist to be non-binary. It would only be sexist if one thinks that female necessarily means, IDK, behaving in a certain way/wearing certain clothes/having a certain role in society. I don’t think that at all, and I doubt any other trans people or allies on this thread do.

There’s no one way to be non-binary,

Yes, that's because everyone who has ever walked the face of the Earth is "non binary".

Couldn’t work for a company that asked that.

If I was asked what pronouns I use, I would just answer matter of factly? It’s no big deal.

I've been asked this twice by two different midwives lately and I'm so angry with myself that it caught me unawares and I essentially just looked blank on both occasions and they responded with 'just the usual ones' the first time and 'just she/her then' the second time. And I just nodded. Feel really annoyed with myself about it but this pregnancy has been fraught with worry and I'm like a coiled spring at the appointments.

So you accept that people can and do have a non-binary gender identity? Presumably then you are happy referring to them in the third person as ‘they/them’, or whatever other pronouns they tell you? If so, why would you not be ok answering a question about pronouns?!

How does one identify with being male or female, I wonder, if it's nothing at all to do with gender roles, stereotypes, presentation? Is it about identifying with biological reproductive sex categories, somehow?

Why?

(And let’s not forget that the company that this thread is about didn’t ask it anyway….)

I think historical societal gender roles, stereotypes, and presentation is an incredibly reductive way to look at gender.

So you accept that people can and do have a non-binary gender identity?

I accept people give themselves all manner of largely meaningless labels.

You asked why it is sexist. It's sexist, because it's based on sex stereotypes. There is nothing else to it.

Well quite but it’s not us insisting long hair, pink, make up, skirt goes spin = woman

@ElleWoods15 you're so close to getting it, yet also so very far away.

@ElleWoods15 The way I see it is:

Non-binary can't mean - doesn't appear to, anyway - denying the physical reality of one's sexed body. Therefore it must mean a denial of being something associated with that sexed body. And we reject such secondary associations in their entirety.

This means that, from a certain perspective, we're all non-binary.

Alternatively, it means that the existence of the concept of non-binary imposes on us associations we neither understand nor want.

Because it’s irrelevant to my ability to do the job. Plus batshit crazy woke for the sake of it.

What is "non binary" based on? Why would someone choose not to identify as either sex if it wasn't based on the rejection of this set or that set of social sex stereotypes?

I don't believe in "gender" in any sense distinct from a person's sex, so circular answers like "they just don't identify as either gender" aren't going to answer this. What is a "gender" if not linked to biological sex?

It's all bait and switch.

As a gender critical feminist woman, am
I "non binary"? This comes close to the point @FlirtsWithRhinos was making. I don't identify with genderist views of a woman. And I don't think "identifying as" a thing makes you that thing.

That's true. Pronouns were absolutely fundamental to that whole case, in which the loss of our own, clear language - sex-based pronouns - was proven to have caused tangible harm to women.

Oh, sorry, did you have a better definition of non-binary? Or were you just attempting to bulldoze someone out of the discussion by attempting to belittle them? Not very constructive if the latter…

It looks like you've used the forbidden c-word in your answer. I am not sure what you mean in this context. You've included trans women and women who are not transgender. What is this third class of women?

I don't think I understand the question. Did you mean why did I divide Women into trans and cis, a framing which as a gender critical person you wuodl expect me to reject?

I was in this context speaking specifcally of people who actively identify as women - ie not all people who may use the word Woman, which as you know includes many who use it as its original sex based meaning, but only and specifcally those people who explicitly claim for themselves to experience a gender identity as a woman. Taking that group, there are those who identify as trans women and those who identify as cis women and that's all, no third group. Which of course is exactly why I and many others avoid using the word Woman for myself unless it's clearly the sex based meaning not just for me but also for the recipient, to avoid it being mistakenly assumed that we identify as cis women.

I don't mind that you don't think you have a gender identity.

I don't have a gender identity. If you really need to fit me into your framework I am an agender female, although I'm not sure the genderist framework can accomodate that (which incidentally is why I am so sure it is flawed). And FWIW I do mind that you, a male person (1), believe you have better insight into firstly, my own identity, and secondly, into how female people experience being female, than I do.

A trans-friendly way of discussing reproductive rights is to use the term AFAB or AMAB

The "A" bit is an issue due to the ideological assumptions behind it, but I'm not going to go down that derail here.

What is interesting about AFAB is that I have recently noticed some high profile female bloggers and writers who have always been vehementally TWAW are starting to talk about the experiences/injustices of "AFAB" people - not limited to reproductive rights but their wider experience of abuse, encrochment and belittling by AMAB people and by society's sexism - describe themselves as "AFAB" or even as "non-binary AFAB". I've always thought it might go that way, as people for whom professing TWAW was a key part of their formative identity as a young person age into adulthood and encounter the annoyingly sex-based realities and injustices of our culture. TWAW is so fundamental to them they can't use the word Woman, and yet they are starting to find they need it.

(1) Up til now I always thought you might be a trans man. I'm kind of disappointed, would have been good to have a trans man's insights on womanhood and manhood.