Women's rights general conversations - Thread 10

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 9.

There is so much excellent information and so many active discussions on FWR that I wondered if it would be useful to have a thread to sort of "cross-fertilise" between them - airing little thoughts or vignettes that wouldn't themselves merit their own thread, to highlight other posts/threads of particular interest or to point to notable developments on fast-moving threads so that casual observers know where to look.

(For example, "the X thread has meandered onto a fascinating discussion of Y" or "Poster P's amazing analysis on thread Z might have relevance to the scenario in thread W" or "Has anybody noticed this recurring theme that keeps coming up??" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions in the supermarket, grr"- that sort of thing).

Hello Bignose, long time no see. Do you still haunt The Other Place?

Random thought for the day.

I've applied for a new job (academia) and gone to look at the team website, to find that everybody on the People page is introduced thusly:

Title FirstName Surname (PRONOUN/PRONOUN)
Photo
Blurb

This is in a science faculty. These are scientists of good reputation. That they have all gone along with this must mean that either they're all True Believers or that somebody on the team is such a True Believer that it's impossible not to comply.

I'm now wondering whether I should withdraw my application, or whether that is an overreaction. If I were to get this job, would I be neck-deep in doo-doo when I am asked for my PRONOUNS on my profile and politely decline to partake?

That's academia for you. Would there be any jobs out there that don't do this?

It's far from ubiquitous in the science faculties. The team I currently work in doesn't have any time for this stuff. The other teams we share a lab with also don't have this as a blanket policy - a couple of the younger staff members have pronouns in signature, but the vast majority do not. Further afield, I know some academics who are fully aboard the Righteous train. But this is the first team website I've ever seen where everybody has pronouns in their headline.

To be clear, I don't care if everybody else wants to signal their belonging to TRSOH. I'm more concerned about how such a team would respond to those who won't comply with the genuflections and catechisms, because we've seen how TRSOH aren't very accepting, inclusive and "kind" to non-believers.

When my brother was in a show the theatre company put the cast's pronouns on the show's page, without asking them. He hated it but didn't say anything.

Might that have happened here? I suppose there's no way to find out?

It's possible. That happened to DH during a major inter-institution online meeting back in COVID days: he deliberately didn't fill in the pronoun field, so the BeKind administrator took it upon herself to assume his gender. The result was to rather starkly illustrate the predominance of middle-aged men in senior academia - a whole tessellated screen of he/hims.

Thing is this isn't the team page within the university's website, it's their own site. (Very common in my field for teams to have their own separate website with own branding and idents, more specific information, detailed news and information). So somebody in this team must be very very keen on HEADLINE PRONOUNS.

That all feels very top down @Kucinghitam - most team-built team pages that I’ve come across are populated by the individual team members (that is, you either fill in a form and some IT bod makes the page, or you make the page yourself as an individual researcher, following a template).

Have you worked with any of them before? Worked with anyone who has? If you really want the job I would feel things out very carefully before going ahead. If you don’t mind either way about the job I would (personally) run a mile. Because even if this is only one person saying what everyone else must say, how much sway must that one person have over how the team presents itself - and possibly its research?

eta - words for clarity

I'll try to keep it vague for fear of outing @TwoLoonsAndASprout but suffice to say that the ecosystem is small enough that I know people who have directly worked with the team, and apparently everyone is lovely (which is what I would expect, to be clear).

I don't have a specific desire to work for this team, but (a) my current role is coming to an end due to funding and (b) this new role is perfect for my skillset and I could really generate a lot of experimental data for them. The research itself has the square root of fuck-all to do with gender, so I can't see any way that activism could sway the actual science.

Basically, as long as nobody asks, it shouldn't matter for my ability to work well with the team and get them the results they need. But it's a bit concerning, as you say, if there's a form then somebody has deliberately chosen to foreground the PRONOUN thing and absolutely nobody has demurred? So either they're all True Believers, or some of them are Extra High Priestly Pushy True Believers and the rest are fearful compliers/unthinking acolytes?

@Kucinghitam:

So either they're all True Believers, or some of them are Extra High Priestly Pushy True Believers and the rest are fearful compliers/unthinking acolytes?

That would be my worry. And I could maybe live with either, but in the back of my mind I would worry that they would want me to proclaim my pronouns, which I would not be comfortable with - how would that then work? Would they insist? Would I be ostracised? Would I feel I had to go along with it to do my work?

None of which is helpful - just to say I sympathise.

What’s the sex and age distribution like, @Kucinghitam?

Apply for the job then say you don't do pronouns if you get it. So many people are stepping back from this now. In a recent online discussion (distance learning, arts subject) out of 40 people only 2 had put their pronouns next to their name.

That was my thinking, Lovelyview. Pronouns seem a bit old hat these days and it would be strange to try and get you involved.

@ErrolTheDragon It’s a pretty standard mix for my field so fairly balanced between SHE/HERs and HE/HIMs. A couple of top level senior academics, mid-50s or thereabouts. Most of the team are postdoctoral researchers of varying experience, late-20s to early-50s (this is where I’d fit in), handful of graduate students, early-to-mid-20s.

@Lovelyview I’d be perfectly happy with that solution, live and let live. Just not sure they would be.

It’s all the more jarring because (as you say) the Big Pronoun thing is fading away even in humanities academia, so I fear it indicates Serious Belief that goes beyond Being Kind. I’m veering towards somebody in the team being a Person of Gender…

Idk….it might just be that the group’s secretary filled in the info and thought that’s what was the norm in academia and no-one CBA to query it. Leftover #bekind could do it.

Well, I'll just leave it for now and see whether I get thrown out of the interview (assuming I get called) if I do a tinkly little "Oh, whatever you like!" if asked for pronouns.

I know someone, a gay man, who has gone from a massively senior role in one multinational to another in another, who said he submitted "cunt/cunt" as his pronouns at the first place. Oddly, it stopped being mandatory shortly after. And yes, I do believe him. He's hugely talented and in demand, so it probably did help stop it.

Some other PPs will need to help here: I’m sure there was a whole long list of things that one could say in response to “what are your pronouns?” I seem to recall “The usual ones,” or “the ones you would expect,” featured in the most popular. Not saying anything, or just saying “no thank you” were also suggested.

Aha, found some of them:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5337972-request-to-share-pronouns

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5145871-what-will-i-say-pronouns

There are more, those were just the top two that came up when I searched “ask for pronouns” on this board. Note: not all are serious or suitable if you actually want the job.

If anyone is considering a little work around the eyebrows, a lift or botox perhaps, don't bother - just read the TT summary of the GLP's SC challenge. Mine are going to be stuck to my hairline for weeks.

I just hope the poor judge had a bottle of good whisky waiting at home. This is their second attempt, after he's given them advice, and he's still having to walk them through how to make their case point by point. 'You need to specify which paras of the legislation.', 'That's a poor example, this would be better.', 'That's argues against your point.' It must feel like wading through GCSE coursework.

Morning session: https://x.com/tribunaltweets/status/1988667747715481996?

Afternoon: https://x.com/tribunaltweets/status/1988703792339313096?

If you really want this job, I would say something like neutral such as 'sex-based' or "the standard ones" when they ask for pronouns.

I've shut it down quickly on the two times it happened to me in meetings by pointing out I am deaf, I lipread and the pronouns issues just adds to the conversation burden, so if anyone is really that uncomfortable please can they use names for that third person reference?

I get immensely annoyed by people doing performative bullshit which excludes disabled colleges.

It was just coming in as I left BigCo. I got asked in a few meetings (mainly with public sector clients), and eventually perfected the Hard Stare, raised eyebrow and "Fairly obvious, I would hope". It's all SUCH bullshit.

It may amaze people to hear that despite a lifetime working in academia, I have never been in a pronoun situation. The only time I can directly think of was DH's online meeting experience, caused by a BeKind admin person.

As I said earlier, it's just not really a big thing in the biological sciences. Of course, we have people who volunteer such info on profiles or email signatures, we have people with stripy lanyards and umpteen badges, and we have People of Gender. We all just get on with our work and rub along perfectly well - I suspect this is because we don't do the enforced performative virtue signalling which would just get everybody's backs up.

This is entertaining and true in equal measure:
https://open.substack.com/pub/benthams/p/how-continental-philosophers-argue?r=7wkog&utm_medium=ios

So true! All the examples reminded me of the Sokal hoax (Sokal, incidentally, thinks gender ideology is a load of wank) and the Postmodernism Generator. This stuff has been incubating in academia since before the 1990s.

That was a delightful read - thank you for sharing! I particularly loved the AI philosopher’s analysis of the panini as a neoliberal flattening - and the actual author’s lament that the AI was better at mocking continental philosophy than he was.