Are pronouns misogyny

[FoggyFriday]

Me and my daughter are disagreeing about pronouns (as in having them in bios, email signatures etc) I feel they pander to men (who are the main % of pronoun users)
Do you think it is considered misogynistic to preface the term She/Her etc

The whole thread is about pronouns, a facet of grammar.

It doesn't bother me. I don't really understand why it bothers other people (but I have gathered from this thread that some people find pronouns in emails very very upsetting)

Have a read of the posts on this thread to help you understand why it bothers other people.

Here is just another reason why using wrong sex pronouns is harmful to female people.

archive.ph/wLUBN

‘I objected to a man using my gym’s women’s changing room. Now, I’m banned by the council’

“Among the charges, she says, was a claim that she had “misgendered” the person she found in the changing room, by using “he/him” pronouns instead of “she”.”

There is a huge difference between correct sex pronouns and wrong sex pronouns. However, I don’t believe there was an announcement of correct sex pronouns before the move to add wrong sex pronouns was attempted to be normalised by groups supportive of people with transgender identities. If I remember correctly some people might have added sexed titles to their emails in the past if they wanted to state their sex.

It seems disingenuous to ignore that the statement of pronouns has come about as a support tool for transgender identities or has been popularised (attempted to be normalised) for that purpose. If posters and readers are unaware of the background, maybe they should look further and gain some understanding in the background for usage and how it directly and indirectly negatively impacts female people.

Google stereotype threat.

Did you need to know whether Jo/Joe is male or female though? I can’t think of any situation where I need to know the sex of someone who’s emailing me. In addition, if Joe says their pronouns are she/her, would you assume their sex is female? What about they/them?

The UK organisation for Vets did an experiment a couple of years ago. A selection of CVs were sent to vets with equal qualifications but with male and female names. The results were that those vets tested chose male named CVs and the results also showed that the vets would offer female vets lower salaries than male vets.

There is still significant sex discrimination in the UK workplace against female people. Why would it be an advantage to proclaim being a female person in the workplace?

At one of my first jobs I worked for a company where the communication policy changed to a less formal style. Instead of signing off “Yours sincerely, Miss J Saurus” we were now expected to sign off “Yours sincerely, Jelly Saurus”. It was noticeable that the older women would (Mrs) or (Miss) after their names, but none of the men bothered with (Mr). My name is not obviously feminine or masculine, so it was suggested to me that I put (Miss) after it. Because I was young and unsure of my standing, I complied.

But I soon quietly dropped it. I realised that I missed the anonymity of not revealing my first name. Previously, if a phone caller asked for Jelly, I knew it was a social call. Once Jelly Saurus (Miss) appeared, I had several unpleasant calls from sleazy strangers. When I signed off without the (Miss), I had no new sleazy callers. I also no longer had new correspondents going over my head to check with my boss. That had been so normal before, that I hadn’t even clocked it.

Putting your title after your name is telling people about you and your status. I think it is significant that it was rarely men who would be bothered to do this - they were confident in their status as the default. Marital status and sex were also generally irrelevant to the conversations. Unless you were a woman, when, as I discovered, you were either unreliable or fair game. So it was better to stick with status being irrelevant.

Putting pronouns after your name is unsubtly different. These are not just about declaring your sex, but about dictating how others are to refer to you. There is no honesty behind them. Has I signed off as Jelly Saurus (Mr), I would have been pulled up for lying, for deliberately deceiving people. That is not going to happen with declared pronouns - they are sacrosanct. Yet they are as irrelevant marital status or religion in a work context.

Declaring your sex (or the sex you want people to pretend you are) benefits only men. It is worse than neutral for women. It is misogynistic to require declared pronouns and it is misogynistic to expect people to go along with them.

Adding pronouns is absolutely telling others how they should refer to you. If it is just a statement about your material sex category, then there is no real impact.

The impact is when people are directed to use language that doesn’t reflect material reality. It imposes one person’s belief above another’s material reality. There is no respect in that action yet it is described as being respectful. Which is just another demanded change in meaning for language.

People declaring pronouns are harmless because it gives people a guide as to what sex someone is in an email footer is disingenuous to the discussion overall.

Given that some of those "other people" have explained on this very thread why they have well considered reasons to object to this practice (which is not a grammatical practice but an ideological one) I am surprised you still don't understand and have only managed to gather some people find it "upsetting". (And honestly, even that is a pretty poor reading of what was said; "offensive", "belittling" or "sexist" are more accurate representations).

So, to help you understand I'll put it very simply.

"Preferred pronouns" is a practice born out of the sexist idea that the fundamental, defining difference between men and women is mental.

It is just the new face of the same old fashioned sexism that was once used to exclude women from certain professions, from voting, from even owning their own property, and it should have no place in modern society.

To cut Spacek some slack, they are are non-native English speaker who is failing to comprehend the arguments (although recognising that rather than implying there is nothing to understand might be a better approach for them)

Pronouns are grammar

pronouns indicating sex are just one way that sex is brought to the foreground when it shouldn’t matter -making and reinforcing sexism

I say this as someone who managed a lot of working life without revealing sex early in working relationships ( lots of international email based working ) and saw first hand how much difference it made when people didn’t get that my name was female and referred to me as he until we met

it matters - more than many people will ever know

I have spent years "de feminising" my written correspondence. Starting with letters, going on to faxes and telexes and the emails.

I sign off with Initial + Surname.

And invariably when, at some point as they always do, the people i've been corresponding with discover that i'm not actually a bloke, the tone changes.

Even with the one with whom i discussed my time in the army and my love of beer and football.

So no. No pronouns for me. Without a massive fuss, but they will not be included.

I don't see it as misogyny. I will defend the option not to state them and a preference to call a person by their name.

What’s the problem exactly with putting pronouns in? If it helps you to be respectful (and for some gender-neutral names it is extremely helpful) then what’s the matter?

The problem is, as I've already explained on this exact thread, that "preferred pronouns" depends on the sexist idea that the fundamental difference between a man and a woman is mental. Did you not read that post?

The belief that there are some ways of thinking that are correct for men but not for women and vice versa is just the same old sexist shit that has been used to hold women back forever, and it is not at all "respectful" of women to go along with it.

Respectful to whom? Who am I showing respect to if I put my pronouns in my emails?

I wonder if scriptwriters are waiting with fingers crossed for the pronouns in emails fad to be over so they can get back to using Jo/joe type confusion as a plot device in romcoms.

Please stop force teaming the suggestion of using correct sex language for someone with the demand for wrong sex pronouns to be used.

The entire objective from organisations such as Stonewall was to normalise those people who demand wrong sex language be used for them by having another group who wanted to help or who felt it was useful do it to. The groups have very different motivations. Although, on the face of it, anyone putting pronouns in their email footer is trying to control other people’s language use.

However, this was a significant normalisation project by those organisations and it has worked all too well.

Good god I coulkd not care less other than all the THEY riubbish

Defining women by their marital status is unnecessary, and sexist.
Miss/Mrs/Ms on forms. And yet, only Mr for men.
Wtaf?!

This must change.

It doesn’t ‘pander to men’. It panders to gender ideology which is regressive and harms girls/women. So yes pronouns are misogynistic.

I immediately lose respect for anybody who ‘declares’ them, and if I can get away with it in my professional life, I dismiss anything that comes across my desk with pronouns, especially if I’m recruiting. I don’t need to work with people who support misogynistic ideology. Even if through naiveté.

I used to have a job where I'd have to fill in a form so a customer could be sent a bill. The 'title' field was mandatory. If a woman didn't volunteer Mrs, Miss or Ms (and they usually did) I'd have to ask. It bugged me too, so I'd ask is that 'Mrs, Miss, Dr., Capt., Rev...?'. It usually got a laugh, it could be awkward to ask, and it made me feel better.

The French and some other languages have one term for a woman, one for a man. Much better.

Pronouns on badges and written communications
either state the blindingly obvious
Sarah is she/her
or a lie
Joe is they/them

They therefore serve no purpose other than adherence to a belief system that disadvantages women