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Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
81–90 of 150 posts
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand this point if view. I see it like stating your name - it lets people know what to call you. It doesn't have any relationship to what your genitalia are.
In addition to stating the name as the identity, it would be best to state gender, pronoun, and why not also race and religion? They are all part of identity. Better not. The professional signature is not mean to show your private identity. It is supposed to identify your professional identity, which should not include race or gender. Your private e-mail signature can include unicorns, your work signature should be k…
you don't use race or religion when referring to someone in polite conversation. i've never heard someone say "well that's not what black islamic he thinks" because it's unnatural. a pronoun serves as a shorthand or generalization to inform the listener about whom you're speaking of, in a way that is general but specific enough to choose an actor out of the context.
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#83Companies are tripping over each other to satisfy the woke mob, and it's ridiculous. This is part of that, and my advice is to not participate -- don't give air to unwanted things, and don't legitimize them. Or, if anyone has a sense of humor (very hard to find amongst the woke) encourage a large number of people to choose whimsical pronouns -- makes the silliness of it apparent.
Me/I/You/Your
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#84I work at a very left-leaning SV unicorn. Most people don’t advertise their pronouns, but quite a few do. I’m mildly peeved by this. To me the practice feels like taking off one’s lower body half garment to expose the genitalia. “See? This is my gender.” What difference does this make in a professional context? Our culture has put so much emphasis on treating all genders (or no gender) exactly the same: that was the…
gender and sex are not correlated. one is a preference and the other a biological status. gender indicates to people where you view your place in the social structure, sex describes your physical or hormonal status (not one to one correlation, good points)
I don't think "correlated" is the word you're looking for here.
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would a better aim be that any person can choose, or choose not, to proffer their pronouns, and feel equally comfortable either way?
> Would a better aim be that any person can choose, or choose not, to proffer their pronouns, and feel equally comfortable either way? How do you mitigate the risk of minimal usage of pronouns by cis persons compared to non-cis folks? That's where the challenge lies - outsized non-cis usage of pronouns exposes them to hatred by those with bias, hence the desire for usage by cis folk.
I am not sure what risk you mean here and I struggle to see how a rational person can infer that I mean hatred when I introduce myself as "proactivesvcs", "Adam" or "Mr Piggott". I think that yes, everyone should feel that they can offer their pronouns, unsolicited, and I believe that we should encourage that this is an acceptable behaviour, since then eventually, it'll be something we don't even have to discuss. But inferring hatred strikes me as a very acute form of assuming bad-faith.
I treat strangers with the assumption that they are respectful until they earn an opinion to the contrary.
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand this point if view. I see it like stating your name - it lets people know what to call you. It doesn't have any relationship to what your genitalia are.
In addition to stating the name as the identity, it would be best to state gender, pronoun, and why not also race and religion? They are all part of identity. Better not. The professional signature is not mean to show your private identity. It is supposed to identify your professional identity, which should not include race or gender. Your private e-mail signature can include unicorns, your work signature should be k…
> your work signature should be kept professional and that means excluding private data.
Unless you live in complete isolation your gender is not private. As soon as someone sees your appearance or hears your voice they will subconsciously associate you with a gender. And if that association is often incorrect then what's wrong with avoiding awkward situations?
We don't mention ethnicity or religion because they're not relevant for communication with business partners. Genders are, due to how our language works.
I wouldn't enforce mentioning pronouns as in the majority of cases it's simply unnecessary, but if someone has a problem with that detail in an email signature that tells a lot more about them, enough for me to reconsider working with them. Because no, it's not an important thing for me, but if someone thinks themselves as too professional for such little things they're probably not a pleasant person.
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#87They haven't and no, I wouldn't do it. It's compelled speech.
Yeah, so is having to put
"John Smith, sr developer"
in your email signature.
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#88[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#89We are not required to do this by business, however there is now state legislature that requires that any job posting must include explicit naming of genders male/female/diverse. That is männlich/weiblich/divers in German (m/w/d abbreviated, you will find it on every job posting or you face serious fines). Most people call it männlich/weiß/deutsch already, which translates to male/white/German. I don't think it is a…
> We are not required to do this by business, however there is now state legislature that requires that any job posting must include explicit naming of genders male/female/diverse. That is männlich/weiblich/divers in German (m/w/d abbreviated, you will find it on every job posting or you face serious fines). I don't get, why would job postings (as in, the ad for the job, not the candidate's application for the job) r…
I think a big part of the problem is that there is so much gendered language in german. So there are no progammers, there are male programmers (Programmierer) and female programmers (Programmiererin), which leads to both forms or short forms being used (Programmierer/in) in these postings to be inclusive. But I don't even know if there is an accepted neutral form of the word if you wanted to address someone non-binary.
So, while the whole (m/w/d) thing is kind of silly, it on the other hand makes it clear, that whatever gendered form you use, you don't actually care about gender.
I really hope we can someday find acceptable neutral forms for these words. It would make many things much easier in german.
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#90One datapoint: this recently changed, but I worked for years in a very multinational context, where people/names from my home country/language (America/English) were in the minority of people I emailed, called, interacted with, talked about, etc., and no one cultural/language group was very dominant in my work.
I found the trend to state pronouns (for those who opted-in) super helpful. It made explicit for me (and other colleagues) knowledge that is typically implicit. Of course, this is a different use-case for stating pronouns, but one that made them sticker (I think) in my work context than they otherwise would have been.
So, thumbs up for stating pronouns. If you don't state them, people who can will infer pronouns (and may be wrong), and people who can't (because of a lack of context) will feel awkward, have to ask someone else (time/energy), or get it wrong, which is shitty all around.