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Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?

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Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?

#91

Post by pseudo0 »

formerly_proven wrote: post #25

Diversity questions aside, some given names are ambiguous. Some names are not, but may have different (assumed) genders depending on the language. In those cases it may be helpful to add a "Mrs"/"Mr" or similar, just to save people the embarrassment of addressing a woman as a man or vice versa. And isn't a "Mr"/"Mrs" a sort of pronoun spec as well? You're saying "use the usual pronouns for females/males".

If you're not sure, you can always just use the person's given name instead of a pronoun. This works 100% of the time, while pronouns in a signature block aren't very helpful if you're referring to someone who got CCed but has not replied to an email chain.

Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?

#92

Post by schwartzworld »

When I was a kid, there was a period when my voice was changing that was very awkward. I would answer the phone, and people would hear my weird teenage voice and assume that I was my mom. After a while I got really self-conscious about it and started deliberately deepening my voice until it fully changed.

If somebody's appearance or voice doesn't match their pronouns, I think they're justified in wanting to put that information up front. If somebody's gender identity is not obvious, wouldn't you rather they just told you up front instead of making you guess and then correcting you?

By the same token, if only people with not obvious pronouns practice this, it singles them out. It doesn't hurt anybody. I don't think it should be mandatory, but I do think it should be celebrated and encouraged.

Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?

#93

Post by chanakya »

I work for a large Valley software company, and they don't require pronouns or even recommend them, but I do see a few people put them in their signature, mostly in HR/recruiting.

I have two reasons why I don't like the idea of this becoming widespread, at least for now:

- I get that many people are sincere in believing this will help those with non-traditional identities, but I think there are also people who see this as an opportunity to get everyone to enact a drama which reinforces a political view of society as having widespread oppression, victimhood and injustice, and I don't agree with that view.

- Medical opinion seems genuinely divided on whether much of the huge increase in the last few years in trans / non-binary identities among teenagers is real or part of the confusion that everyone goes through as hormones kick in and we form our identities. We may simply be moving too fast on this. We need time to let society figure out if this is something substantial, beneficial and sustained, or something that'll decline and mostly disappear in a decade or two.

Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?

#94

Post by webo »

ceejayoz wrote: post #42
webo wrote: post #26

I’ve seen this forced at larger companies and Universities. I’m neutral on the topic of stating pronouns — could somebody with more knowledge explain the difference between including pronouns and age/sex/race/religion/ethnicity? From my understanding, usage of pronouns is about not making any assumptions and being inclusive. So I’m just not sure what or where the line is.

> I’m neutral on the topic of stating pronouns — could somebody with more knowledge explain the difference between including pronouns and age/sex/race/religion/ethnicity? It's presumably quite a bit more common for someone to say "Oh, him? He's one of our developers" than it is to say "Oh, that Jew? That Jew is one of our developers." (If the latter is common, you've probably got more for HR to do than worry about pr…

I guess that makes sense if it’s only for surface level addressing. I wasn’t sure if it’s supposed to be a deeper identity signal.

Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?

#95

Post by proactivesvcs »

DanBC wrote: post #76
icy wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should think that in healthcare, of all places, your birth sex matters more than what your gender identity is -- for your own safety, even.

Yes, that's the point. When Bob goes for treatment and everyone assumes he's cis-male but he's actually trans-male they may offer needless screening. Bob needs to feel safe to be able to say "I've never had a prostate".

If I was on the fence for pronoun advertisement anywhere, I would definitely come off the fence for any healthcare or social work setting.

Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?

#96

Post by wayneftw »

Never encountered this on the East coast, but if I did I'd have some fun with it.

If they didn't give a list of choices I'd say my pronouns were Who and Whom.

If they did provide a list of approved pronouns I'd complain that my preferred pronouns aren't on the list or pick whichever ones which would make people uncomfortable.

Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?

#97

Post by seneca »

ceejayoz wrote: post #61
seneca wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Tech isn't political" is itself a political stance. (And a hard to support one, IMO.) Funny how the only people who say this are the people who want to drag politics into everything. Tech is no more inherently political than, say, electrical engineering. That is to say, not at all without tortured logic that could be applied to almost anything.

You don't think the Free Software / Open Source movement many of us owe our careers to was a political one?

I do! Just like a movement to reform electrical engineering would be.

That does nothing to make the wider industry inherently political. It also is a much narrower sphere of politics, in that it is about reforming how software is made and thought of, which is relevant to the industry itself in a way that broad social issues are not.

Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?

#98

Post by ceejayoz »

webo wrote: post #94
ceejayoz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m neutral on the topic of stating pronouns — could somebody with more knowledge explain the difference between including pronouns and age/sex/race/religion/ethnicity? It's presumably quite a bit more common for someone to say "Oh, him? He's one of our developers" than it is to say "Oh, that Jew? That Jew is one of our developers." (If the latter is common, you've probably got more for HR to do than worry about pr…

I guess that makes sense if it’s only for surface level addressing. I wasn’t sure if it’s supposed to be a deeper identity signal.

It's a simple "here's how I would like to be correctly addressed".

Being, say, stereotypically feminine in appearance with "he/him" pronouns or the use of "they/their" may offer clues to more unusual gender identities, but that's not intended to be the primary goal of listing the pronouns.

Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?

#99

Post by pseudalopex »

p2detar wrote: post #77
formerly_proven wrote: post #25

Diversity questions aside, some given names are ambiguous. Some names are not, but may have different (assumed) genders depending on the language. In those cases it may be helpful to add a "Mrs"/"Mr" or similar, just to save people the embarrassment of addressing a woman as a man or vice versa. And isn't a "Mr"/"Mrs" a sort of pronoun spec as well? You're saying "use the usual pronouns for females/males".

This is fine, but here's a possible potentially technical (not political) issue that I see. Looking at it from the practical point of view, I now have to address that person by their pronoun in the contents of the E-mail I write. So, what happens if there are several people included and some or many of them each have their own preferred pronoun. I have to thread very carefully in every part of my Email not to step on…

Everyone uses pronouns. He or she mostly. They sometimes. Anything else very rarely.

Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?

#100

Post by raxxorrax »

gruez wrote: post #75
raxxorrax wrote: post #30

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). 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…

No, the reason is that people of all genders should feel addressed. There is a female version of programmer (and any other occupation) in German, but you can use the male form to address female programmers too. Some argued that some would not feel addressed correctly.

I have never seen a posting where gender was a requirement. You often saw something like this (rough translation):

"With equal qualifications, female candidates get preferential treatment."

Haven't seen that in a long time and I don't think it was mandatory, but some employers used such a clause.

Don't think I ever saw a gender specific job posting aside from movie roles, dancers, etc.

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