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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?

#121

Post by pseudo0 »

pseudalopex wrote: post #105
pseudo0 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Often but not always. Given name is too informal in some situations. Completely avoiding pronouns can sound awkward too.

The OP mentioned the technology industry, which tends to be pretty informal. At least personally, the vast majority of my correspondence uses first names rather than honorifics. I agree that it can be a bit stilted, but it's better than awkwardly mixing up a person's gender.

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

#122

Post by justaman »

TameAntelope wrote: post #36
justaman wrote: post #2

No and I wouldn't if they asked. I don't think gender has any bearing on how one performs their job and to promote such a thing could do more harm than good. When I see someone with their pronouns on twitter I usually don't engage with them. People who do this more often than not tend to make everything about gender politics where it would otherwise be irrelevant.

Do you think gender has a bearing on how one feels about oneself, and does one's self image have an impact on their performance?

I think there is a problem today when people put their sexuality as a cornerstone of their personality. I think its an important aspect of who you are but far from most important. This over emphasis on self identification can create negative feelings about the self if one were to not conform to whats expected.

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

#123

Post by raxxorrax »

clearcarbon wrote: post #31

I am a white cis male. Normalising the statement of preferred pronouns is very important for people who's gender identity differs from their assigned sex at birth. I state my pronouns on both my social media and work emails. Your statement of being "LGBT / neutral" seems strange to me, being neutral on whether other human beings should have the same rights I enjoy does not seem to be something I can be neutral on. I…

I would never want to be an "ally" (don't like the term, implicates antagonism without reflection). And this criticism seems also true for these suggested changes. Is that really good or helpful? Before enacting such changes, you should ask people if you have their support or you might get the opposite reaction, which at least partially happend on the topic of gender overall.

You group people by privilege, which is a judgement you cannot accurately make if you don't know a person very well. Some people judge others by large demographic group affiliation, but that doesn't sound like progress to me at all, on the contrary.

Being occupied by pronouns displays privilege far more accurately than skin color for example. I think that is a reasonable position.

Especially in a corporate environment, norms are created by employers and employees and they are in a constant flux. Traditionally we worked for gender becoming less relevant in a corporate setting.

If you want to change others, change yourself and be an example. Maybe people will follow, maybe they will not. While there might be sympathy for the cause, speech codes will hit limits rather quickly.

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

#124

Post by raxxorrax »

ceejayoz wrote: post #21
hoka-one-one wrote: post #13

I work in tech, not politics

"Tech isn't political" is itself a political stance. (And a hard to support one, IMO.)

There are sensible reasons why discussion of politics was looked down on in a professional setting. Didn't like that much because it can be interesting. But lately I see the benefit pretty clearly.

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

#125

Post by ecmascript »

proactivesvcs wrote: post #59
ecmascript wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly think it is amazing. I would never have thought in my wildest dreams that this was actually something people thought was important in 2021. I added the last sentence because I know I would have been down voted anyway, because I am feeling more and more a divide from the stereotypical HN-person just waking up in SF. As soon as you go against the popular opinion on HN, you immediately get downvoted anyway. S…

I think I agree with "I honestly think it is amazing". I'm nearing middle-age and I rarely thought about gender issues and, in my twenties if I was asked to start a conversation about them, I wouldn't have even thought to talk about gender identity. But identity is fundamentally important. If someone chooses a mean-spirited nickname for you, and refuses to use your actual name, it's not a pleasant experience. Yes, I…

I must say that I really enjoyed the comparison with actual scientific and technological progress to identity politics.

I don't think pronouns are important. There is a big difference of misusing a pronoun and choosing a mean-spirited nickname for you in my opinion.

I read what you wrote, but I just think that if you want to call yourself a yellow penguin that's fine for me but the second you try to force me to buy into the idea that you actually are a yellow penguin that is where I stop being nice and pleasant.

I can call you whatever you want if you really want to, but I am not going to buy into your ideas that everyone must out their pronouns in advance because you think you are so special.

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

#126

Post by p2detar »

pseudalopex wrote: post #99
p2detar wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's right. I use they/them. My question remains, though. True, it might be rare now, but it doesn't necessarily going to be rare in the future.

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

#127

Post by TameAntelope »

justaman wrote: post #122
TameAntelope wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think gender has a bearing on how one feels about oneself, and does one's self image have an impact on their performance?

I think there is a problem today when people put their sexuality as a cornerstone of their personality. I think its an important aspect of who you are but far from most important. This over emphasis on self identification can create negative feelings about the self if one were to not conform to whats expected.

Aren't you worried that your judgement of other people's personalities and what they think is important to them could be needlessly harmful?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but what gives you the right to tell other people what's important to them, given the vastly different set of life experiences everyone has?

Maybe if someone was throwing their life away to addiction, but an otherwise functioning and happy person doesn't seem like someone who wants to hear what you think of their life, and would seemingly prefer to just be called by the identifier they've chosen and then otherwise left alone by you.

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

#128

Post by pseudalopex »

justaman wrote: post #122
TameAntelope wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think gender has a bearing on how one feels about oneself, and does one's self image have an impact on their performance?

I think there is a problem today when people put their sexuality as a cornerstone of their personality. I think its an important aspect of who you are but far from most important. This over emphasis on self identification can create negative feelings about the self if one were to not conform to whats expected.

Gender and sexuality are orthogonal.

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

#129

Post by pseudalopex »

p2detar wrote: post #126
pseudalopex wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's right. I use they/them. My question remains, though. True, it might be rare now, but it doesn't necessarily going to be rare in the future.

People accept they because it was an English pronoun already. They'll stop using he and she before they accept custom pronouns.

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

#130

Post by pseudalopex »

pseudo0 wrote: post #121
pseudalopex wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often but not always. Given name is too informal in some situations. Completely avoiding pronouns can sound awkward too.

The OP mentioned the technology industry, which tends to be pretty informal. At least personally, the vast majority of my correspondence uses first names rather than honorifics. I agree that it can be a bit stilted, but it's better than awkwardly mixing up a person's gender.

They said they worked in tech. They asked about industry generally.
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