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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?

#141

Post by jfengel »

gruez wrote: post #79
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".

Follow up question, given that women have been in the workplace for 50+ years, why wasn't it an issue back then, and only presented itself now?

It was. People with ambiguous names lived with it, correcting people after the fact. So did long-haired men and short-haired women. They weren't happy about it, but didn't have a good way to fix it.

Now they do. The solution was always available, of course, but there wasn't much pressure to implement it because it was merely a nuisance. It's more than a nuisance for people whose pronouns change or whose physical appearance leads people to the wrong pronouns. So they decided to implement the solution, along with people who are sympathetic to putting for the minimal effort to help them.

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

#142

Post by [deleted] »

gruez wrote: post #79
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".

Follow up question, given that women have been in the workplace for 50+ years, why wasn't it an issue back then, and only presented itself now?

[deleted]

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

#143

Post by pseudalopex »

jfengel wrote: post #141
gruez wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Follow up question, given that women have been in the workplace for 50+ years, why wasn't it an issue back then, and only presented itself now?

It was. People with ambiguous names lived with it, correcting people after the fact. So did long-haired men and short-haired women. They weren't happy about it, but didn't have a good way to fix it. Now they do. The solution was always available, of course, but there wasn't much pressure to implement it because it was merely a nuisance. It's more than a nuisance for people whose pronouns change or whose physical appe…

Gender roles were stricter too. Business correspondence used honorifics more. People with "ethnic" names changed them to fit in.

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

#144

Post by etrautmann »

jgwil2 wrote: post #108
dentemple wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Even in the West, we have plenty of unisex names that could easily fit both men and women. E.g., "Alex", "Morgan", "Reese", "Taylor", etc. For non-Western names, not everyone would be familiar with the cultural context behind the language's naming schemes or gender context.

Yep, in France it is recommended that if you have a non-Western name, you put "monsieur" or "madame" in front of your name on CVs, etc. to help prevent confusion on the part of potential readers.

A large question, however, is why gender is relevant on a CV...

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

#145

Post by adontz »

jgwil2 wrote: post #120
adontz wrote: post #11

I am from Georgia, (the country not state). My coworkers are generally LGBT neutral or friendly, never heard anything bad from anyone. I personally attend most pro-LGBT rallies. In our language, the Georgian language, there is just one pronoun for all genders, so we don't care. I personally consider enforcing others' choice of specific words in their speech a generally questionable practice.

> In our language, the Georgian language, there is just one pronoun for all genders, so we don't care. That's a nice feature! As mentioned elsewhere, some languages (e.g. German) gender literally every noun, which makes it very complicated to adapt the language to these new conventions. English is comparatively lucky in that for the most part only pronouns are gendered. In English, gendered words for professions, lik…

Yes, there are no gender-specific occupation names in Georgian.

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

#146

Post by lamontcg »

ceejayoz wrote: post #68
pX3q54Q55945w7E wrote: post #39

I 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…

> To me the practice feels like taking off one’s lower body half garment to expose the genitalia. Do you feel the same way about Mr/Mrs titles?

Yeah it feels incredibly old fashioned and stilted when someone refers to me as "Mister" or "Sir" or anything like that.

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

#147

Post by RhysU »

jgwil2 wrote: post #120
adontz wrote: post #11

I am from Georgia, (the country not state). My coworkers are generally LGBT neutral or friendly, never heard anything bad from anyone. I personally attend most pro-LGBT rallies. In our language, the Georgian language, there is just one pronoun for all genders, so we don't care. I personally consider enforcing others' choice of specific words in their speech a generally questionable practice.

> In our language, the Georgian language, there is just one pronoun for all genders, so we don't care. That's a nice feature! As mentioned elsewhere, some languages (e.g. German) gender literally every noun, which makes it very complicated to adapt the language to these new conventions. English is comparatively lucky in that for the most part only pronouns are gendered. In English, gendered words for professions, lik…

"Actress" was still in use at the 2020 Academy Awards: https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/09/entertainment/oscars-winners-...

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

#148

Post by ryandrake »

Grumbledour wrote: post #89
gruez wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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-binar…

From my high school German decades ago, I remember that all nouns have a built-in gender, which changes articles and adjectives around the words. Has the recent inclusion trend affected the language? Do you have to say der/die Lampe, ein/eine Stuhl in order to be inclusive? Or do you just use das for everything? Or has it not affected how you say inanimate objects?

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

#149

Post by Grumbledour »

ryandrake wrote: post #148
Grumbledour wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-binar…

From my high school German decades ago, I remember that all nouns have a built-in gender, which changes articles and adjectives around the words. Has the recent inclusion trend affected the language? Do you have to say der/die Lampe, ein/eine Stuhl in order to be inclusive? Or do you just use das for everything? Or has it not affected how you say inanimate objects?

It hasn't really affected the language outside of some fringe groups and doing what you suggest is the kind of behavior that gets regularly made fun of when someone tries it.

For most germans, this seems silly, since we don't know or care why specific objects have a specific gender. Why are spoons male, forks female and knives neuter? Who knows? But then again, using the wrong pronoun still often sounds really weird to us, so no just using "das" for everything.

But of course, there are words where it can matter, especially since der/die/das are also used to refer to peoples positions for example. So I always thought having a neutral word accepted by others like 'the' in english could help german to get easier for everyone to learn while also making many things more gender neutral.

Incidentally, the language is changing here, but not because of gender issues, but rather because we incorporated many foreign words, often english, in the last decades and also many new immigrants have come to germany with not as good a grasp on the language. So, if you ask People for example which pronoun to use for "Blog", you will get three different answers. And while people poke fun at it, it is also not unusual to hear someone say something like "der Frau". People then just assume you are not very fluent in german but that's about it.

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

#150

Post by kevbin »

schwartzworld wrote: post #92

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…

“Lady, I’ll call you when we have have Addams Family Values!”
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