Gender pronouns in the workplace

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anon90438963 said:
It is simply a matter of culture. Ma’am clearly marks someone as “not being from here.” It just isn’t and never has been a title of respect in these parts.
I kinda like Madame myself, although that would be a problem as well 🙂
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I use Madam with the clients I work with, and there has never been a complaint, to my knowledge.
 
Bruised_Reed said:
This hasn’t always been true, mainly because the English language doesn’t have a singular pronoun for an unknown gender. They/them has been used for a couple of centuries now.
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Just shows how old-fashioned I am! I still use ‘we needs must’ and stick to the original meaning of ‘renegade’(a baptized Christian who renounces the faith and becomes a Muslim)!
 
AlbertDerGrosse said:
You know I only very recently learned of this (oblivious man that I am), and I gotta say it feels so strange to be “rooting”, as it were, for radical feminists. The Progressive paradigm of tolerating all identities at all costs is actually consuming itself because blind tolerance has no mechanism in place to decide which identity should be tolerated at the expense of another mutually exclusive identity.

I remember seeing these conflicts first begin to arise 10 years ago during the Prop 8 fiasco here in California when liberal gays suddenly found racism appealing because religious Blacks overwhelmingly voted in favor of traditional marriage, while the straight WASPy “allies” were left scratching their heads not knowing which group to direct their savior complex toward. Are the Blacks being homophobic? Are the gays being racist?

It’ll be interesting to continue watching this conflict between the Trans-exclusionary Feminists and the Trans-inclusionary Feminists (did I use those terms correctly?)
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Those terms are particularly problematic, because the acronym TERF ( Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist) is used as a pejorative and it’s not accurate - those for whom it is used are not against trans people, they are concerned about the erosion of women’s and girls rights. And by that, I simply mean the rights to single sex spaces, like hospital wards, prisons, refuges etc. For those who hold to this (unbelievably controversial!) Viewpoint, they prefer ‘gender critical’. Also, I am not a radical feminist and I still get called a TERF. Which is utter nonsense as a fairly conservative Catholic.
 
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE: There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me

As if I were their well-acquainted friend;

And every one doth call me by my name.

The Comedy of Errors Act 4 Scene 3
by William Shakespeare
 
Well of course I respect a person who says it. I was simply describing a cultural matter that is much different here in the north than south–or military, as I don’t see many students in the military. I am merely interested in cultural differences.
 
I understand that there’s controversy with the term, but I’m unaware of any others commonly used to distinguish between the two positions within feminism. Do you know of any alternatives?
 
I grew up in a conservative city that had some fairly strong views transexuals, alternative lifestyles, non gender, gender pronoun preferences. Being an older person I expect as the years go for more of the people that had been on college campuses protesting for these things to become the HR employees that are writing corporate policies for how these things are handled. But my plan is to avoid gender pronouns if at all possible.

My first significant run-in with these were when I decided to try out a dating site; being in an industry that is overwhelmingly dominated by men I didn’t really encounter many women in the environments in which I found myself. I was trying to figure out why these random dudes can showing up in suggestions. Basically the dating site recognized gender identity. Pardon me for using the names of sex organs in the following, but it wasn’t enough to say that you are a man seeking a woman as someone identifying as a man could actually have a vagina or someone identifying as a woman could have a penis.

For the sake of making it to retirement I don’t plan to raise a fuss over this. Thankfully over 95% of the people that I encounter in a day conform to the traditional usage of these pronouns. But internally I always think about that phrase that Dave Chapel once said; "To what degree am I obligated to participate in your self image. "

Anyone remember the movie “Kindergarten Cop”? There was a kid in there that said “Boys have a penis, Girls have a vagina.” I think some will call that hate speech now.

While there are many things with which I disagree with the man Jordon Peterson of Canada said a lot with which I agree on this topic. His claim to fame is that he opposed Canada codifying the use of preferred gender pronouns into law (Canada Bill C-16, which passed). I’d suggest looking up what he has to say on bill C-16 on Youtube for some thought provoking comments on the topic.
 
Oh I know. I used to get all sorts of looks for it (my dad was from Philadelphia so I spent more summers up north than in the south). Of course, with him being military, so did he. 😄😄

Between a Virginian mother and a Navy father, we had no choice in the matter. Sir/ma’am or else. LOL.
 
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Proponents of this practice claim that it’s the same courtesy as calling somebody by the name they prefer.

There’s a key difference. I don’t make a big show of it in my emails: “Best regards, Jennifer. But remember my preferred nickname, Jen.”

Nor am I going to throw a hissy fit if someone didn’t read my mind:

“Hi, Jennifer!”
“Did you just assume my name?? It’s Jen! I go by JEN!!”

Instead, it comes up politely and informally: “Actually, you can just call me Jen. It’s nice to meet you.”

That reminds me, courtesy runs both ways. People should be kind and gracious in their corrections. A couple of weeks ago, a deep-voiced stranger with a little facial hair bit my head off when I addressed her as “Sir.” “I’m a MISS, thank you very much!!” I actually won’t argue with what people want to be called, but rudeness is unnecessary.
 
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AlbertDerGrosse said:
It’ll be interesting to continue watching this conflict between the Trans-exclusionary Feminists and the Trans-inclusionary Feminists (did I use those terms correctly?)
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This makes me think of my sister. She was out with some other ladies and a trans-woman (person born with a penis that identifies as a woman) was trying to self-interject into the group as being a lady just like them. My sister told me about the uncomfortable interaction. “Unless there’s a way for him to experience having a period I’m not going to consider him a woman like me.”

There was a college campus that cancelled their yearly showing of “The Vagina Monologues.” (I don’t know if that’s a play or a spoken word event or the details) They said that it discriminated against women without vaginas. The person that originally created this said “The Vagina monologues isn’t about what it is like to be a woman. It is about what it is like to have a vagina.”
 
Usually, in my experience the Transactivist group are liberal feminists or they like to call it ‘intersectional feminism’. Which is a bit of a highjacked term in itself and originally meant including the very specific issues women of colour face, but has become a sort of catch-all ‘feminism means including everyone’s problems’ idea.
 
blackforest said:
Nor am I going to through a hissy fit if someone didn’t read my mind:

“Hi, Jennifer!”
“Did you just assume my name?? It’s Jen! I go by JEN!!”

Instead, it comes up politely and informally: “Actually, you can just call me Jen. It’s nice to meet you.”
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I have the opposite problem.

I introduce myself by my full name - we’ll say “Puppers”, and the next word out of someone’s mouth is, “Hello, Pup!”

I do correct them. “It’s Puppers, please.” I actually don’t like my name as it is and wish I’d changed it years and years ago, so someone hacking off the end is really annoying.
 
I’m guessing this is the directive of some snowflake millennial girl who happened to be hired by HR. Don’t give an inch as they’ll take a mile. Don’t be dictated the language you’re going to speak by people who can’t even get the basics and simple things right.
 
Polite correction is fair. Our culture has just gotten so touchy about all-things-sexuality that some people have forgotten to be kind and patient with one another on these issues.

Puppers. LOL! 🤣
 
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Pup7 said:
I do correct them. “It’s Puppers, please.” I actually don’t like my name as it is and wish I’d changed it years and years ago, so someone hacking off the end is really annoying.
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I think the difference between what BruisedReed was talking about and what you’re talking about here is the ascribing of malice to an otherwise innocuous mistake. I’ve made the mistake of assuming too much of a casual relationship with a “William” and called him “Bill”, for which I was embarrassed and apologetic once he’d correct me. I can promise you I didn’t do it due to being anti-William or Williamophobic.

Edit: Not BruisedReed! @blackforest ! What an unfortunate mistake. Will you at least do me the favor of letting me pick which reeducation camp I attend? :confused:
 
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AlbertDerGrosse said:
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE: There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me

As if I were their well-acquainted friend;

And every one doth call me by my name.

The Comedy of Errors Act 4 Scene 3
by William Shakespeare
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Ah, you’ve quoted my man! I am a huge Shakespeare fan, but he is not the one to go to for proper grammar, I am afraid. Double negatives, redundancies, and other grammatical gaffes(such as ‘He don’t know’ and the like)abound in his works, which are however forgivable under poetic license. The intentions of the modern-day would-be societal reformers do not appear, however, to include an improvement of the rules of poetry-writing.
 
LOL that’s what I call my dog. Puppers. Pup7 is what was on his microchip when we got him from the shelter. He didn’t even have a name, poor little guy.
AlbertDerGrosse said:
I think the difference between what BlackForest was talking about and what you’re talking about here is the ascribing of malice to an otherwise innocuous mistake. I’ve made the mistake of assuming too much of a casual relationship with a “William” and called him “Bill”, for which I was embarrassed and apologetic once he’d correct me. I can promise you I didn’t do it due to being anti-William or Williamophobic.
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But my point was this: if you’ve never met me, and I introduce myself by my full name, I did that for a reason - so for the literal next sentence out of someone’s mouth contain a hacking of the name I just gave is pretty rude. Someone has introduced themselves with how they’d like to be addressed. This happens constantly with people I’ve never met before. It’s happened with customer service reps on the telephone - they read my name and literally assume they can shorten it. It’s crazy to me.

Actually had a complete stranger say to me after I said, “It’s Puppers, please” that “But everyone goes by Pup.”

I let that person live, but it was a tough decision. 😆😆

Flip what Blackforest said…

“Hi, I’m Jennifer.”
“Nice to meet you, Jen.”

Noooooooo…
 
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Mea culpa!

I have username privilege and I sometimes forget that others don’t have a normal name like me. 😛
 
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