Personal Pronouns & Their Place in Email Signatures
I recently had a conversation with someone who had just seen pronouns in an email signature for the first time. This was a couple of months ago, which means this conversation took place in the year of our lord 2021. This person asked me a lot of questions about this — is this normal? Why did they do that? Should she do it? etc. etc. etc. It turned into a great and very educational conversation.
Now, I’ve had my pronouns in my email signature for at least five years. I know plenty of other people who have also had pronouns in their email signatures for just as long, if not longer. From my perspective, this is not a new practice.
The addition of pronouns to email signatures seems to mimic the Technology Adoption Life Cycle. In this case, I suppose I could be seen as an innovator or early adopter — someone who took the risk early, leans towards higher education, strives to be a voice or a leader in my community.
Now, I am in no way saying the person I was talking to isn’t intelligent, she just happens to live in an area that’s populated by people that tend to be slow to adopt new innovations — people with a lot of conservative perspectives — the poorly labeled laggards.
Unfortunately, this is where we also run into the struggles of herd mentality. The people around her, the people she interacts with on the daily are still living in a world where pronouns in signatures are not the norm, so of course, she hadn’t come across it before.
Hi, I’m Clair. My pronouns are they/them/theirs and I am one of those people that has their personal pronouns in their email signature. I also happen to be one of those people who uses that “weird, new they/them pronoun“ (which isn’t new and has a ton of history, but that’s another conversation). The inclusion of my pronouns goes beyond just business correspondence. I have those bad boys in my personal email signature because I want to have productive conversations with people.
Email signatures exist for a reason, they are a great tool that can express important information in a quick, clean, and easy fashion. Think about how many times you’ve scrolled to a signature to get a quick tidbit of info — a phone number, a website, the correct spelling of someone’s name. So, why don’t we all include our pronouns?
I have read plenty of articles from people making very valid points against having their pronouns in their signatures. These arguments are usually coming from a few specific standpoints.
Being othered or seen as the odd-one-out with the unique signature
Personal safety and not wanting to make oneself an easy target for hateful attacks
Finally, connections and the fear that having pronouns could negatively affect a business or personal relationship
Don’t get me wrong, these arguments are 100% valid. To be the only person in a group that has their pronouns can feel like someone has put a target on your back and in a business setting, that can be dangerous. The business world is still mostly a man’s world. It’s still steeped in, to be frank, fucked up traditions. Being the odd-one-out does not always a-good-impression-make.
If we all take steps towards standardizing inclusion in email signatures, we can normalize the practice of important, but almost invisible introductions.
I don’t want to focus this proposal on specific individuals. I want to take the “responsibility” out of the hands of the people who typically have to fight for inclusive practice and place it into the hands of entire organizations.
It shouldn’t be the responsibility of one person or a few people to fight for something that holds this much weight in terms of inclusive practice.
Having a company policy that states “personal pronouns are to be included in email signatures” says a lot about your company and its values. It says that you are here to support those who may not feel supported. It says that you stand behind progress and change. It may even say that you stand up against bullying and aggression and you don’t plan to work with those that can’t respect someone’s talent and skill over their identity. But statements like this also require action to be taken when something falls outside those stated values.
I feel like I need to say that again, for the people in the back: If your company is making statements about inclusive practice and values, they need to be backed up by actions and practices.
Having pronouns on profiles, or in an email signature is such a small adjustment, but it really does make a difference. Having this information up-front creates a comfortable space for new conversations. It offers immediate, important information, that can relieve any awkward missteps or misguided “jokes” about how one can ~never know these days~. *insert world’s largest eye-roll here*
I recently got a new job, which is very exciting, but as most people have experienced, starting a new job comes with its own hurdles. With my new position, I got lucky enough to work at a company that is inclusive and accepting. It isn’t perfect, there are some growing pains, one of which happens to be the fight to get pronouns in email signatures as an official policy.
My immediate supervisor is one of the people making the argument for pronouns in email signatures. She had started this conversation before I was even on her team. We are at a very large, international company, and there are a lot of conversations going on while we are in the middle of a massive cultural shift.
I’m looking forward to being able to update this article in the future with a success story and more information about the process of working with a company to make these changes from the inside.
All that said, with pride month coming to a close, what better way to show your ally-ship isn’t just performative rainbow-washing than taking a simple step towards inclusive practices.
Thanks for reading, and let’s keep fighting for inclusive spaces and practices.
*Just a quick side note: let’s move away from saying preferred pronouns. This topic could be an entire article on its own, but saying preferred rather than personal belittles people’s identities to a preference rather than a solid fact.
This article was originally published on Medium by Counter Arts.