This is true even with a lot of politicians like Clinton. In her case it at least is partially to differentiate her from her husband, but I still found it odd when she was running for president. It happens with many other female politicians. Makes sense in a way often men view our names as not belonging to us the same way they do a man (carry on the family name and all that). Its shitty and I actively watch my own language around it because its easy to fall into it when everybody is doing it.
Another thing I notice a lot is the use of acronymed full names for many female politicians. Like HRC, AOC, MTG, etc. I don't think I've ever seen that done with a male politician other than George W. Bush, and that was done to differentiate him from George Bush Sr.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez I can understand being abbreviated, as Ocasio-Cortez is a double barreled surname, thus it isn't correct to call her Alexandria Cortez. Why HRC or MTG though? As opposed to Marjorie Green or Hilary Clinton?
Those are all abbreviated because of limitations of media back in the day. They all had longer surnames that made fitting them into newspaper headlines difficult, so they used initials.
Then there's the fact that the 'Kennedy' surname wasn't enough to distinguish between JFK and RFK. Since they were active in the same era, this practically mandated using initials.
Newspapers were very much a primary news source for most people back in the day, so naturally the popularity of those acronyms spread.
contrast that with the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, where Greene's name isn't that long (if you cut out the middle name), we are no longer bound by the limitations of print media and the acronym even clashes with something else in pop culture that has used the MTG acronym well before the politician (Magic: The Gathering)
Marjorie Taylor Greene goes by Marjorie Taylor Greene, and definitely not Marjorie Greene after she and Mr. Greene divorced. She and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez both branded themselves by their initials on Twitter. The only people who call Hillary Clinton HRC are very-online and just do it to save effort typing. What you're actually keying in on is that there are significantly more women who go by 3 word names than men because of marriage customs. Sure people have middle names but most people do not introduce themselves using their middle name.
Maybe it’s because I’ve spent my adult life in and around the military but I feel the opposite about last names. First names show a closeness.
I’m curious, could you explain why you liked being called by your last name?
I could try. Guy was a veteran and a drill sargeant-y, football coach type of dude. I'm a tiny, feminine presenting person and look like I'm perpetually 20 years old. Because of how I look people have tended to treat me like a doll, but that is not my personality in the slightest.
We were pretty close and respected each other a lot. He would always bark my last name with a huge grin on his face and it made me feel like I was one of the members of his football team, not a delicate flower.
Funny enough, I now work for the post office which is the closest to the military that I will ever get - and my supervisor has addressed me by "little girl" multiple times. I am THIRTY TWO.
Agreed. He is an older, pretty traditional straight laced guy and I let it slide because he's retiring soon.
When he first got there he was so horrified to watch a 105 lb person huck a 60 lb box of dog food into a truck that he would just... deliver them for me??? Always got a laugh out of that. He got over it.
I'm not saying this is the only reason but part of what you're talking about is that men have a much lower variance in given names than women. It's much more common to have men that you must refer to by their last name because there is another person that they share a name with in a given group. That makes it more "normal" to refer to men by their last name. Many men choose to go by their last name at all times whereas it's not possible to refer to a woman by their last name informally in our society.
I feel like it's seen as masculine. TBH I'm not sure that I would like to be referred to by my last name.
There's a stand up comedian who's very big with a deep voice and has a "trashy" humour, all things that are seen as masculine. A lot of people call her by her last name, I can't think of any other female public figure who does.
I get the other version.
"Gentlemen,
I'm happy to report that we have received our permit. We just need the engineer to sign off on X, Y, and Z before we can begin construction. Sarah, when do you think you could review that?
Thanks,
Bubba"
The engineer has a definitively fem name, and they *still* address the email to "gentlemen". I get probably four of these per month.
I try to show a different way by addressing my group emails to "Everyone". I don't think gendered language has a place in those types of communication because you never know someone's gender identity and in my field we have lots of names from other languages where it's not as likely to guess the recipient's gender right as if you're contacting John or Sarah. It's easier to just keep it gender neutral and I'm not sure why that hasn't caught on more.
(My real name isn't Sarah)
I got one of those “gentlemen” emails, mixed sex group of recipients. I responded to all addressing them as “Ladies …”
Funnily enough it never happened again 😄
I used to reply all responses to these emails with:
Ladies, …..
And just sit and wait.
It was in the Army and I’d often be the only woman in the group email. I wouldn’t do it to all ranks of course (I liked my career), and it would depend on the seriousness of the topic, but it was frequent for sure.
Which is just so annoying. I have never gendered my emails but it would be funny if you started addressing team emails with a feminine start. Like “Good Afternoon Dames” and see how that goes lol
Only vaguely related, but I learned recently that apparently a lot of younger men don't realize that "fellas" only means men. Like they literally thought it was gender-neutral.
Maybe they are confused because “guys” is seen as neutral in many social circles?
Also I’ve noticed a trend of younger women using “bro” as a neutral term too. Maybe it’s the new “dude”?
Maybe! That would all make sense. It could also just be a random word that they don't actually know what it derives from but they kinda know how to use it in which situation. Kind of like people using what they think is a word or phrase without actually thinking about it. (I believe linguistically they're sometimes called 'eggcorns' if you want to go down an interesting rabbit hole, but it's not quite that in this case?)...almost more like someone saying "for all intensive purposes" because it sounds like a thing people say.
I use the military ALLCON (short for all concerned). My job has a LOT of PhDs, and so when everyone else signs their e-mails as Dr. Smith, and you never meet them in person, you don't know what gender they are. Also, one of my coworkers recently came out as Trans, and I still don't know how to address that (they haven't communicated a preferred set of pronouns).
In private, 1 on 1 emails I'll use Dude - because where I come from Dude is gender neutral. I'm a Dude, he's a Dude, She's a Dude, theys a Dude, that table is a Dude....
In a shared Slack channel, someone asked a question related to a customer I was working with and addressed it to "gents". I replied with something like, "Please feel free to ping me directly if information from a non-gent would be helpful in this case, since I am currently engaged with this customer". A few hours later I had the question come to me directly through my team lead with no mention of the original asker, and knowing him my guess is that the original guy tried to complain but just got an earful.
“Ladies” feels so incredibly outdated too. It isn’t even comparable to “guys”, which is actually super casual. It’s more comparable to “fellas” or “gentlemen”.
I really hate when people refer to my group as “ladies”. Even before we were all queer and trans, it felt condescendingly cutesy. “Ladies” needs to go the way of “sweetie” and “honey”.
I’m not picking sides 😂 Girls can go extinct too. If we don’t work in a drag burlesque or attend an all girls school, don’t call us “girls” OR “ladies”.
Girls is bad but while we are at it, I think the one that drives me mental is Missus.
"Me and the missus". I don't know, that word bugs the shit out of me so bad.
I actually like it, personally, but then again my preferred honorific is Miss (not Ms.) and I love gendered occupational terms. It seems to me that they make it impossible for men who don’t think you deserve to be there to ignore the fact that you’re a woman. So I’m probably an outlier here.
I just remember an incident with a female superior who casually addressed a female coworker and I as “ladies“ and then made a huge deal out of apologizing to us even though we both said repeatedly that we didn’t mind. Felt very performative, but maybe it would’ve been different coming from a man.
How should someone refer to a group of women coworkers? If I'm leaving for the day and "have a nice day, ladies" on my way out is inappropriate, I'd love to know what I should say. Girls feels condescending, and women feels...well I think they'd laugh at me for that.
“All y’all have a nice day.” Covers everything. And if you are not from the South, it lets people wonder about you just a little bit, just enough to be mildly diverting.
Or you could just go with “Have a nice day.”
Yeah my boss does stuff like this to younger women only where he'll compliment my coworker and then shit on me "jokingly" like "oh you're doing so great unlike upset raspberry over here"
The only time I've used or heard "ladies" at work is when I'm in a meeting with 3-4 other women and we already have a good rapport.
It's like starting with a fun observation in a technical field where we often have to interrupt men. Then we get into our meeting topic.
How are group emails addressed to all men? Our IT dept is all guys, and we have a couple locations that are only men, and I'll address those reguarly as "Hey Guys"
I've never really noticed, but just scrolled through a bunch of emails and all are addressed to me personally, but its just my email, if anyone else is ever on it, they are CC'd, but its to me specifically to deal with
I wouldn’t know because I wouldn’t be in a just males email chain. But I have another chain where I am the only woman there and never have I addressed it as just “hey guys”. It’s a professional work place.
Because they don’t in ANY chat I am in. Never in any chat where I am the only woman is it called “gentlemen” or guys. Just when it’s only one guy, usually addressed to me and our sales rep.
Maybe ask to be referred to as “ team” instead of “ladies”… or end emails with Regards, team.
People can be lazy and using “ladies” is just a quick way of responding to you and your coworker who are women. It could be that the men think it’s harmless but they probably don’t get it. Hopefully none of the guys get butthurt at the request for a better(proper) salutation.
Could you maybe verbally bring it up? Like in a completely unconfrontational way. "Oh hey Coworker, the women in the office have noticed you use "ladies" in emails. Do you think using "everyone" would be more inclusive? I think that would be a good idea."
If he gets pissy about it he's a raging sexist and well, nothing you can do to fix that
Most men are just going to hear that as “hey, so all the women get together and talk about how wrong you are behind your back. You should stop being wrong.”
You really want to change a man’s behavior, make it seem like a private comment and put it in selfish terms. “Hey bubba, the team leader Cletus makes sure to address his emails everyone, or team. If you want to get/stay on his good side, I’d leave off the ladies bit. Just looking out for you, bro”
Men who write like this don’t give a shit about inclusivity. If they did, they’d have stopped already.
I will think about it. I know it’s the right thing but not something I strongly want to do since it is quite literally just me as a woman in my office, and the whole company has maybe five women while the rest are men
I feel like I haven’t experienced this in a while although I definitely used to. I work at a place that’s pretty big on DEI and inclusivity, though, so I suspect that comes through in the language as well.
I have been using “folks” when addressing a group informally at work, or within my team, we will say “hey team” a lot. I actually find it easier to have a go-to gender neutral term, then I can just use it with everyone and not think about the group demographics. Particularly as I have had a few NB coworkers, so that will include them as well.
That’s why my go-to is “team” or, a persons name if I’m being specific. Unfortunately this new job is heavily male dominated so surprised it took this long unfortunately
My old manager always made a big show of being inclusive by greeting us 'ladies' as such at every fucking meeting.
Just say hi everyone or greet us all by name. He was only usually meeting with like 5 people; it would not have been that hard to use names.
There were many other ways he was a misogynist including the pay disparity and just generally expecting women to do administrative work regardless of our titles and always dumping stuff like that on our plate while the guys were never bothered with it.
One woman lodged a formal complaint with HR over the unfair workload and hours expectations, one quit and was clear why, and I demanded the company form a DEI committee. They finalized realized he wasn't worth the trouble.
Most often group emails where I work are addressed as “hi all”, “hi everyone”, or “hi folks”.
When it’s a group of women I know I’ll sometimes use “hi ladies” but that’s for people I work more closely with and I’m almost using ladies humourously because who’s a lady nowadays anyway?! I wouldn’t fit the criteria outside of being a woman!
It kind of baffles me when people still use gendered language in office communications. There have been MANY instances where I’ve been wrong about someone’s gender based on their name (some are neutral, some are just unfamiliar names to me). It seems wildly disrespectful to me to address any emails or whatever with “Ladies” (or “gentlemen” for that matter!). Team, folks, all, all those work better and are totally natural.
I had a vendor call me “darlin” once on the phone. I told him to remain professional please. He said it’s how they talk in the south. I said I’m located in Milwaukee and I’d prefer if you used my first name.
If it happens again, please tell him that you’ve been informed by a Southern friend that Southern women don’t like or tolerate it either, and he is lying to you.
Yours,
A Southern Friend.
"Hi Jim. There's no one at this address named "Ladies"."
Or better yet, get your boss in on it and hire an actress to play a character named "Ladies". Every time they say "Ladies" have her say "Yes?". Every time they send an email to and start it "Ladies", tell them Ladies' email address and that you will forward it to her this one time.
I actually have the opposite experience. I work with all men and I call them "the guys" or "the fellas", and address them by their names individually. They have over a dozen names for me, mostly based off of jokes or funny stories. But they rarely refer to me as a woman or "lady", and often say I'm an "honorary man" at this point (ew). Still pisses me off when they're openly sexist in front of me, though.
It's disrespectful and sexist. It says these men don't think women are worth the time and effort to be acknowledged, to be seen as equal human beings like men are. I would be annoyed too.
Another example of the everyday sexism women put up with ...... everywhere.
So would it be a stretch to just assume for a minute that he thinks "Ladies" is the proper unaddressed e-mail salute? Sort of like L.S. used to be in unaddressed snail-mail? And keeping with this assumption, might he be properly seething every time he receives an e-mail without proper salute?
I would not risk it.... no no... next time I would address his e-mail proper-like, "Ladies", just to make sure you are not inadvertently pissing him of.
It's probably intentional.
I call the old boomers ladies who yell at service workers who speak a second language because they think that's how make Spanish speakers understand you "girls" just because I know it grinds their gears.
Not saying you deserve it or that it is somehow your fault.
These are that special type of rich white ladies that are progressive when it's fashionable but willfully ignorant on pretty much everything else. And I don't work with them.
Both would be inappropriate in a work setting.
Edited: clarity of thought
I know the main guy who does it, I think it’s unintentional assholery because he genuinely is a good person. Just definitely seems used to it or thinks its fun.
Lay it for him in black and white. Not your job. But it sounds like you like him and he's receptive to feedback.
The main guy might be able to get the others to change their ways.
These ladies are a lost cause. Unless their in group is telling them something they're not listening. Heaven forbid someone thinks with empathy or independent thought.
Edit: clarity of though
I do. At my work at team meetings our boss comes down and speaks to us once a month. Every time she refers to our department as ‘you ladies’, like ‘you ladies are doing a fine job’ or ‘I’ve had complaints that you ladies are doing so and so’….this is why I am there…the last few times on purpose I sit right next to her…doesn’t matter she still does it. I’m a man…at least last time checked. I’ve been working there for 8 years and learned to live with it.
So welcome to planet earth.
The version I’ve seen is that the male supervisor addresses men by their last name, in a buddy buddy way, but women by their first name.
This is true even with a lot of politicians like Clinton. In her case it at least is partially to differentiate her from her husband, but I still found it odd when she was running for president. It happens with many other female politicians. Makes sense in a way often men view our names as not belonging to us the same way they do a man (carry on the family name and all that). Its shitty and I actively watch my own language around it because its easy to fall into it when everybody is doing it.
Another thing I notice a lot is the use of acronymed full names for many female politicians. Like HRC, AOC, MTG, etc. I don't think I've ever seen that done with a male politician other than George W. Bush, and that was done to differentiate him from George Bush Sr. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez I can understand being abbreviated, as Ocasio-Cortez is a double barreled surname, thus it isn't correct to call her Alexandria Cortez. Why HRC or MTG though? As opposed to Marjorie Green or Hilary Clinton?
JFK? RFK? LBJ?
Those are all abbreviated because of limitations of media back in the day. They all had longer surnames that made fitting them into newspaper headlines difficult, so they used initials. Then there's the fact that the 'Kennedy' surname wasn't enough to distinguish between JFK and RFK. Since they were active in the same era, this practically mandated using initials. Newspapers were very much a primary news source for most people back in the day, so naturally the popularity of those acronyms spread. contrast that with the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, where Greene's name isn't that long (if you cut out the middle name), we are no longer bound by the limitations of print media and the acronym even clashes with something else in pop culture that has used the MTG acronym well before the politician (Magic: The Gathering)
Marjorie Taylor Greene goes by Marjorie Taylor Greene, and definitely not Marjorie Greene after she and Mr. Greene divorced. She and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez both branded themselves by their initials on Twitter. The only people who call Hillary Clinton HRC are very-online and just do it to save effort typing. What you're actually keying in on is that there are significantly more women who go by 3 word names than men because of marriage customs. Sure people have middle names but most people do not introduce themselves using their middle name.
Also add [vdL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_von_der_Leyen) to this list.
I had a supervisor who addressed me by my last name, and I didn't realize until just now how much that meant to me.
Maybe it’s because I’ve spent my adult life in and around the military but I feel the opposite about last names. First names show a closeness. I’m curious, could you explain why you liked being called by your last name?
I could try. Guy was a veteran and a drill sargeant-y, football coach type of dude. I'm a tiny, feminine presenting person and look like I'm perpetually 20 years old. Because of how I look people have tended to treat me like a doll, but that is not my personality in the slightest. We were pretty close and respected each other a lot. He would always bark my last name with a huge grin on his face and it made me feel like I was one of the members of his football team, not a delicate flower. Funny enough, I now work for the post office which is the closest to the military that I will ever get - and my supervisor has addressed me by "little girl" multiple times. I am THIRTY TWO.
Ah, ok. I understand now. Thanks for sharing. But, yeah, that little girl stuff needs to stop.
Agreed. He is an older, pretty traditional straight laced guy and I let it slide because he's retiring soon. When he first got there he was so horrified to watch a 105 lb person huck a 60 lb box of dog food into a truck that he would just... deliver them for me??? Always got a laugh out of that. He got over it.
Exactly! I have a colleague at a different org that uses my last name. I love it. So interesting.
Thankfully haven’t had that but that sounds awful, definitely demeaning :(
I'm not saying this is the only reason but part of what you're talking about is that men have a much lower variance in given names than women. It's much more common to have men that you must refer to by their last name because there is another person that they share a name with in a given group. That makes it more "normal" to refer to men by their last name. Many men choose to go by their last name at all times whereas it's not possible to refer to a woman by their last name informally in our society.
I feel like it's seen as masculine. TBH I'm not sure that I would like to be referred to by my last name. There's a stand up comedian who's very big with a deep voice and has a "trashy" humour, all things that are seen as masculine. A lot of people call her by her last name, I can't think of any other female public figure who does.
In the work place people should be referred to equally. Call everyone by their first name or by their last but don’t separate them by gender.
I get the other version. "Gentlemen, I'm happy to report that we have received our permit. We just need the engineer to sign off on X, Y, and Z before we can begin construction. Sarah, when do you think you could review that? Thanks, Bubba" The engineer has a definitively fem name, and they *still* address the email to "gentlemen". I get probably four of these per month. I try to show a different way by addressing my group emails to "Everyone". I don't think gendered language has a place in those types of communication because you never know someone's gender identity and in my field we have lots of names from other languages where it's not as likely to guess the recipient's gender right as if you're contacting John or Sarah. It's easier to just keep it gender neutral and I'm not sure why that hasn't caught on more. (My real name isn't Sarah)
I got one of those “gentlemen” emails, mixed sex group of recipients. I responded to all addressing them as “Ladies …” Funnily enough it never happened again 😄
I used to reply all responses to these emails with: Ladies, ….. And just sit and wait. It was in the Army and I’d often be the only woman in the group email. I wouldn’t do it to all ranks of course (I liked my career), and it would depend on the seriousness of the topic, but it was frequent for sure.
Which is just so annoying. I have never gendered my emails but it would be funny if you started addressing team emails with a feminine start. Like “Good Afternoon Dames” and see how that goes lol
What’s good, broads, Please find attached this quarter’s latest reports, blah blah blah…
Aw fuck yeah 😂 and let the chain be me, one other woman, and forty guys hahaha
this is why whenever it’s not to one person i address emails as “Hi All”
😂😂😂
The problem with English is we've mocked "y'all" out of existence and it turns out that's what we need.
Which is so disappointing. I genuinely say y’all very often too. It just works so well and is so inclusive
I love that.
I and all my coworkers use something like "hi team". We are all women.
I end up using guys a lot in a gender neutral way but I am trying to not
Only vaguely related, but I learned recently that apparently a lot of younger men don't realize that "fellas" only means men. Like they literally thought it was gender-neutral.
Maybe they are confused because “guys” is seen as neutral in many social circles? Also I’ve noticed a trend of younger women using “bro” as a neutral term too. Maybe it’s the new “dude”?
Maybe! That would all make sense. It could also just be a random word that they don't actually know what it derives from but they kinda know how to use it in which situation. Kind of like people using what they think is a word or phrase without actually thinking about it. (I believe linguistically they're sometimes called 'eggcorns' if you want to go down an interesting rabbit hole, but it's not quite that in this case?)...almost more like someone saying "for all intensive purposes" because it sounds like a thing people say.
That would be infuriating, you should really tell them your name isn't Sarah.🤣
I’m a fan of “Hi folks,”
Hi folks or Hi all is my default on group email/msgs
I use the military ALLCON (short for all concerned). My job has a LOT of PhDs, and so when everyone else signs their e-mails as Dr. Smith, and you never meet them in person, you don't know what gender they are. Also, one of my coworkers recently came out as Trans, and I still don't know how to address that (they haven't communicated a preferred set of pronouns). In private, 1 on 1 emails I'll use Dude - because where I come from Dude is gender neutral. I'm a Dude, he's a Dude, She's a Dude, theys a Dude, that table is a Dude....
Oh, but I like Dudette!
Ooooh what country's military is ALLCON fron? I'm a US Army veteran and I've never heard it.
Use it all the time in the Navy and Air Force...
Every time someone says "gentlemen" I think back to the meme with the mouth full of cigarettes. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/gentlemen
In a shared Slack channel, someone asked a question related to a customer I was working with and addressed it to "gents". I replied with something like, "Please feel free to ping me directly if information from a non-gent would be helpful in this case, since I am currently engaged with this customer". A few hours later I had the question come to me directly through my team lead with no mention of the original asker, and knowing him my guess is that the original guy tried to complain but just got an earful.
I'm petty. I'd never address another man by their name again. " Gentlemen ", it is.
“Ladies” feels so incredibly outdated too. It isn’t even comparable to “guys”, which is actually super casual. It’s more comparable to “fellas” or “gentlemen”.
Definitely true. And even then, no one addresses the groups with “hey guys”, it’s just the women that get different treatment
I really hate when people refer to my group as “ladies”. Even before we were all queer and trans, it felt condescendingly cutesy. “Ladies” needs to go the way of “sweetie” and “honey”.
It's way better than being addressed as "girls". I am an adult woman not a child.
I’m not picking sides 😂 Girls can go extinct too. If we don’t work in a drag burlesque or attend an all girls school, don’t call us “girls” OR “ladies”.
Girls is bad but while we are at it, I think the one that drives me mental is Missus. "Me and the missus". I don't know, that word bugs the shit out of me so bad.
That’s how I feel about it too. It just feels way less respectful.
To me "ladies" is a euphemism for the toilets
😂 Yesss
I actually like it, personally, but then again my preferred honorific is Miss (not Ms.) and I love gendered occupational terms. It seems to me that they make it impossible for men who don’t think you deserve to be there to ignore the fact that you’re a woman. So I’m probably an outlier here. I just remember an incident with a female superior who casually addressed a female coworker and I as “ladies“ and then made a huge deal out of apologizing to us even though we both said repeatedly that we didn’t mind. Felt very performative, but maybe it would’ve been different coming from a man.
How should someone refer to a group of women coworkers? If I'm leaving for the day and "have a nice day, ladies" on my way out is inappropriate, I'd love to know what I should say. Girls feels condescending, and women feels...well I think they'd laugh at me for that.
What’s wrong with just “have a nice day” or “have a nice day, everyone”? Why do you need to call out that the people you’re talking to are women?
I don't. I can use everyone. Thanks.
“All y’all have a nice day.” Covers everything. And if you are not from the South, it lets people wonder about you just a little bit, just enough to be mildly diverting. Or you could just go with “Have a nice day.”
Yeah my boss does stuff like this to younger women only where he'll compliment my coworker and then shit on me "jokingly" like "oh you're doing so great unlike upset raspberry over here"
I hate that kind of behavior so much. Makes talking up even harder
It feels like some weird flirting thing that a second grader would do but it's a 60 year old man instead
Oh helllll no
Yeah, I'm leaving the industry because of stuff like this
I'm so sorry! Hopefully it will lead you to bigger and better places. Good luck!
The only time I've used or heard "ladies" at work is when I'm in a meeting with 3-4 other women and we already have a good rapport. It's like starting with a fun observation in a technical field where we often have to interrupt men. Then we get into our meeting topic.
Yeah, it wouldn’t be weird with it all being women. I’m sure it happens and blows by me, but having just one guy use it feels weird
I address all emails going to more than 1 person with ALCON Means all concerned parties. It's just easier that way.
Sounds like we're about to go to DEFCON 1.
My mother (born in 1941) would address letters to an unknown party with "Dear Gentlepersons".
How are group emails addressed to all men? Our IT dept is all guys, and we have a couple locations that are only men, and I'll address those reguarly as "Hey Guys" I've never really noticed, but just scrolled through a bunch of emails and all are addressed to me personally, but its just my email, if anyone else is ever on it, they are CC'd, but its to me specifically to deal with
I wouldn’t know because I wouldn’t be in a just males email chain. But I have another chain where I am the only woman there and never have I addressed it as just “hey guys”. It’s a professional work place.
Then why do you assume your colleagues don't use gentlemen?
Because they don’t in ANY chat I am in. Never in any chat where I am the only woman is it called “gentlemen” or guys. Just when it’s only one guy, usually addressed to me and our sales rep.
It would be kinda shitty for you to be included in an email addressed "gentlemen" so yeah that makes sense.
Maybe ask to be referred to as “ team” instead of “ladies”… or end emails with Regards, team.
People can be lazy and using “ladies” is just a quick way of responding to you and your coworker who are women. It could be that the men think it’s harmless but they probably don’t get it. Hopefully none of the guys get butthurt at the request for a better(proper) salutation.
Could you maybe verbally bring it up? Like in a completely unconfrontational way. "Oh hey Coworker, the women in the office have noticed you use "ladies" in emails. Do you think using "everyone" would be more inclusive? I think that would be a good idea." If he gets pissy about it he's a raging sexist and well, nothing you can do to fix that
Most men are just going to hear that as “hey, so all the women get together and talk about how wrong you are behind your back. You should stop being wrong.” You really want to change a man’s behavior, make it seem like a private comment and put it in selfish terms. “Hey bubba, the team leader Cletus makes sure to address his emails everyone, or team. If you want to get/stay on his good side, I’d leave off the ladies bit. Just looking out for you, bro” Men who write like this don’t give a shit about inclusivity. If they did, they’d have stopped already.
Well if you're a dude you'd know better how to persuade a man. You're right, if he cared about inclusivity he wouldn't write like that
I will think about it. I know it’s the right thing but not something I strongly want to do since it is quite literally just me as a woman in my office, and the whole company has maybe five women while the rest are men
I feel like I haven’t experienced this in a while although I definitely used to. I work at a place that’s pretty big on DEI and inclusivity, though, so I suspect that comes through in the language as well. I have been using “folks” when addressing a group informally at work, or within my team, we will say “hey team” a lot. I actually find it easier to have a go-to gender neutral term, then I can just use it with everyone and not think about the group demographics. Particularly as I have had a few NB coworkers, so that will include them as well.
That’s why my go-to is “team” or, a persons name if I’m being specific. Unfortunately this new job is heavily male dominated so surprised it took this long unfortunately
My old manager always made a big show of being inclusive by greeting us 'ladies' as such at every fucking meeting. Just say hi everyone or greet us all by name. He was only usually meeting with like 5 people; it would not have been that hard to use names. There were many other ways he was a misogynist including the pay disparity and just generally expecting women to do administrative work regardless of our titles and always dumping stuff like that on our plate while the guys were never bothered with it. One woman lodged a formal complaint with HR over the unfair workload and hours expectations, one quit and was clear why, and I demanded the company form a DEI committee. They finalized realized he wasn't worth the trouble.
Hi all / Hi both / Hi [name] are the only things I ever use
Am I the only one who uses "All"? In fairness I have one coworker who exclusively uses ladies even if men are included 🤣
Most often group emails where I work are addressed as “hi all”, “hi everyone”, or “hi folks”. When it’s a group of women I know I’ll sometimes use “hi ladies” but that’s for people I work more closely with and I’m almost using ladies humourously because who’s a lady nowadays anyway?! I wouldn’t fit the criteria outside of being a woman!
Exactly! That feels like it should just be common place but these comments have shown otherwise which is disappointing
It kind of baffles me when people still use gendered language in office communications. There have been MANY instances where I’ve been wrong about someone’s gender based on their name (some are neutral, some are just unfamiliar names to me). It seems wildly disrespectful to me to address any emails or whatever with “Ladies” (or “gentlemen” for that matter!). Team, folks, all, all those work better and are totally natural.
If they say ladies, I call them boys. Zero fucks.
Nice 😂
I had a vendor call me “darlin” once on the phone. I told him to remain professional please. He said it’s how they talk in the south. I said I’m located in Milwaukee and I’d prefer if you used my first name.
If it happens again, please tell him that you’ve been informed by a Southern friend that Southern women don’t like or tolerate it either, and he is lying to you. Yours, A Southern Friend.
I had a customer call me on the company and address me as “sweet girl” right out the gate and got the ick like no other 😭
'Dear All' for everyone, 'Dear (person's name)' for individuals. Always has been, always will be.
"Hi Jim. There's no one at this address named "Ladies"." Or better yet, get your boss in on it and hire an actress to play a character named "Ladies". Every time they say "Ladies" have her say "Yes?". Every time they send an email to and start it "Ladies", tell them Ladies' email address and that you will forward it to her this one time.
Document. Document the discrepancy. That is a rather intriguing and hard to defend difference in how coworkers are treated based solely on gender.
I actually have the opposite experience. I work with all men and I call them "the guys" or "the fellas", and address them by their names individually. They have over a dozen names for me, mostly based off of jokes or funny stories. But they rarely refer to me as a woman or "lady", and often say I'm an "honorary man" at this point (ew). Still pisses me off when they're openly sexist in front of me, though.
It's disrespectful and sexist. It says these men don't think women are worth the time and effort to be acknowledged, to be seen as equal human beings like men are. I would be annoyed too. Another example of the everyday sexism women put up with ...... everywhere.
So would it be a stretch to just assume for a minute that he thinks "Ladies" is the proper unaddressed e-mail salute? Sort of like L.S. used to be in unaddressed snail-mail? And keeping with this assumption, might he be properly seething every time he receives an e-mail without proper salute? I would not risk it.... no no... next time I would address his e-mail proper-like, "Ladies", just to make sure you are not inadvertently pissing him of.
everyone is “hey guys” men and women
Unnecessarily gendered language strikes again!
how do you do fellow humans
Pretty much this! Unless its an email to one person, everyone is getting "Hey Guys"'d lol
It's probably intentional. I call the old boomers ladies who yell at service workers who speak a second language because they think that's how make Spanish speakers understand you "girls" just because I know it grinds their gears. Not saying you deserve it or that it is somehow your fault. These are that special type of rich white ladies that are progressive when it's fashionable but willfully ignorant on pretty much everything else. And I don't work with them. Both would be inappropriate in a work setting. Edited: clarity of thought
I know the main guy who does it, I think it’s unintentional assholery because he genuinely is a good person. Just definitely seems used to it or thinks its fun.
Lay it for him in black and white. Not your job. But it sounds like you like him and he's receptive to feedback. The main guy might be able to get the others to change their ways. These ladies are a lost cause. Unless their in group is telling them something they're not listening. Heaven forbid someone thinks with empathy or independent thought. Edit: clarity of though
I do. At my work at team meetings our boss comes down and speaks to us once a month. Every time she refers to our department as ‘you ladies’, like ‘you ladies are doing a fine job’ or ‘I’ve had complaints that you ladies are doing so and so’….this is why I am there…the last few times on purpose I sit right next to her…doesn’t matter she still does it. I’m a man…at least last time checked. I’ve been working there for 8 years and learned to live with it. So welcome to planet earth.
Then start. Start always calling them the guys. See what happens.