"Folks."
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Female entrepreneurs invent male co-founder to avoid sexist discrimination
- Thread starter badboy78660
- Start date
"Folks."
Cipher Peon
Banned
The fact that they were forced into this position elicits only one reaction out of me: this fucking sucks. Their ingenuity is wonderful, but they shouldn't have to resort to that in the first place.
After reading this article, I felt compelled to look up their website and Etsy with a gothic twist?!?!? Sounds like a dream come true, especially how much of a nightmare it is to find really cool gothic stuff on Etsy.
After reading this article, I felt compelled to look up their website and Etsy with a gothic twist?!?!? Sounds like a dream come true, especially how much of a nightmare it is to find really cool gothic stuff on Etsy.
There's still the option of going for "okay", sans 'girls' / 'gals' / 'ladies'
Or maybe adressing them by their names. "Okay Kate, Penelope ..."
This. I avoid using gender specific words all together in my professional emails.
In that context it doesn't appear to be a term of endearment between friends. It's kind of demeaning.
So why does "Keith Mann", artistic entrepreneur, get the respect and professional attention of a typical business relationship but the two women get hit on?
Zoe
Member
"Ladies"
Though working in a female-dominated environment, "girls" gets tossed around all the time. I use "ladies" since I'm on the younger end though I would probably say "girls" too if we were all in the same generation.
I use guys to refer to women as well, and no one has ever had a problem with it. Though it's probably inappropriate for official business. Gals is obviously terrible.
Aruarian Reflection
Chauffeur de la gdlk
I know some Asian entrepreneurs who put a fake white guy as a cofounder on their company website to avoid discrimination from partners and customers. This kind of thing happens more often than you might think
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
Does he? We don't have a lot to go on besides perceived slights. Perception is a hell of a thing. Full e-mail examples (with blurred out names) would probably help at least give some context to what was happening. Sexism and gender wage gap are serious things, I just don't know if this is the specific case to cite.
Every time I read this I hear it like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Naf5uJYGoiU
So it depends on the image you want to project maybe.
For God's sake, don't do this.
I think "guys" is pretty close to being gender-neutral -- I used to use it a lot. I don't actually see any benefit of it over "folks" or "team" (or "peeps" if you're some kind of comedic foil) though.
??
I think they might've mentioned if Keith got hit on. I should think most gay developers would have the sense not to hit on their male employers, or women developers on their male employers. This topic actually comes up occasionally in the LGBT thread. It comes down to power dynamics between the sexes vs same sex relationships. I don't remember the last time I've heard of a vindictive gay developer try to get even with his prior employer for turning down an advance.
Context/intent matters. Ladies as a word has reasonable utility if you're actually informally addressing a group entirely or mostly comprised of women. Hey is a warm opening as opposed to Okay which is, alongside Sure, one of the weakest and coldest ways to ' agree ' with something. When you combine a cold, wishy washy agreement with a diminutive you have a turn of phrase that, lacking history, lends itself to being easily perceived as insulting. Your phrase isn't likely to ever put anyone on edge just by reading it and unless they have an axe to grind with being called a lady (Far, far less likely than being called a girl...) you're not gonna ruffle many feathers.
Straight Edge
Member
Should've called him "Guy Mann"
Unfair Southern privilege. "Y'all" is such a good word for all sorts of purposes.
I guess Vincent Adultman was too obvious.
Verbalized informal speech it feels guys has become the gender neutral, ladies for women, and dudes for a group of men. In writing since you can edit, it's usually better to ' punch up ' in formality when communicating with new people. It costs you nothing (like most other forms of kindness) and makes a good impression. You know, caring about other people a bit.
regardless of your intent, this really comes off as:
"please give me proof of this demonstrably common phenomenon happening to you because I don't think you're unbiased enough to discern whether it's really happening to you"
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Or, like in this thread, gets dismissed as "maybe just their perception".
Edit: the above post put it better than I did heh
Yes, it's a remarkably inclusive for a primarily southern folk idiom. I'm trying to steal it but I sound like a fool every time I say it
Edit: sound a'fool?
Who you are addressing and your relationship to them matters. If you have a close working relationship "hey ladies" may be appropriate and maybe even affectionate.
"ok girls" is pretty much condescending anyway you slice it, but especially so to people you don't really know all that well and are expecting a professional response.
I take my Southern privilege, sir, and I roll in it. All over me, sir.
For real though, like how do we begin to deal with this bullshit? Is it possible to hit these tech firms where it hurts, in their wallets? Do we bring attention to it? Because I feel like these fools try their hardest to sweep it under the rug and pretend it's just not there.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
How do you "attempt to delete website"? Considering I'm assuming this was a web dev with full access to the main site and backups, I'd figure that would be trivial. You either delete it or don't, there's no attempt. The founders of the website said they had no dev experience.
The most informal I go in work emails is "Hi all" or just "Hi". It's best to not mention genders at all at work if you can help it. I might use "Hey guys" to friends if I know that any girls in that group are fine with that, but when in a work environment, it's best not to say it because you don't have that assurance.
I imagine "Hey girls" might be okay if it's sent from a woman to a close-knit group of other women, but that's probably the only situation where it might be okay, and even then that's very informal. As a guy, you definitely wouldn't start an email to a potential business partner with that.
I imagine "Hey girls" might be okay if it's sent from a woman to a close-knit group of other women, but that's probably the only situation where it might be okay, and even then that's very informal. As a guy, you definitely wouldn't start an email to a potential business partner with that.
Are you or are you not trying to accuse them of lying/misrepresenting/exaggerating, Trojita? Answer this question if you'll please because your posts lean one way but I know you well enough that it's not something you would normally do.
John Rabbit
Banned
Time and place. Email communications, where nuance and tone are absent, shouldn't be a place for language that requires both of those things to be present to be understood.
I work in a department that is overwhelmingly female, and I would never start an email with "Okay girls/ladies/gals". For starters, gender is irrelevant for 99% of the emails I send. Secondly, you don't need to group them that way.
However, in person, I have used and heard 'girls' used to describe a group of women. For example, every Friday the writing staff (which is all women) has a long meeting together in the afternoon, so they disappear from their desks around 1:30 pm. The question "Oh are the girls having their meeting?" and the statement "The girls are in their meeting" have been said multiple times by both men and women in this department, and nobody seems bothered by it, because by the tone and nuance of the statement, it's clear we're not intending to diminish them.
Armoured Priest
Member
Even though I haven't lived in SW Pennsylvania since I was 13 (41 now), I still retain the use of "Yinz." (also, gumbands. that's another story, though). I've not tried using it in a professional setting yet. I generally am contacting people specifically, so I just use their name.
I also tend to use "dudes" as a gender neutral...again, not really professional.
SkeptiMism
Member
Do you think when someone talks down to another person, they're always conscious of it? Do you think a person can not have subconscious biases that they might not even realize? Do you think there are no instances in which a person might not think they're talking down to the other person, but if a third party analyzed the conversation, it would be clear or extremely likely that the person was talking down to the other person?
Intent isn't everything. Sexism is a lot like racism in this regard - majority of racist acts aren't done with ill intent. Often the intent can even be, in a twisted way, benevolent. Like, if a person says to a person of color that they're one of the good ones - they mean well right? But analyzing at the sentence, we can see that it's pretty clearly fucking racist (I hope you can see why).
A person addressing women as girls in a professional email, assuming the people haven't become really intimate with each other, might well be not done with disrespectful intent, but especially in today's society, with all the history of discrimination towards women in the field, you can not avoid other people being well in their right to think it's fucking sexist.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
This happens (gender discrimination) often enough that I'm not surprised a start up had to do this. I didn't really mean to take this into a "get all the facts" issue, but I guess it ended up there anyway. The examples used just sounded a bit odd. I would believe a dev keeping a website hostage because the woman he was working with wouldn't date/sleep with him.
I'll admit some of my bias might be because believing 100% of what they are saying while they are extolling the virtues of the healing ability of crystals or the power of magic candles makes me associate them with other far out there people that weren't always honest or grounded in reality I've encountered in the past.
LegendofLex
Member
This is the correct choice. Unless you're talking about sex-based issues/discrimination, addressing someone by their gender is never relevant to any professional conversation.
radios shipping overview
Member
Amazing how almost the entire thread so far is about people not understanding why it's condescending to call female colleagues girls. Kind of proves the point of the article.
Yes, it's a remarkably inclusive for a primarily southern folk idiom. I'm trying to steal it but I sound like a fool every time I say it
Edit: sound a'fool?
As a Southerner and a professional, I would never type "y'all" in a business email. Rather than "Okay girls" the guy should have just typed "Okay". It's quite easy to avoid gendered language in a professional email. In informal speech around the office, I would probably refer to them as "ladies".
Where is this? They just run Goth Etsy, I don't see a blog or anything.
From another interview:
Of course if they're going to sell Wiccan kitsch they're going to be positive about it. Even if they didn't believe in it themselves it's still good PR/optics, so accusing them of being unhinged because they traffic in this stuff is a bit unfair.
psychowave
Member
"Keith Mann" omg that reminds me of when Sappho invented a male lover and essentially named him the ancient Greek version of Cock McPenis lmao
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
Their whole idea for the site was because Etsy was removing witchcraft related items from their storefront. Seemed less like a hole in the market they could exploit, and more that they were just pissed that Etsy was censoring (their words since people get caught up on that term) witchcraft and NSFW products. I'd think Kate at least believes in the stuff.
Raptomex
Member
I agree that "girls" is inappropriate in a professional work environment with women. At my job, or any professional environment and even in everyday life, I usually start an email to multiple users with "All" or "Hello all", or if it's a single user, "Hello [person's first name]". But now that I'm thinking about it, if "ladies", "gals", and "girls" are all inappropriate, what's left? There's no way to appropriately address multiple women, at least not in the same way we can address multiple men.
A friend of mine keeps telling me "guys" can now refer to multiple people of any gender. I don't know where he gets his information but maybe that's accurate? I still wouldn't feel comfortable using it to address multiple women. I think the safest thing to do is to just avoid addressing/referencing gender in a professional environment unless it's necessary.
A friend of mine keeps telling me "guys" can now refer to multiple people of any gender. I don't know where he gets his information but maybe that's accurate? I still wouldn't feel comfortable using it to address multiple women. I think the safest thing to do is to just avoid addressing/referencing gender in a professional environment unless it's necessary.
Y'all is a beautiful conjunction.
It is pretty frustrating how "guys" is and will most likely continue being the default group descriptor and I try my best to avoid using it when I can cause it can be pretty excluding. Gals, girls, ladies all have really demeaning or condescending connotations most of the time so that sucks too.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
I was used to making all correspondences Mr. or Mrs. growing up. Realized that didn't really work when you can't tell if you are supposed to address as Ms. or Mrs., or sometimes I can't tell based on the name whether I'm talking to a male or female. I mostly default to first names now.
Duane Cunningham
Member
Yeah, it's a pretty amazing word if you want to break the stiffness some, and be totally gender neutral. I'm not southern, but I use y'all a lot.
Also, I hear "guys" to refer to women quite a bit these days. Sometimes it's comes off as a bit of functional irony or something. I kind of like it, though... it feels a bit like Star Trek where everyone is addressed as sir, regardless of gender.
I think it's one of those subtle things that's totally invisible to guys until they see or experience it for themselves. You could flip "ok girls" to its natural equivalent of "ok boys", and a guy might not see anything wrong with it because "ok boys" culturally doesn't have the same condescending edge to it.
But the underlying tone embedded in "ok girls" in this context is not the same as what's in "ok boys". The underlying tone more closely matches "ok kids" or "ok son".
If a guy received an email reply from a potential business partner that started with "ok kids", any guy would immediately see why that's inappropriate.
Good job at exposing even more unacceptable sexism in the tech industry. Not sure about the business though...
I actually use "hey guys" as a gender-neutral group greeting, mostly because that's what other kids(girls included) have been doing since I was in grade school.
Should have gone with Remy Steel.
Like literally that level of fuckery they had to fight against, but that was a 1980s comedy PI show.
Lol that was my first thought ... Then I cried a little realizing we have the same problem today as the 80s
I would avoid Mrs. as well. Stick with Ms.