Check out these sample sentences. Assume they come from a 28-year-old male who is sending the email to a group of female professionals, almost all of whom are old enough to be his mother. He’s a professional, too, and a supervisor, but he’s not the supervisor of the individuals to whom the email was sent.
Version 1: “Would you gals enter your data so I can . . .”
Version 2: "Would you girls enter your data so I can . . . "
Let’s change the scenario a bit. Let’s say the group are all male professionals.
Version 1: “Would you boys enter your data so I can . . .”
What if the professionals are all black males?
Version 1: "Would you boys enter your data so I can . . . "
Help me out here, please. Help me express what I’m feeling. I’m feeling something, but I just can’t get a grip on it.
I’m glad to help. You’re feeling patronized by this folksy, at best borderline sexist, and unprofessional language. You resent it. And yet, you realize that the language doesn’t necessarily mean that he actually means to hurt, so you’re reluctant to confront it. And that’s probably frustrating.
Eliminate gender references whenever possible. You may use the terms ladies and gentlemen or women and men in the appropriate context. Never use gal, girl, boy, or the dreaded dude. Except here. In forums. Among friends.
When addressing the girls it would be best to be courteous to what they are most likely doing. I would word it like:
“Hey, sweetie, when y’all are done filing your nails and gossiping will you please take a moment to enter your data so I can… and when your done with that one of you can bring me a paper and a cup of coffee!”
For the lads just tell them to do it straight way.
“You $@%#^$&s need to get your %^&^%$ data in so I can finish my %^&^%#$ job, you ^&*&^^%!s”
Regarding the initial entries; absolutely unprofessional at best.
If I were to send out a missive of that variety I should word it differently depending on the perspective recipients.
For squadron wide dissemination:
“Please fill in requisite data in the respective fields.”
For just my shop:
“Error. Insufficient data in fields ###. Please input requisite figures.”
(Or I might phrase it as an if-then command. I’m thinking maybe in C.
In a professional working situation it’s best to avoid any hint of friendliness altogether, unless you all know each other very well and are able to tolerate each other’s foibles. “You gals” matches “you guys” as far as familiarity goes, but if you really feel that age discrimination is an appropriate response to gender discrimination, you could always reply to him as “sonny” or as “young man”.
This raises the question of what would happen if one of you forwarded his email to his supervisor. Or forwarded it to your own supervisor. Your supervisor might not like to see his/her staff treated dismissively.
Maybe it’s weird, but I find myself completely unable to get worked up about stuff like this. Maybe it’s because I’ve never worked in an office-type situation, I don’t know.
My last job was in an industry that is highly male-dominated (tobacco), and now I’m working at a coffee shop where I am the only male on staff. The only issues I’ve encountered with sexism were with customers at the cigar shop who would literally ignore the female employee and ask me my opinion on product.
I mean, really: unless the comment is part of a larger problem with actions that are actually chauvinistic, why get your knickers in a twist? Just understand that the person on the other side of that e-mail is most likely some half-ignorant good-old-boy who isn’t worth your time and move on.
Similarly, a few times at the cigar shop a group of customers would come in and start into a series of jokes with gays as the punchline. This is very common. Often, my (straight) coworker would get all worked up and tell them off. Several times, a coworker offered to kick the persons in question out of the store, and they were always baffled that I told them not to. It’s just not something I see fit to be indignant about.
I’ve seen much worse things in interdepartmental memos and emails.
However, especially in today’s corporate world, it’s always better to remember that you don’t know who will read what you’ve written, or in what context.
If they are going to have to lay off one person from your department, for instance, you really don’t want to be the person who is known for irritating people.
How about this. “Would all you people with breasts and female sex organs enter your data so I can …”. It’s far more precise and less folksy, and it preserves his exact meaning.
What’s that, Mr. 28-year old? You’re appalled by that rewrite? Well DUH.
Congratulations: To me, as a manager, it’s as much a matter of professionalism and relevance. If you’re addressing a mixed group, and there’s a gender division of tasks for whatever strange reason, then maybe the distinction might be relevant. “Would you gals enter your data, and you guys all stick your fingers in your ears” or whatever. Otherwise it’s just unprofessional and irrelevant.
Oh, I agree. I hope my post didn’t seem flippant. All I’m saying is that, personally, while I see that it’s a silly thing for a person in management to say or do, I don’t see that it is particularly worthy of any amount of ire. Very similar to Dale’s comment, I guess.
I used to employ a really tall guy…no matter how many times I’d spoken/faxed, emailed etc with the client, invariably the first time f2f, they would assume the taller man was the boss, not me. Not like I’m napoleon-size, ( I’m 5’10", actually) but my employee was 6’6" and towered over pretty much everybody.
It seems that there has become a gap forming between those that have been working Pre-Email and those that have only worked in an environment that uses the modern form of communication. In the past the manager could come back from a three martini lunch and slurr out a request and his assistant would type out a professional letter. The letter would have propper formatting, spelling, and would only be sent to those that needed the information (not “CC” to every one that works here). Words like bloke, gals, guys, girls, and batsards, would be substituted with workers, staff, and employees to sound professional. These responsibilities now fall on the manager.
Some new abbreviations have been introduced to help with communications. In subject lines, where the space is limited EOM For “end of message” and NRN for “No Reply Necessary”, but for the most part, others like lol, omfg, rtfm, and stfuygdb do not add any real information and can cause confusion.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Sincerely,
Ralphredric Ideetendashtee
\
Sorry, that is the best I can do in the morning. Tell you the truth, I still feel weird using first names all the time, especially in corresponding through Email. Dear Amy? Ugg... My grade school English teacher would be disappointed.
[quote="CHasR"]
I used to employ a really tall guy...no matter how many times I'd spoken/faxed, emailed etc with the client, invariably the first time f2f, they would assume the taller man was the boss, not me.
[/quote]
Probably why the military made subordinates walk behind and to the left. Helps to prevent such confusion.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As a side thought, Managers should lead by example. How are the employees suppose to know what proper etiquette is when they never see it? I still have little clew on what is acceptable Email protocol, but I know that I would not correspond in the way that many of them have. I often wonder what kind of management covers offices that have one of those "I can only help one person a day" signs.
I agree with Congratulations that this is nothing to get excited about. I have a regular customer who calls me “sweety”, “honey”, “cutie” etc. No big deal.
Since so many people are uptight about things I never use gender references as in the original posts.
