Me personally? I’ve become much less tolerant of sexist humor. Back in the day, cracking a joke at women’s expense was pretty common when I was a teen. As I’ve matured and become aware to the horrific extent of toxicity and bigotry pervading all tiers of our individualistic society, I’ve come to see how exclusionarly and objectifying that sort of ‘humor’ really is, and I regret it deeply.
In my last job (which was on a team of all cis women), people shared their pronouns…both singular AND plural (i.e., how they wanted to be referred to in a group). Which is pretty bizarre. Like, what if one person’s plural pronoun is “folks” and another’s is “friends”…then which term are you supposed to use?
And I came to hate saying “friends” because we weren’t friends. It was a soul-sucking corporate gig, and I wasn’t part of their mom squad…I never saw them outside of work, and I was always the last to learn about team changes, so let’s be real: we aren’t friends, we’re coworkers. It got creepy being expected to smile and address everyone as “friends”!
FWIW, I have nothing against folks or guys or y’all ;)
This is what bugs me about chosen pronouns, it’s like a right someone has to tell other people how to use language, that can get complicated and needs memorization. People should have leeway on the words they use, even if they shouldn’t be making unwanted assertions about other peoples gender. Would be better to just have a set of genderless pronouns that are always polite/safe to use.
I resonate deeply with this. I can’t be bothered to memorise all these pronouns. I’d of course do it for people I am close to, though.
or just refer to people as ma’am/sir, and if they get offended it’s their problem
In an office?? I feel like that would be weird or come across as sarcastic. I call my boss by his first name. Heck, we don’t even call CEOs sir/ma’am anymore.
it’s a term of respect - but business cultures differ between corporations