“Copied my male colleagues’ email style and told I’m being rude”

cloven hooves The Personal Is Political Everyday Sexism Social Media “Copied my male colleagues’ email style and told I’m being rude”

Social Media “Copied my male colleagues’ email style and told I’m being rude”

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511

Jan 23 2025, 10:19 PM

r/work https://www.reddit.com/r/work/comments/1i852h1/copied_my_male_colleagues_email_style_and_told_im/

Afraid_Respect_3189 I'm a woman in my late 20s, working in a corporate environment. I'm pretty established in my career and company but not managerial. I usually email in a very "hi! How are you? :))))" way that doesn't reflect my professionalism and I feared it was affecting how others saw me.

I took a leaf out of my male colleagues' books. They email / message with no emojis, exclamation marks or fluff. Their emails aren't rude but aren't overly nice and apologetic. Turns out, while everyone respects their "direct tone" and "professional approach", I am "rude and disrespectful" for emailing the exact same way.

In fact, I once even copied an entire email from a male colleague and sent it to someone (generic wording that applied in my email anyway). My manager said it was rude! I showed my manager the emails side by side and he was embarrassed for calling me up on it. We're supposed to be a company that cares about sexism...

Anyway, have a day everyone. I refuse to be overly polite just because I'm a woman c

HollowsOfYourHeart I have a unisex name. I had clients I corresponded with by email only for years. I was always professional and direct with no fluff. Clients always assumed I was a male. One called me once after emailing for years and was surprised I'm a woman. He treated me differently after finding out. Took longer to respond, blew me off, didn't take me seriously, etc. Fuck the patriarchy.

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Jan 23 2025, 10:19 PM #1

r/work https://www.reddit.com/r/work/comments/1i852h1/copied_my_male_colleagues_email_style_and_told_im/

Afraid_Respect_3189 I'm a woman in my late 20s, working in a corporate environment. I'm pretty established in my career and company but not managerial. I usually email in a very "hi! How are you? :))))" way that doesn't reflect my professionalism and I feared it was affecting how others saw me.

I took a leaf out of my male colleagues' books. They email / message with no emojis, exclamation marks or fluff. Their emails aren't rude but aren't overly nice and apologetic. Turns out, while everyone respects their "direct tone" and "professional approach", I am "rude and disrespectful" for emailing the exact same way.

In fact, I once even copied an entire email from a male colleague and sent it to someone (generic wording that applied in my email anyway). My manager said it was rude! I showed my manager the emails side by side and he was embarrassed for calling me up on it. We're supposed to be a company that cares about sexism...

Anyway, have a day everyone. I refuse to be overly polite just because I'm a woman c

HollowsOfYourHeart I have a unisex name. I had clients I corresponded with by email only for years. I was always professional and direct with no fluff. Clients always assumed I was a male. One called me once after emailing for years and was surprised I'm a woman. He treated me differently after finding out. Took longer to respond, blew me off, didn't take me seriously, etc. Fuck the patriarchy.

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drdee

Jan 24 2025, 9:16 AM

Reminds me of this incident, from a few years ago:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/gender-inequality-man-woman-switch-names-week-martin-schneider-nicky-knacks-pay-gap-a7622201.html

What gets me is that as women we have NO IDEA how much better men are treated, unless we happen to get some random insight like these - we just accept that 'this is what workplace interactions are like'. This article really opened my eyes as well:

https://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias/

I was, honestly, utterly shocked - every 'yearly review' I'd ever had was basically a request for a personality transplant, I just nodded through them and ignored them and carried on - it literally had never occurred to me that they could be, and ought to be, actually helpful.

drdee

Jan 24 2025, 9:16 AM #2

komorebi
“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” – Audre Lorde

164

Jan 24 2025, 7:06 PM

(Jan 24 2025, 9:16 AM)drdee Reminds me of this incident, from a few years ago:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/gender-inequality-man-woman-switch-names-week-martin-schneider-nicky-knacks-pay-gap-a7622201.html

I was going to share this, but you beat me to it! I'll post something else that's related. (Please excuse the eyeroll-inducing gender-ID lingo; this quote was taken directly from Wikipedia.)

Ben Barres's experience of sexism

Quote:Barres described experiences of gender discrimination at an early age. While he was presenting as female prior to transitioning, he was excluded at schools from science and mathematics courses he was interested in. It was a summer science course at Columbia University in New York City that enabled him to pursue further studies in science. A more serious event happened to his academics in MIT. After solving a difficult math problem that stumped many male students, his professor charged that it was solved for him by a boyfriend. He was the top student in the class, but found it hard to get a willing supervisor for research. He lost a scholarship to a man who had only one publication, while he already had six. While earning a PhD at Harvard, he was told that he was to win a scientific competition, which was evidently between him and one man; the Dean confided to him, “I have read both applications, and it’s going to be you; your application is so much better.” But the award was given to the male-presenting man, who dropped out of science a year later.

After transitioning, he noticed that people who were not aware of him being transgender treated him with respect much more than when he presented as a woman. After delivering his first seminar as a man, one scientist was overheard to comment, “Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but his work is much better than his sister’s [believing work published under his deadname to be his sister's] work.”

Speaking from my own experience, I was eventually sanctioned at my tech job for simply behaving the way that male engineers do, without all the simpering and flattering of egos usually required from women. One of my old bosses (who was, in fairness, a pretty good boss) was a very brusque guy who literally had a coffee mug that said "Your lack of planning is not my emergency." But behavior that was completely normal for male engineers (and indeed, just completely normal in general) was seen as incredibly rude from female engineers. I'm not talking about the engineers who go around being total assholes, but just the ones who are direct. Not zero social niceties, but less than are expected from women.

At my first meeting with my last boss—the one who eventually drove me out out of my job—he said in a stunned tone, "You're very forward." We were just having a normal conversation. I was like, what is this? The 1950s? 🙄

komorebi

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” – Audre Lorde

Jan 24 2025, 7:06 PM #3

(Jan 24 2025, 9:16 AM)drdee Reminds me of this incident, from a few years ago:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/gender-inequality-man-woman-switch-names-week-martin-schneider-nicky-knacks-pay-gap-a7622201.html

Quote:Barres described experiences of gender discrimination at an early age. While he was presenting as female prior to transitioning, he was excluded at schools from science and mathematics courses he was interested in. It was a summer science course at Columbia University in New York City that enabled him to pursue further studies in science. A more serious event happened to his academics in MIT. After solving a difficult math problem that stumped many male students, his professor charged that it was solved for him by a boyfriend. He was the top student in the class, but found it hard to get a willing supervisor for research. He lost a scholarship to a man who had only one publication, while he already had six. While earning a PhD at Harvard, he was told that he was to win a scientific competition, which was evidently between him and one man; the Dean confided to him, “I have read both applications, and it’s going to be you; your application is so much better.” But the award was given to the male-presenting man, who dropped out of science a year later.

After transitioning, he noticed that people who were not aware of him being transgender treated him with respect much more than when he presented as a woman. After delivering his first seminar as a man, one scientist was overheard to comment, “Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but his work is much better than his sister’s [believing work published under his deadname to be his sister's] work.”

Elsacat

Jan 24 2025, 9:13 PM

I've felt for the longest time that this is one of the reasons Hillary Clinton is disliked. Her communication style wouldn't raise an eyebrow coming from a man. Coming from a woman, no bueno.

Elsacat

Jan 24 2025, 9:13 PM #4

I've felt for the longest time that this is one of the reasons Hillary Clinton is disliked. Her communication style wouldn't raise an eyebrow coming from a man. Coming from a woman, no bueno.

drdee

Jan 25 2025, 12:16 AM

I could (and maybe will!) write a lot more about this...but I'm just thinking of one recent story. I organised a training which involved a lot of people from outside our team coming in to speak to our people, and when it was over I sent them all thankyou emails. And my (male) boss was all 'whoa, that's really nice of you - I'd never have thought to do that!' in a genuinely impressed and admiring tone.

Edited Jan 25 2025, 12:16 AM by drdee.

drdee

Jan 25 2025, 12:16 AM #5

YesYourNigel

Jan 25 2025, 10:29 AM

Quote:my (male) boss was all 'whoa, that's really nice of you - I'd never have thought to do that!' in a genuinely impressed and admiring tone.

That's actually crazy to me that a man would 1. recognise a woman's kind behaviour as notable 2. compare his own behaviour to that 3. in a way that didn't serve to discredit the woman.

Edited Jan 25 2025, 10:33 AM by YesYourNigel.

YesYourNigel

Jan 25 2025, 10:29 AM #6

Quote:my (male) boss was all 'whoa, that's really nice of you - I'd never have thought to do that!' in a genuinely impressed and admiring tone.

That's actually crazy to me that a man would 1. recognise a woman's kind behaviour as notable 2. compare his own behaviour to that 3. in a way that didn't serve to discredit the woman.

drdee

Jan 25 2025, 10:39 AM

I am very lucky that after decades of working in a 'male-dominated' occupation I've landed in the least sexist company I've ever worked for. (I did actually apply to them after they won a 'Women in [occupation]' award one year.) My boss is great, but does have a few 'issues' - when we get lunch together at the food carts, for example, if I order a beef lunch he has to have a beef lunch too because it wouldn't be OK for a woman to have a beef lunch and he have something I guess less high status or something? IDGI but whatever.

drdee

Jan 25 2025, 10:39 AM #7

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