Perils of the Personal Pronoun
The general public never uses or pays much attention to the proliferation of idiotic personal pronouns such as “per” and “xir,” except in a negative way. I’ve never heard one used on any network TV shows or hyper-liberal Internet TV shows such as the Young Turks. I have millennial children and they never use them, at least around me.
These pronouns were created to accommodate a very small subset of the LGBTQ+ community and promoted to test the dominant culture to see how much it would tolerate in the name of inclusivity. It seems that the culture will tolerate a lot, enough to be pushed around by any minority with a grievance or complaint.
Some of the most spineless pushovers in this regard continue to be the universities, with many adopting these edicts about pronouns as if it were some sort of federal law. And these are not the Cal-Berkeley and Harvards of the education sphere—they sold out to this much earlier—but almost every smaller school such as Northern Iowa. Look at these screen shots.
In this one, the school recommends that when you introduce yourself, you need to ease your interlocutor’s clear anxiety and tell them your pronouns. Also put it on your business cards and letterheads.
The only time I’ve ever seen the real use of this notion was at some socialist gathering where it was a rule to do so. They also forbade clapping at the event and demanded people applaud with “jazz hands.”
The Canadian government, run by these sorts of lunatics, almost made it a federal offense to mis-gender someone (by using the wrong personal pronoun). Canadian Professor Jordan Peterson made a fuss about this insanity. It made him a household name.
This is finally coming around full circle when a series of tweets around this woman’s observation made an appearance on Twitter.
The comments, with few exceptions, were vitriolic towards this woman and lambasted the inclusion or display of personal pronouns as some sort of badge. Most of the remarks suggested that highlighting your pronouns was an sign that you were a loser at best and troublemaker at worst. You were someone to avoid as a potential employee.
I could not agree more with this assessment. You have to wonder whose secret marching orders are people obeying when they display their pronouns on a Twitter profile, for example. What is the point, who told them to do it, and who do they think are they impressing?
It’s turning out to be a reverse signal to smart employers who see these people as potential trouble in a normal workplace. And even if some of them wise up and remove the personal pronouns from their resumes, you could still judge their wokeness in the personal interview. Ask them their preferred pronoun and see how they react to the question.
Asking about sexual orientation and religion is verboten in most venues and subject to litigation. Asking about the personal pronoun is not a restricted line of inquiry and never will be.
I’d only hire people who answered such a question with “I’m not sure what you are talking about.” Someone rolling their eyes would also qualify as a potential hire. -- jcd
June 29, 2021