M&S diversity officers give staff pronoun badges……. a step too far?

???? omg when will it stop, I belive ppl sat in lockdown and thought what can we do to wind ppl up ? because it’s definitely working. God made Adam and Eve he didn’t make anybody else ?

Aveline

Not just any madness, M&S madness!

That’s the best line of the year!
You should write tag lines for films.?

How many of you are contacting M&S to air your views?
I am.

The pronoun writing on the badges I’ve seen in the papers today is so small that I would not be able to read them.

I’m still struggling to think of when I might address someone by a pronoun.

Maybe it might be useful if you need to mention something about an assistant to someone else eg “She told me to queue here” or making a complaint about an assistant.

Maybe it might be useful if you need to mention something about an assistant to someone else eg “She told me to queue here” or making a complaint about an assistant.

In such circumstances, I always use the phrase Your colleague (told me to queue here...)

I think I must have missed the English lesson where pronouns were explained as I really don't know what they are

Awesome idea. Fully support it.

Kindly add your preferred pronouns Hithere.

She/her/hers

Who is SHE, the cats Mother?

Mentioned to dd. She has to have one at work. I don’t think you can be made to wear one though. You may not want anyone to know.

I'm deaf and there have always been badges available to let people know that you are a lip-reader. (otherwise the assumption can be that you are just rude). I have never heard it advocated that everyone should wear a badge saying " please look at me when you speak, I may be a lipreader" although there are 12 million people with significant hearing loss in the UK (RNID 2020) who would benefit from this consideration by others. Hearing loss can't be the only example, if we have badges for every consideration that we could take into account when meeting a stranger, there is going to be a new societal norm of 3 minutes' silence when you meet a new person, to read all their badges. It would be a strange world.

For goodness sake, this is total madness. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw it on the news today.

Love it btw, Aveline!

she/her/hers

Great idea, can't see a single reason why it wouldn't be or why anyone should have a problem with it.

She/her/hers for me please.

rosie1959

Totally batshit I managed to survive several stints with M&S with just my name on my badge

Batshit is less crazy.

I know because we get batshit on our doorstep. They use a beam in the porch as a dining-room/summer roost.

Good post, valdali. Would that you and others (I'll ask my deaf niece too) write to M&S and explain this. Whoever is advising them at the moment is narrow-minded.

I am finished with M&S now, even phoned my children this morning to tell them never to buy me anything from there again. The company has been struggling for years because they have tried to be trendy, this is their death knell.

"even phoned my children this morning to tell them never to buy me anything from there again."

Really? Way to overreact to something you do not agree with.

I’d be more impressed if M&S spent some time ensuring that they actually have anything to buy. I’ve been trying to spend some vouchers online with them and so many items are out of stock, or only available in size 6 or 24 (low stock). The website keeps crashing too.

Call me whatever pronoun you want.

I think it will be very interesting if they have gender critical staff who ask to wear a badge stating biology is real or other similar statement. I think the court case might be interesting.

My only concern with the badges is that it may well end up with staff being targeted by ignorant, hateful people if someone thinks that their appearance doesn't conform with their pronouns.

I'm glad to see that it's not mandatory, that it can be added, not must. Not everyone is comfortable with a public declaration of their pronouns, and nobody should ever be forced into doing so.

Great point, mercuryqueen

? what? Who even are you? I’ve never addressed you and this is your first contribution to this thread.

Someone having a different opinion to you is not controlling you.

Re: Galaxy

I am not sure it matters who I am . You said to people on this thread to ignore it, not important, culture war etc, I was pointing out it's not up to you to decide what other people find important.
I agree you having a different opinion is great, telling people what subjects they should be interested in is slightly different.