It’s not just that thinking you can have your very own pronouns is a bit self-centered. It’s also that, new research shows, using “non-binary” pronouns on job applications reduces your chances of being hired.
Conducted by Business.com, the study had three phases. As the website explains:
- First, we asked hundreds of nonbinary people how their gender identities impact their job searches and workplace experiences. More than 80 percent of nonbinary people believed that identifying as nonbinary would hurt their job search.
- Next, we sent two “phantom” resumes to 180 job postings. The resumes were identical, except the test resume included they/them pronouns, and the control did not. Though most companies were Equal Opportunity Employers, the test resume with pronouns received less interest and fewer interview invitations than the control resume.
- To find out why the resume with pronouns may have gotten less interest, we sought feedback directly from hiring managers. We found that these managers were also less likely to want to contact an applicant whose resume included “they/them” pronouns.
To be precise, Business.com writes that the pronoun-inclusive resumes “received eight percent less employer interest than the control resumes without pronouns” — not the profound difference some might expect.
Yet it somewhat mirrors what Business.com found when showing resumes to 850 “workers with hiring responsibilities.” The site writes that these people perceived the resumes with MUSS (Made-up Sexual Status, aka “gender”) pronouns “less favorably, and overall, hiring managers were less likely to want to contact nonbinary candidates for initial interviews: 72 percent of managers said they’d contact the applicant on the control resume, but only 69 percent would want to interview the applicant whose resume contained ‘they/them’ pronouns.”
As for the mere three-percent difference, it’s possible that many managers were unlikely to reveal their true feelings to the researchers.
What’s for sure, however, is that there is prejudice here — on the part of many entities covering this story. Just consider that along with Business.com, Wealth of Geek’s Ananyaa Bhowmik also wrote about the resume research, and both sources embrace the supposition that discriminating against MUSS applicants (and discriminating, period) is wrong and must be rooted out. But is this really true?
First, while discrimination often has a negative connotation, the process merely refers to choosing one or more from between/among two or more. Thus, since businesses never take on everyone seeking employment, the hiring process is by definition one of discrimination. It’s just a matter how you discriminate.
As to this, “cancel culture’s” very existence attests to the fact that politically correct discrimination is real and is embraced by many (especially the “pronoun” types). And bearing in mind the pronoun dogma stating that we can choose any pronoun we wish and that it mustn’t be questioned, consider:
What if a job applicant, in deference to his pro-life passions, put on his resume the pronoun “baby protector”? What if he listed the pronouns “gun guy” or “straight shooter,” alluding to Second Amendment advocacy? If hiring managers discarded the person’s resume as a result, would Business.com, Bhowmik, or their fellow travelers complain about “discrimination”? Would they lobby to make pro-lifers and gun advocates “protected groups” (as if we should have such things and, by extension, unprotected groups, in America)?
What’s more, even pro-life and pro-gun business owners might balk at such applicants, concerned that their pronoun statements may signal a desire to bring politics into the workplace.
So it is with MUSS applicants: Their pronoun usage reflects that they not only have an agenda, but that they want everyone else — including at work — to participate in it. In reality, though, should we be any more obligated to reference someone with a MUSS pronoun than with “Budweiser boycotter”?
Some may now say “That’s different!”
Yes, it is.
Whatever you think about pro-life, pro-gun, or anti-beer company “pronouns,” requesting their embrace would be small potatoes compared to what the MUSS advocates demand:
Our tacit terminological endorsement of an agenda that seeks to shatter the understanding of a fundamental aspect of nature and man’s nature — the sexual binary. These activists are bullying people into denying reality and misrepresenting it to children.
Speaking of which, what Business.com, Bhowmik, and many other journalists write on this subject is a brand of fake news: “Nonbinary” doesn’t actually exist — not any more than “species-neutral” does (note: Along with “gender dysphoria,” species dysphoria has also been defined by psychologists). It’s like reporting on a man who insists he’s Napoleon and saying he actually is Napoleon.
This relates to why rejecting any pronoun-professing job applicant makes sense. The person is signaling that he’s either in thrall to a destructive agenda — or that he’s mentally unwell and in thrall to a destructive agenda.
Remember here that such red flags — which include superficials such as dress, tattoos, and body piercings — tell you more than educational credentials because they serve as proxies for deeper passions and qualities, such as a person’s worldview, politics, and, most importantly, sense of virtue.
And Business.com quotes a hiring manager who recognizes this truth. “This person seems like a decent fit on paper, though I am not interested in the drama that a person who thinks they are a ‘they/them’ brings with them,” said the man, explaining why he rejected the MUSS-pronoun resume.
Is this prejudice — or prudence? Note the many reports in recent years about politically correct employees terrorizing “their bosses into going woke,” as they demand BLM support or paid time off for “anxiety.”
In other words, you can hire the woke, but it will be an eye-opening (and perhaps business-closing) experience.
