If you’re writing an email to your female coworkers later today, try to remember not to address them as “gents”. It may sound like an obvious thought, but the term has officially been flagged by an employment tribunal as inappropriate.
The ruling is a result of a sex discrimination complaint from a female employee at Royal & Sun Alliance, one of the Britain's biggest insurance companies, who claimed her boss was biased against her during the redundancy process due to her gender.
While going through redundancy proceedings, Elaine Scott received two emails which addressed her and her male colleagues as “gents”. Scott tried to claim this was evidence of sex discrimination which had then impacted the redundancy selection process.
Her boss, Gareth Quantrill, told the tribunal that he had only been thinking of the male recipients when he headed the email, but acknowledged that his use of the word “gents” was “thoughtless” and “lazy”.
This comes eight days after an autistic employee in Cardiff was awarded more than £17,000 after he was referred to as a “weirdo” by his boss. Nicholas James won the case against his former employer after it was ruled that comments made by his boss, Malcolm King, were discriminatory.
King’s comments included calling James’s autistic traits a “pain in a**e”, as well as an instance where King complained that James couldn’t be “ordinary and perfect like the rest of us”.
Employment Judge Stephen Jenkins said: “We considered that the references to accommodating [James]'s requests as being a ‘pain in the a**e’, to questioning why [James] could not be ‘ordinary like the rest of us’, and to [James] being a ‘weirdo’... would clearly have been unwanted to [James].”
Meanwhile, in 2021, it was ruled that referring to a fellow employee as a “grandma” — even if they are one — is discriminatory. It was the result of a complaint from Anne Dopson, aged 62, who took offence at being called a “grandmother” by her colleague.
The former sales director argued the review was “a dig” at her age and had “raised a laugh in the office,” as per the tribunal. The grandmother-of-three later resigned and claimed age discrimination against her employers. A tribunal eventually decided that the grandmother comment was “direct discrimination” against Dopson.
This recent smattering of legal rulings addressing language in the workplace has divided the general public, with one X user writing: “About time we stopped pandering to those who seek offence where none was meant.”
On the gents topic, another added: “Uhm, duh? You think the word ‘gentleman’ isn't inclusive? Of course not. It's a word used to describe ONE type of man, not all men, and not all people. I don't really care who finds what offensive, or old fashioned. I'm not changing for you. Ever.”
