President Biden and Kamala…
How many times have you heard statements like these, where women, people of color, or people belonging to other minorities, were “untitled” and simply called by their name, using a nickname, or without mentioning their credentials?
How many articles have you seen about how women dressed during a public event, instead of discussing their words? How many articles about women’s feelings, smiles (or, capital sin, the lack of smiles), etc.
This is a common practice in many fields, starting from journalism and social media, down to corporate meetings, sessions and e-mails, and it’s one of the hardest ones to fight, because people using it normally say that it’s something they do unconsciously and that it isn’t a way to undermine women’s credibility.
When you introduce a colleague simply using her name instead of her title and full name, you’re undermining her importance and professionalism. Please stop “untitling” women (and other minorities) unless you’re untitling everybody in that context (as it happens when the context is informal and everybody knows anybody else, but you’ve to do that for all the speakers).
Do you want to know more? Read this article from the creators of the word “untitling”.
