Male By Default
17 Oct
When I was young (and sometimes now) I insisted on not filling in the Mr./Mrs./Ms./Miss check box on forms. “They don’t need to know all that,” I insisted. Apparently when you don’t fill that in it is assumed that you are male.
Interestingly this reminds me of a former job when I would be working with many people from across IT. The company’s IT department was very large so this would be primarily through email. There were a lot of people from Asian countries who thought that Kenya was my family name and Raabe (former last name) was my personal name probably because of the way their names were represented in email. They would refer to me in emails as “him” and “he”. I never really said anything to them but it was kind of funny. It probably helped things go smoother as well as I didn’t have to deal with the “oh you’re a woman” B.S. that I run into a lot. At any rate, they would find out on the phone that their assumption was wrong.
Update: I just received something in snail mail addressed to Mr. Kenya Allmond soliciting donations for Thanksgiving dinners for the homeless.
